Sabbatical, or the Study of Garden Gnome Anatomy in South Perjina

by Casca

10: Thrombosis

It hurt.

That wasn't common. She knew that she wasn't the most settled of ponies, and she had been at an impressionable age when psychosomatic theories blazed their way through every expert column in every paper, lighting up conversations among bored mothers at markets and sprinkling it down to their children, who knew not the implications, the mechanics, or even the validity, only that "psychosomatic" was a fantastic word. The mind, linked to the body, and the state of mind, linked to health. If that theory was true, it was a wonder that she still had all four limbs with the fracture she had for a psyche.

And the pain was not a common component of an otherwise common, even welcomed occurrence, when the blood in her chest seemed to rush through or drain out suddenly, invoking the sensation of a tiny black hole. She wasn't worried about it because they didn't last for more than half a thought. She liked to think that it wasn't a clue to a deeper, more insidious disease, but that it was a sign she was alive and could feel. The way the books described it—love, anger, passion, serendipity—the garam masala or appropriate regional equivalent of life—seemed to match up to that feeling. The logic was that no, she wasn't denying that it might be a medical symptom. She was respecting the equal chance of it just being an emotional symptom, a proof of existence.

And it was something she needed, once in a blue moon, to remind herself that she was still a pony, and not as utterly dysfunctional as she had thought herself to be on that darkest night three months after she had turned eleven. Since Sunburst had walked out on her, she had sworn to never make friends again, not unless they were guaranteed to stay. The equality thing which it eventually led to was well documented, but before she had gotten there, she had traveled down a few other murky paths of the mindset, and at the end of it all she wondered if she had only ended up dead inside instead.

Because while she liked the idea of being an edgy standout who didna need nopony, she did not like the idea of just being plain dead inside. There was no edge to being dead.

But, yes, she did have feelings after all. She did have the capacity to feel. Maybe she could even find it in her heart to love.

She breathed deeply. The pain was subsiding slowly, like an ink blot on a blank sheet in reverse.

"I think I have thrombosis," said Starlight.

"In your legs?" replied Sunset.

"No, in my chest."

"Isn't the correct term 'palpitations' then?"

Starlight blinked.

"Thrombosis is like a blood clot," said Sunset.

"It could be a blood clot."

"Well, I guess so. I mean... it's not like I'm a doctor."

"Neither am I."

"Are you okay to keep going?"

"Yeah. It doesn't hurt, it was just weird."

"All right then."

And they continued to walk.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Well. That's a thing. Not sure if it's a health concern or guilt so deeply repressed that there are painful flareups now and again. Or both. Both is a possibility.