The Afterlife is Ponies

by Jayellow

My New Friend is... Pink?

It wasn’t long until I was at the bakery. When I first saw it, I honestly thought it was a shop based around christmas time snacks. I later found out that it was a sweets shop, and thereafter decided that if I ever had the chance I would chew out the owners for false advertisement.

Maybe I was a bit annoyed that I couldn’t actually eat any of the food they made. I’ll admit, my sweet tooth was legendary in certain circles. But at least I could stare at the food and reminisce about my days of sugar binges.

“Maybe I’ll spend some time with the snickerdoodles today.” I slipped in the door behind a customer, thoughts of delicious cookies on my mind. Once inside, I spent far longer than I should have drooling over the displays of sweets. All the while I was chanting “It’s just not fair!” in my mind. And it wasn’t either, being so close yet so far from all those wonderful snacks.

Eventually I tore myself away, and looked around. One of the owners was behind the counter, and I heard the noises of baking coming from the kitchen. Deciding that it was boring out in the shop area, I walked to the kitchen.

“Yeah, because your figure is so great already,” I said to a particularly pudgy pony as I passed her looking at a cake in the display I was behind. Now, when I said that I most certainly did not expect any sort of response. Although, maybe I should have been ready, having pretty much asked for it.

But nonetheless, I was caught about as far off guard as anyone has ever been when I heard a bubbly voice say “Hey, that wasn’t very nice! You should apologize, meanie!”

I could have just ignored it like I usually would have. As far as I knew, there was no way I had been heard. But it was the fact that it had come almost immediately after I had insulted the pony that made me think it was directed towards me.

Or maybe it was the angry looking pink pony standing on the case about a foot from my face giving me the stink eye. That seemed a bit conspicuous.

“Pinkie, dear, who are you talking to?” the blue mare behind the counter asked.

Rather than reply, the peppy pony gasped and dashed back into the kitchen. She peeked out of the door a second later, and motioned with a hoof for me to follow her.

Rather than do so, I stood still in shock. After what had just happened, I can’t say I would have been too surprised if a fish swam by in the air, and chastised me for my poor impression of one of his brethren.

She gave me an urgent look, and motioned even harder. In a daze, I moved forward passed to the confused proprietor of the bakery. I walked through the door that she held open for me, and turned around when I heard it shut. Once again I found my vision obscured by a pony standing on the kitchen counter to match my height.

The look on her face confused me, it seemed to be halfway between angry and excited. I started to get nervous as her gaze bore into me, actually. Which, on top of the shock I was already feeling, caused a level of panic that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I started to look for an exit, the need for some space becoming critical. Of course, I found none that I could actually use. I was sure that I had never before been more angry about being a ghost.

My breath started to come in short gasps, as I became desperate for an exit. My eyes darted around the room, hoping to find something open. I had just about resigned to my fate when my salvation appeared in the shape of a blue pony.

“Pinkie, what are you doing?” she asked, holding the door open.

When my would-be captor looked away, I made a break for the open door. I heard her shout “Hey!” as I jumped over the cashier’s counter and ran through the door beside the very pony that I had insulted to start the mess I was in.

I ran through the streets of Ponyville, no clear destination in mind. All I knew was that I had to get away from that crazy pink pony that had somehow heard me. The thought occurred to me that I should be ecstatic. I had finally been heard, I wasn’t so alone anymore! At the time, though, I was too busy panicking.

Hey, you try having an unchangeable fact of your existence changed, then see how you feel!

I finally came to a stop outside of the town. Looking around, I saw flowing fields of apple trees, and not much else. I chose a particularly tall tree, and scrambled into its branches to hide. Finally taking a moment to catch my breath, I let my mind catch up to my body.

Yeah, sometimes there is a reason your mind stops trying to keep up.

“What do I do? What do I do? I don’t know!” I shook my hand through my hair, my face still showing the fear and anxiety I was feeling. In retrospect, I think there was a little bit of me that was surprised that praying to pony god actually worked.

“Okay, just calm down me. Just calm down.” I took a few deep breaths while looking down, and actually started to feel it work.

“Hey!” a voice shouted from in front of me. My head snapped up, along with the rest of my body. This had the unsurprising effect of causing me to lose my balance on the branch. As I fell, I saw the very same pony I had just run from sitting in the tree. I hit the ground to the same result as every other time I had met it face first.

Upon seeing me fall, she climbed to the tree faster than I thought possible, and was at my side in an instant. “Oh no! I’m so sorry! I just meant to chew you out for being a meanie, not hurt you! Wait, can ghosts even get hurt? Are you hurt?”

I’d like to say I took everything in stride, and calmly sat up and talked to her. I’d also like to say I didn’t freak out again, and try to run away, only to slam face first into the tree.

It’s too bad I can’t say either of those things.

Once again on the ground, I heard the pony doing something I didn’t quite expect.

“What are you laughing at?” I turned to face her, my fear replaced with anger.

“It’s just so funny!” she said, pointing a hoof at me. “You aren’t hurt or anything, so I don’t need to worry. But it was so funny how you just jumped up and tried to run again, only to hit that tree. Then you were all like ‘oops’ as you fell, and I just couldn’t stop laughing!” Her explanation included a lot of exaggerated gestures.

It took all of that to finally make my mind ask the obvious question. It was as if a light bulb had turned on over my head when the thought finally struck me. I looked up, and saw her holding a lamp upside down over my head, somehow turned on.

“What are you doing?” The mystery of the lamp seemed more important at the time.

“Oh, I saw that you had an important thought, so I turned on a light bulb over your head,” she replied.

“Okay, new question. Where did you get the lamp?” I shielded my eyes from the light, even though it didn’t do me any good.

“I keep lamps all over Ponyville, in case of lighting emergencies,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I raised a hand, a question on my lips. A second later, I lowered my hand and snapped my jaw shut. There really wasn’t much to say to that.

Finally, I snapped out of the confusion, and asked the important question. “You can see me? And hear me?”

I don’t know where the lamp went, but when she sat down in front of me it was gone. I’m pretty sure my mind forcefully ejected that question at the time, just to keep me on track.

“Of course I can see and hear you, silly! Why shouldn’t I be able to?” I don’t how she did it, but she made me feel stupid for asking that. As if I were the one who had just done something that should have been impossible.

Either way, my mind once again found itself at an impasse. I didn’t have the slightest clue how I should have been acting, it had just been so long since I had spoken to anyone. So, while my mind went into overdrive, my body decided to screw with me. And by that, I mean I started to twitch in random places.

“Why are you twitching like that?” Pinkie said, leaning in close and turning her head to one side so one of her eyes was pretty much all I could see. “Do you have a Pinkie Sense too?”

Seeing the way out of it’s dead end loop, my mind latched on to the question and I answered “A what?”

“A Pinkie Sense!” the pink pony leaned back and threw her hooves out, “It’s where you randomly have a feeling or twitch in your body, which means something is about to happen!”

I was slowly forming a plan of action in my mind as she tapped a hoof to her chin and said, “But wait, you’re not Pinkie, I’m Pinkie! So what would it be called for you? Ghostie sense? No, that just sounds funny.” She giggled then, a sweet little sound that I had heard many times before.

I had narrowed my choices down to “Try to run away again,” and “Try to scare her off,” when I heard her ask another question. What she asked struck me, it was something that I hadn’t heard anyone say in a long time, at least not to me.

“You want to know my name?” I asked, looking confused.

“Well, of course, silly! How can I be your friend if I don’t know your name?” Pinkie flashed me a smile after she finished, then looked at me expectantly.

This mare had to have some sort of supernatural ability to stun people by speaking, there was no other explanation for it. So, instead of Plan A, or even Plan B, I wound up improvising.

“Charlie,” my lips seemed to move of their own volition. I almost reached up and smacked them, but I figured with Pinkie nearby doing so might cause some sort of rip in time and space due to excess insanity.

My logic was a little skewed at the time.

“Charlie?” Pinkie said, tilting her head, “That’s a funny name. You must not be from around here.” She smacked her forehead with her hoof then, adding “Of course you’re not from around here, you’re a ghost! So, where are you from?”

It all felt like a trance at the time. "Where am I from?" I heard myself speak, as though outside my not-body. Idly I wondered if I even could] have an out of body experience considering my condition. "You want to know where I'm from?"

Pinkie giggled then, presumably at what I said. A pony was finally reacting to me, and her reaction was giggles. I was pretty sure that in some far flung corner of my mind, I was just barely processing the events occurring, but most of it was just that noise you hear when a record skips over and over.

"You're funny Charlie, I like you." Pinkie smiled at me. A pony smiled at me, and my brain-hamster continued to sit stunned on its wheel.

I sat in uncomprehending silence still, my brain caught on a fatal exception. I knew I should answer, but once I finally caught up with the situation it was like my brain just melted out of my ears. If I even had a brain that could melt out of my maybe-ears. I managed to get my mouth moving, but I doubted that accomplished much.

"Oh, we're doing fish impressions again now?" Pinkie said to me, "I bet mine if better than yours! I didn't get a chance to show you earlier!"

Perhaps I had finally managed to catch up to the situation, or maybe Pinkie's special brand of insanity made my brain roll so far into broken that it flipped back to zero, but I managed to speak.

"Earth," I said, "The United States of America, on the planet Earth." I could feel my heart racing, and I chose to ignore the metaphysical implications of a ghost's heart racing.

The pink ball of energy stopped mid "Glub," her mouth still open in an "Oh" expression. She smiled at me again and said "You're an alien! I knew it!" I watched in shock as she started to bounce around, a lightning-fast stream of words coming from her mouth. As near as I could tell, she was excited, probably because she met an alien. An alien who was also a ghost. And she was the only one who could see him.

I only wish my mind had that kind of processing power, I was still stuck on "Someone can hear me!" Despite that, I managed to shake my head and set my mental breakdown aside for just a moment.

"How is it that you can hear me?" I managed to ask the one question I realized I needed answered more than anything. Weird pink ball of insanity and fluff or not, if she could hear me, maybe someone else could.

Pinkie ceased her ramble and sat in front of me. She placed a hoof on her chin, and her face scrunched up as though in deep thought. "I don't know," she said after just a moment, "I guess I'm just lucky."

I had a reply in mind, I was sure, but before I could speak I was interrupted by the mare. "Or maybe you're the lucky one, hmm?" she said, waggling her eyebrows at me and gently jabbing an elbow into my side. Well, she tried at least. "Now you've got the best party-pony in Ponyville as your friend, after all. " She gave me a little smirk, as though she had just delivered a class-A inside joke.

"Umm," I eloquently spoke, "Sure? Whatever you mean by that, I guess?"

Pinkie raised a hoof, as though to speak some more, before those giant blue eyes of hers shrunk much more than I thought should be possible. With a great gasp and her trademark levitation, Pinkie exclaimed "I need to throw you a party! A ghost party! This is gonna be great!"

And just like that, she was gone, a small gust infused with the sent of cotton candy left in her wake. I sat wide-eyed at the base of that tree still, unbelieving. I placed a hand over my face and exhaled. This was really happening. I finally had someone to talk to, and it was the pink one of all ponies.

I looked up at the sun. "Why not that big red guy, or the little dragon dude, or something? Why her?" I looked away quickly before I burned my kinda-sorta-not really eyes. "Why the pink one?"

I stood and brushed myself off, purely out of habit of course. I didn't know where I was going to go, but I needed somewhere away from the pink-who-shall-not-be-named. I hadn't even taken a single step though when she returned just as quickly as she had left.

"I forgot to tell you to be at Sugar Cube Corner tonight! Okay? Okay! See you then!" Her sentence came out as more of a single word than a spoken line, it was spoken so fast. And then once again, she was gone.

"Sugar... Cube... Corner?" I muttered, "Is that the name of the place she works at?" I'd like to say that after as long as I had spent in Equestria, I wasn't surprised. But I was, I totally was.

"I don't think any of this horse stuff is ever going to make sense."

Author's Note:

Here it is everyone, chapter 2! I hope it's everything you hoped and dreamed for.

I won't be updating next week because finals ( ) but after that I intend to take this story head on.

Stay cool!

Comments

[ArcTech_KO]

Welp Charlie, you got saved from one form of insanity only to be thrown into another.

[ThatOneGriffin]

Baaah!

[Dreadknight garen]

Huh, im surprised this was updated after so long, and so soon after i followed it!

[bonberjean]

Charlie, face it... you're screwed

[Xzaves]

7785993 ikr

[Jayellow]

7785920
7786539
Oh, you don't know the half of it.

7785993
7786620

I'd like to pretend I did it just for you guys, but it's actually just some wonkiness with fimfiction. I uploaded the story in 2015, but only recently published it. And that's not even how long I've been sitting on it.

[Phoenix999]

Nice, I like this. I look forward to more.

[Jayellow]

7787563

I like it too.

[Cozybro]

Raised from the dead, this fic was.

[Jayellow]

7790847
media.giphy.com/media/Kqp4CCYeveapa/giphy.gif

Bravo sir, bravo.

[deathcombo99]

7792877 you should make pinkie show he is real by using a white board and when he is writing think of harry potter music

[Edgeblackstar]

Why the pink one?"

buck you ask for someone, and you got someone

[Emperor]

Too bad she never told him what time to be there Oh well, he has nothing but time. He can be there early. Now if only other ponies don't think she's gone all crazy again because now she's throwing parties for an invisible friend!

[Alondro]

Discord probably saw him, but didn't acknowledge his existence, because Discord's a jerk.