Lost of thoughts

by CraftAids

Gold

He did not go to the library. He would not be going to the doctor. Instead, he was standing on a big patch of dirt. There was occasional garbage. There was a broken cart and a forgotten game of horseshoes. There was, most certainly, not a fair.

If he wasn’t going to make quick money, he needed to make slow money. That meant he needed a job which required no knowledge or skill and which provided housing and had a high turnover rate. The fair sounded perfect. It would just be super convenient if it was still nearby.

Instead, he had the junk they left behind.

The cart was a smashed, wooden container on two wooden wheels. It was good enough. He loaded up the wooden walls of some forgotten attraction and carted it away.

He spat a mouthful of screws onto the counter and pushed one screw forward. “One bit.”

The mare who sold screws looked between him and the screw a few times. “Two bits?”

He waited, looking at her for a few moments. “Are you gonna get them out?”

She looked down. “Oh! Yeah, one moment.“ She scrambled to put two bits on the counter.

“Sold!” He pushed one screw all the way over and scooped the bits off the counter and into this mouth.

She looked at the screw. “That won’t work again”

He pushed his other three screws over. “Four.”

“For which one?”

“All of them”

“Each?! No!”

“No, four bits for three screws, total.”

“I…” She put four bits on the counter and watched them and the grey pony disappear.

“… Selling more than one, huh?”

The baseball mare was packing up her stand. She put her bits in her bag. She put her balls in her barrel. She balanced both on her back. She heard bits being spit onto wood. After a day of trading, that sound held her attention. The lost(?) sale had returned. “Hello, need some help?” He was still a weird barterer.

“Yes. Well, no. I mean, I do this every day, but if you are going to make it your problem instead, don’t let me get in your way.”

He stood on two legs and held out his forelegs. “Give it here.”

The customer is always right. She put down her belongings and sat on her haunches, lifting the barrel over her head so that he could get his forelegs under it. She put her stand and saddle bags back on her back. “Come on.”

She trotted off and he walked after.

The silence would have been awkward if he wasn’t a bit behind her with balls in his face. Her house wasn’t far and the trip didn’t take long. They put her things in a shed next to her house as she spewed nearly irrelevant, though somewhat charming, anecdotes about her family.

“Could I borrow that screwdriver you mentioned, if you don’t mind?” She silently reached into the shed and bit a screwdriver before placing it at his hooves. “And the saw?” She did the same with a hacksaw. “… Thanks.”

“Alright, just put them back when you're done.” She yawned and went inside.

He spent hours removing and re-using screws and carefully replacing shattered and missing pieces of wood with no measuring tools or writing instruments. The core was good: the axle was strong and the wheels had metal edges. The handles were sturdy and undamaged. When it was over, the moon was out, he was hungry, and he had a total piece of shit in his possession. It was his, and it would work. He put the tools back and closed the shed.

He planned to join the fair, but he had to leave to find it. This was a big, and, as far as he could tell, extremely horrifying world, and he would not enter it without something sharp.

He needed money or materials or something to sell. Town is a place of landowners, craftsmen, and citizens. Everything here was owned. Free things, things he could own, were in the wilds. He would have to go in one more time, unarmed and alone.

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