An Even Worse Self Insert

by ROBCakeran53

10: Der Fuehrer's Face

Author's Note:

This started out to be a joke that I use a Twilight Sparkle coaster on my couch side table... idk what it is now.

When der Fuehrer says we is de master race,
We heil (pfft) Heil (pfft) Right in der Fuehrer’s face.
Not to love der Fuehrer is a great disgrace,
So we heil (pfft) Heil (pfft) Right in der Fuehrer’s face.

Most people don’t understand my way of thinking. Or, for that matter, my interests. My hobbies. My life, in a nutshell, is best explained by the idea that my encyclopedia set is from 1976. For most in today’s modern age, the fact of even having an encyclopedia set is a brow raiser.

For a mare like Twilight Sparkle, it was a norm, as once she’d found my “library” in my hallway, she was drawn right away to Funk and Wagner’s like it was the funk… and, uh… you know, never mind that joke.

I also have a encyclopedia set from 1950 with the ‘51, ‘52, and ‘53 additions, but those were in a box somewhere and I’d not had the time, willpower, or care to dig them out and shelve them.

“I was really hoping it would be longer until you found my books,” I said, fishing through an old shoe box full of junk.

Twilight never looked up from the book she was reading. “I knew you had books, just not an encyclopedia set.”

“And why’s that?” I asked, taking a sip of my bourbon.

“Well, you didn’t appear to be so well read and I thought-”

I placed my hand over the page she was reading, causing the mare to finally look away from the book and towards me.

“I’m not well read. But I’m also not so stupid to discard the worth of a book. I may not be able to hold all sorts of information here,” I tapped my head, “I can have the knowledge at my fingertips with books.”

“Well, that is a very good point. Not all ponies, or in your case humans, can keep track of facts and theories like others. Take my friend Moondancer for instance…”

“Nope, don’t care. Hah! Found it!” I dropped the shoe box, kicking it away with a foot.

“Found what?”

“So we heil (pfft) Heil (pfft) right in der fuehrer's face.”

Twilight looked at me with a mixture of worry, concern, and disappointment. The kazoo in my mouth might have been dusty, dirty, and probably did taste bad, but I didn’t care.

“I knew I had one somewhere…”

“Did you really dig that out, just for this song?”

“Maybe…” I went to cleaning off the dust with my shirt.

Meanwhile, Twilight looked down to the kicked away shoe box. “What is all this stuff?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Stuff from when I was younger. Junk, mostly.”

“So why do you still have it?”

“Why not?”

Twilight raised a brow. “What do you mean why? If it’s junk, you should just get rid of it.”

It was my turn to raise a brow. “Excuse me? Have you been here long enough to realize, everything I own is junk? You’re basically telling me to get rid of my entire life.”

“What? No I’m not! I’m just saying this one shoe box of junk!”

“Fine!” I grabbed the box, getting ready to close it, when I saw something inside.

I reached inside, picking up the small lego figure.

“What is that?” Twilight asked.

“My childhood….”

“Well, I mean, it’s one thing to keep a small bit of your childhood, but the rest really should-”

“My life is my childhood.”

“Huh?”

I pointed to the book at Twilight’s hooves. “Do you know how old that book is?”

Twilight looked down, then back to me.

“That book is over forty years old. Do you know when I got it?” I didn’t give the mare a chance to respond. “When I was ten. Got it at a recycling center, they were gonna recycle them into new books. But I didn’t want that.

“Look around, at all my stuff. More than half of the things here I’ve had since before I was even a teenager. My bed, my desk, my record player, my television, my lamps, on and on and on and on…”

Twilight looked into the box again, picking up a small plastic piece.

“What’s-”

“Part of an old BP gas station toy set, for my Hotwheels. And that, is part of my old fingerboards set. And that is-”

“Okay okay, I get it! You remember all this stuff! I was a child too, you know! I remember my foalhood toys. You know what I did with them? I donated them, gave them to other foals who needed the things I had to bring them joy.”

It was silent for several minutes. The record player long since going quiet.

“I did all that.”

Twilight blinked. “Huh? But-”

“I’m still sorting away the bits and pieces, but most of my toys? They’re all gone. I kept a few things but… you’re right. Other kids need to be able to enjoy them. And that’s fine, because that’s why I collected and saved the things that I did. For others, for those who needed them.

“But then I ran into a problem. No one wanted to deal with the old, the antiquated, the slightly worn out but not enough to throw away. In this modern age, everyone wants everything new and modern, and no hassle. They want to ‘plug and play’, although that term is even becoming obsolete.”

Twilight placed the toy back into the box, closing the lid.

“Everyone wants things to be easy. Well, I work hard for what I have, for what I keep alive. Dyson may be all new and modern, but damn it all if my sixty year old Eureka still fucking works and I use it. Sure it’s not as good, but then I make up for it by working harder.”

Again, silence.

Twilight picked up the encyclopedia book, looking over the worn brown cover. “These aren’t just books to you, are they? This is a look into the past, what you missed out on. What you longed to live for, and what everything you own was.

“That being said, as much as you live in the past, with the past, you need to take a step forward, and look ahead. Be in the present, and look towards the future.” Twilight snapped the book shut with a loud crack, setting it on the floor.

“You don’t understand, Twilight,” I said, looking at the silent turntable.

“I was a unicorn, and became a alicorn. I’m pretty sure I have some understanding of the games the future brings us.”

“But you’re not me. I live one life, and that is in the past. Everything I own is old, most cases older than I am, but also my own past. My future? It isn’t there. As long as I keep myself the way that I am, it will never be.”

Twilight looked at me, confused. I took another drink of my bourbon.

“I have to choose, Twilight. Either continue my life the way I am, with the things that make me happy… or give it all up, in the hopes that someone will see me for more than I am, so that I can actually be happy, and not alone.”

“Who says you have to give up what makes you happy to find another happiness?”

Silence took over the conversation for another long time. Finally, I stood, and started the record again.

“The first girl I fell for was my best friend. She knew me, through and through, and when I admitted my feelings, I was cast out.”

Twilight’s ears went flat.

“Second girl… well, it was less so. She knew nothing of me, but I tried anyway. Needless to say, nowhere it went.”

“And number three… I knew her for a long time. Many years, still do in fact. But she knows me, who and what I am. I couldn’t change for her, I broke promises. I’m not what I want to be, but I am what I am. I’m a drunkard, a junk collector… I’m alone.”

Twilight lifted a foreleg towards me, but I turned away.

“It took me years to realize my place in the world. I’m to be alone. For every several couples out there, there has to be that one man or woman who ends up alone and sad, so that the world can still go around on its axis. As it so happens, I’m that one man.

“She will never love me, never look at me the way I look at her, or at least, want to…”

Twilight stomped a hoof on my couch. “You can’t seriously believe that.”

It takes a real man to admit when he’s crying. If the dampness on my cheeks was any indicator, then I was either leaking or a man. Considering most everything I owned leaked in one way or another, it could be said either way for me.

“I don’t believe in a lot of things. I do, however, know that the world works however it well sees it. Believe it or not, praise it or not, love it or not, that’s how it is. The scales must even out, whether it takes days, months, years, eons.

“I’m to be the one man that is forgotten by time, but time cannot forget.”

Comments

[Theboxcatgamr]

Nice

[Dustchu]

Whew... oof, what to say? No idea...

Good work and well done, s'all I can think of.
Good shit, Rob, good shit.

[Horse Voice]

One need not feel odd about wanting to curate things others might dismiss as "old." Just look at me-- I've got dictionaries from '78 and '95, respectively; a few encyclopedias from the '50s, and a lot of pieces of fiction and non-fiction with the names of grandparents and great-grandparents written on the inside covers. Things from the old days are just plain neat, but not everyone is lucky enough to realize it.

[Lord Legion]

Oh I can understand the way you feel. I often feel the same way.