Amigo

by ROBCakeran53

Epilogue: Ashes

Keith hated driving.

He didn’t mind traveling— going on vacation to get away from his day to day—but that usually consisted of flying to some island in the south, or Mexico, and sitting on a beach with a drink in each hand.

Dealing with traffic was bad enough, but when he had to drive almost three hundred miles to go somewhere he had no business going then it bothered him.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have even considered such a long drive with only an overnight bag, a few hundred bucks for gas, and the empty back seats in his ten year old Forester.

The seats folded down, thankfully, and wasn’t all too uncomfortable to rest on for a night cap.

Sitting in a gas station lot after filling up, he once again studied the letters he’d received in the mail. The stamp wasn’t one he recognized, and was postmarked with something he couldn’t quite make out instead of a US flag. It resembled two horses, vaguely, the art style unfamiliar to him. There was also no return address.

Whatever the stamp was, the contents of the envelope had been more curious.

The first thing—a letter from his mother. After nearly forty years of silence between the two, a letter came from her, and they’d began to write one another. However, the renewed silence as of a couple years ago wasn’t something he enjoyed, but to face his father after what he’d done?

He’d rather have his father think he was still out with those crazy hippies he’d joined, either stoned or worse.

The letter held no important information, although strangely the date was wrong, roughly two years off, lining up with when he’d last sent her a missive. The mysteries didn’t stop there.

His mother talked about seeing him, about finding a place to meet. The logical thing that came to his mind was to go most of the way back to Florida and find a location there. Nothing too close to his father, but near enough that his mother could still make it by bus or car.

At the time he wasn’t entirely sure if she could still drive, but worse case he’d pick her up from the grocers, where his father wouldn’t be none the wiser.

The next piece of paper held the next mystery. In it were a series of numbers he quickly realized were coordinates. After some nearly lost practice with the local library’s atlas, 35°59'54.3"N 111°59'15.9"W turned out to be near the Grand Canyon. Specifically, a observation location off of state route sixty-four.

The final surprise was the photo taped to the page. While it was small by current standards in photography—and black and white—the three people were easily recognized. His father, his mother, and a very much younger him.

Keith still hadn’t decided which was more surprising: that she’d sent the picture, or that his father hadn’t burned every image of him after he ran off.

After sending a return letter to his childhood home, he received the letter back with a yellow return to sender sticker. After speaking with a local realtor on the phone, he found out the house had been sold a little over a year ago.

It took Keith several days of contemplation, but after a week of the mystery letter sitting on his desk, the geographical coordinates standing out like a flare, flickering and blinding his judgement, he told work that he was taking some personal days.

They weren’t all that happy, but neither was he. Screw them. An hour later he’d packed an overnight bag, emptied out the trash in his small SUV, and left his driveway with more questions than answers.

The whole drive, he constantly questioned himself over this decision. There’d been no other communication, save for her letter. Nothing to hint at what this was all about. Not to mention, the writing of the coordinates didn’t look anything like his mother’s—or if he could remember it—his father's.

Curiosity was a strange thing, but he had to know. Was this his mother’s doing? Was it some sort of scheme to trick him and his father into reconciliation? Or was this blackmail? His ex-wife was a real pain in the ass, but he’d not known her to get this down and dirty before.

Well, after they’d divorced that is. His son was a testament to that, although only getting to spend every other weekend with him while he grew up had proved to be a real dent on their relationship.

His son was an adult now, living his own life in California. Ironically, he used his son’s address when writing his mother, because he didn’t know if she should know he lived in Las Vegas or not.

And yet, this letter had found him, at his home.

Something was not adding up, and it left his stomach uneasy. Skipping lunch didn’t help, but munching on some Lays potato chips would do the trick.

More time passed, more miles ticked away at the odometer. Trees, signs, abandoned cars, everything was there one second, and gone the next.

The radio was useless, and he’d forgotten to bring any of his audio book cassettes with him.

----------

Desert View Drive was quite lovely. Beautiful. He could barely remember coming here as a small child; he was more interested in reading his Popular Mechanics or Science books. It was a shame he’d grown out of them; maybe he’d have made something out of himself pursuing such things.

Instead it was drugs, free love and peace. When his number had come up, he’d become what his father hated most.

A coward.

Of course, if the old bastard knew what had happened after a couple months out, then maybe things could have been different between the two.

Even after forty plus years, it still terrified him to think about it.

Driving slowly, he passed a small circle of grass with benches, and parked in a spot overlooking the canyon. The clock said quarter after six. For a weekday, Keith still thought it seemed rather strange how empty it was. “Wasn’t this a tourist attraction anymore?”

He shut off the vehicle and stepped out, giving his back a good long stretch. Leaning on the door to look around, the unease of the situation crept up in his mind. He pulled out the black and white photo from his breast pocket, and studied it. Other than the addition of a small building and some more brush, the canyon looked identical.

Keith examined his surroundings, idly drumming his fingers along the door. This was stupid. Dumb. A waste of time and money. Hell, there wasn’t even any sort of date in the letter or following the coordinates. What was he going to find out here, with no plan? Hidden treasure? And if he found nothing, then what? Come back tomorrow?

The realtor said they’d gone into a old folks home. He’d called around, and found out that his mother was dead, and his father AWOL.

This was all a waste of time. He knew the answers already, but he refused to recognize them.

“Stupid. I was stupid back then, and I’m still as stupid now.”

Walking towards the edge, he crumpled up the letter, tossing it over the edge. The wind grabbed it, stopping it from going very far. In spite, he crumpled the coordinates, and tried again. They didn’t go any further.

Ignoring the No Littering sign, he was about to tear the photo in half when he felt the breeze pick up.

Oddly, despite feeling like a light gust to him, his Subaru was rocking back and forth as if in a windstorm.

The suspension squeaked in protest, and it got so bad that the drivers mirror, barely held on with prodigious amounts of duct tape, fell off with a clatter.

Then all was silent. His Forester stopped rocking and settled back on its tires.

“What in the fu-”

The mirror on the ground began to vibrate and glow. Keith watched it in fascination until he was forced to cover his eyes from the blinding light. Multiple things clattered as they landed on the asphalt, and something slammed into his shins, causing him to lose balance and fall onto his butt.

Once the spots faded from his eyes, he looked down at his feet to see a small brown suitcase. Even though it was impossible, he swore he recognized it. Dated, that was for sure, but the color was something that stood out. Ugly, light brown, like the one he’d used when he packed up and—

“Oh wow, that was rougher than I thought.”

The feminine voice was not familiar, and when Keith turned her direction, he was speechless.

A relatively small purple pony stood there, using a hoof to brush off the dirt from her coat and wings.

“Wow, what a rush. It amazes me how mirrors are often tied to trans-dimensional travel like that. Oh wow,” she looked down at the fallen of car mirror, “I came through that? Fascinating, I can’t believe I wasn’t shrunken down, or crushed to death. Could you imagine being squeezed out like a tube of toothpaste?” She gave off a manic laugh.

Keith nodded his head, confused, his scream stuck in the back of his throat. The only thing he managed was a small croak.

The pony looked at his hand, pointing a… foot? A hoof, at the photo still gripped tightly. “Oh good, I was worried. It’s been weeks since I sent that letter. I placed a locator spell on the picture, but it had to find its way here in order to alert me. It had taken so long I was worried it had gotten damaged, lost, or destroyed. Any of those could have prevented it from alerting me.”

Keith looked down at the photo in his hand, realizing he had only been seconds away from ripping it in two.

“You see, the photo had magical energy in relation to this location, which I presume was its origin. Funny how art, such as books, photos, and paintings can hold such vivid imagery, memories, and emotional ties to the place where they were created.”

Keith continued to look on, stupefied.

She let out a nervous laugh. “And I just realized I’ve been rambling, and you don’t even know who I am, what I am, or why we’re both here.”

Keith nodded his head, not trusting his words.

“Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle. Are…you must be Keith? Keith Castor?”

Again he nodded, nervously licked his dry lips, and let out a cough to clear the dust and dirt he’d inhaled. “Y-yeah, how did…?”

“And your father was Earl Castor? Darla was your mother?”

Senses were returning to Keith, and he shook his head to clear the cobwebs and loosened his death grip on the photograph in his shaking hand. She was asking him questions, specific questions about his parents. His mind was clearing, and his need to scream out was fading as his voice came out from its hiding place. “Yes, yes, how do you know them?”

The once excited face of the pony changed. Her ears sagged a little, her wings drooped, and her eyes drifted to the suitcase at his feet.

“I… didn’t know your mother, but I met your father Earl for a short time.”

That caught him off guard.

“You… met my father? And lived?”

Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Yes, although barely. He was very happy to bop me in the head with his cane.”

A small laugh escaped Keith as well. “Yeah, I grew up with him using a cane. He’d been shot up bad in Korea.”

Twilight’s horn glowed, and the same light surrounded a white box which which lifted off the ground. She walked closer to Keith, the box following, and sat down in the dirt a couple of feet from him. Keith sad up straighter, crossing his legs with much protest from his hips and knees.

Both sat silently, looking between each other, and in the pony’s case, at her surroundings. Keith resisted an urge to reach over and touch the pony, only to make sure the coffee he’d picked up a few miles back didn’t, in fact, have traces of LSD in it.

“It’s quite lovely out here.”

Keith swallowed. This was too clear. Maybe some pot in the burger he got for lunch? “Yeah. Sure is.”

Twilight focused back on Keith. “Earl told me a few things about you.”

“Oh, did he now?” he rolled his eyes. “All bad, I’m sure. He was—”

“He loved you, greatly.”

Keith closed his mouth with a click of his teeth.

“He was upset with you, but loved you. He… tried to find you, after Darla passed away.”

The mention of his parents pushed his mental struggle to the back of his mind, “Is that so?” Keith crossed his arms. “And just where is the wrinkly old bastard? Too pissed off with me to—”

Twilight reverently pushed the white box forward with her hooves.

Silence reigned once again, and hesitantly Keith opened the box, revealing two small urns. One blue and black, with an assortment of burgundy tulips decorating it—his mother's favorite flower.

The other one was black and burgundy, decorated with little music notes.

When Keith looked back up at the pony, he could tell she was holding back tears.

“I only knew him for the better part of a day.”

He wanted to ask more questions, but even he wasn’t dumb enough to not notice she had more to say.

“He talked about going to California a lot, but he wasn’t always making sense. Kept thinking he was in Kentucky.”

Keith glanced to his side, the crumpled up papers still stuck in a weed bush. “That’s where I signed the letters, the return address, to my mother.”

“I figured something wasn’t right, because the locator spell I used wouldn’t bind with what I’d expected from what Earl had told me. I figured something was up, so I used one of the photos he had to find this place.”

“One of the photos?”

Twilight pointed at the suitcase.

Cautiously, Keith snapped both latches to the sides and opened the lid. The inside was jammed full with clothes, a couple of records, and a torn envelope crammed with photos.

“W-when he was in the hospital in Ponyville—that’s where I’m from—he told me some of the stories behind the pictures, mostly the happy ones.”

Keith picked up a large stack of photos, and began to flip through them.

“He… wasn’t fully there by that time, it was only a few hours away from…”

Keith looked up to the mare, noting the wet stains running down the fur on her cheeks.

She let out a laugh. “Your father was someone else.”

“Yeah, he was.”

“I’m sorry if I’m being pushy, I don’t have a lot of time, but I have to ask you, why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you just leave them?”

Keith scratched at the stubble forming on his chin.

With a defeated sigh, he began talking, although his eyes remained on the photographs.

“Because . . . because I was young and dumb. Because I was hopped up on all kinds of drugs and thought I was doing what was right, dodging and running away. Sticking it to the Man.”

“So what happened?”

Still sifting through the photos, Keith continued, “After a few months traveling, I sobered up enough to realize what I’d done, and that no matter what… I couldn’t show my face to my father ever again.

“I turned myself in, and they were… harsh, but lenient with me. I served,” at this he lifted up his long sleeve shirt, showing a scar on his side, “fell into a Viet-cong trap, got a wood pike through my side. While on medical leave, we bailed out of there and I came home.”

“That was it?”

Keith looked up to the pony, straight faced with lips pressed firmly together.

“Sorry, Earl was just very… forward about his stories.”

“He was proud to fight. Then, it was an honor to do so. When I went… it was like the rest of the world was against you. No one smiled, or patted you on the back for a job well done. Well, maybe the brass, but they just saw us as warm bodies to do their fighting.”

Both fell back into silence, which allowed Keith to study some more of the photographs. Suddenly, he hit some that were much larger, and although they looked older, they featured ponies. He held one up, and Twilight’s ears went up.

“Oh, right. We… held a service for him.”

“We?”

“My friends, whom he’d met, as well as other citizens of Ponyville that he’d… bumped into.”

“His cane get confiscated during any of those bumpings?”

Twilight laughed. “No, but I had it bronzed and have it in my ca-er, home. Would you want it back?”

Keith smiled, and shook his head. “Naw, I’m sure it left a better impression on your scalp than it ever did on mine.”

Twilight let out a giggle.

“He’d mentioned how Darla loved tulips, so that’s what we used for flowers. We didn’t know what your customs were—I hope that was okay.”

“He didn’t really have a favorite flower, so that was a good choice, and he only went to church on Sundays because mom told him to.”

“Lots of ponies came and gave their respects.”

One photo caught his eye, showing a whole building full of ponies, and a blown up image of his father, much younger.

“You chose his military portrait as the photo?”

“I thought it suited him.”

“Yeah, probably what he would have wanted.”

“I… he didn’t leave any sort of will, so I didn’t know exactly what he wanted.”

“Even if you had, I know I didn’t get anything.”

“Yes, you did.”

Keith looked up from the photo, then to the suitcase Twilight pointed a hoof at.

“This was all he had when I met him. Well, when he met me. He was traveling to find you. There’s a letter in there, from your mother to you. Even though it wasn’t my place, I read it. I’m sorry, but I was looking for anything to help with… this.”

“You’re fine.”

“Earl read it too.”

Keith raised a brow.

“He was also trying to find you.”

“That’s hard for me to believe.”

“He told me. He was willing to forgive and forget, just to see you, because he…” Twilight began to cry again.

Keith scooted himself on the dirt towards her, and allowed her to lean into him and weep.

“Y-your mother didn’t get to say goodbye. He was bringing her last letter to you, and he also wanted to-to…”

Keith offered her his shirt sleeve, which the pony blew generously into.

Twilight pulled away, looking apologetic.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“No, it’s just…”

“Go ahead, Twilight, ask away.”

Twilight pulled fully out of his embrace and looked him directly in the eyes.

“I’d like to hear some stories, of you, Earl, of your mother, but…” Twilight turned to look at the sun, “I’m running out of time.”

Keith focused on the box holding the two urns once more.

“Maybe we could meet up one day again, and share our experiences with him.”

Twilight smiled, “I’d like that, if I can get this portal to cooperate better.”

“Yeah, and I’d bug you about that, but for now, I have a request of my own, before you leave.”

Twilight looked on, curiously.

Fighting to stand up, Twilight got to all fours and offered her head, which Keith used to push himself up.

“Thanks.”

Twilight couldn't help but smile, “Of course.”

Taking the urns, Keith had Twilight follow him to the furthest-most edge where he could safely stand, and gave her Earl’s urn.

Once again, her horn lit up and she held it in an almost invisible glow. He swore it was a shade of red, maybe even burgundy. He didn’t want to call it magic, but he had a distinctive feeling purple pony beside him would say just that word, so he didn't ask. Plausible deniability at its best.

Keith sucked in a deep breath, and released it, gripping his mother’s urn tightly.

“Mom, Dad, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving, for not coming home, for not telling Dad the truth and giving Mom empty hopes of seeing each other again. I… honestly don’t know what else is worth saying, but, yeah, I hope you’re both at peace.” He removed the top, and poured the contents into the canyon, the gentle breeze picking up to spread her ashes below.

Twilight’s first instinct was to protest, but these were Keith’s parents, this was his choice.

This was his service to them.

“Okay, go ahead.”

Twilight looked up, confused.

“You were the last positive person in his life. Go ahead and say something.”

“But, I already had a service for him. I had pages, I didn’t bring any of my notes, or—”

He pressed a finger to her lips.

“You knew my father. Maybe for only a day—”

“Barely a day.”

“—and you got to see him. Because let me assure you one thing, how he talked to you, laughed at you—all his interactions—that was him. You probably even got a song or two out of him, didn’t you?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, I made copies of those few records in his case, I hope the label company won’t be mad.”

Keith smiled. “There you go, so just speak from the heart. Say what’s on your mind, what you feel right now, remembering, thinking back to him.”

Twilight looked up to the man, conflict in her mind.

At Keith’s knowing smirk, she drew in a deep breath, released it, and opened the lid on the urn.

“Earl, I hope it smells better wherever you are. You were an asshole, and I loved you all the same.”

Author's Note:

Blog post thing-a-ding-a.

Comments

[FTR2017]

Good ending to this short story.

Thanks for the hard work.

[Admiral Biscuit]

You were an asshole

There’s something to be said about sincerity. I hope one day somebody says that about me.

[ROBCakeran53]

9614088
I say that about you every day

I also hope I'm thought of the same way.

[TheBird]

Great job. It was a pleasant read.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

well... nice ending, a happy one

[Raistlin]

To think the author managed to keep Earl unaware of where and with who he spent his last day to the very end.

[redandready45]

Never getting to say goodbye after so much bad blood is one of the most painful things imaginable.

[Savant Sentral]

these aren't tears, some fuckin viet kong gook is spraying water in my eyes

[Darksymphony777]

I'm not crying

I'm not crying

OK I'm crying. Loved this story

Earl reminds me of my grandfather to be honest served in Korea is a bit of an asshole but me and my family love him all the same. Going to miss him when he passes away.

[Enigmatic Otaku]

But Earl wanted those to be spread over Disneyland.