Thinking Inside the Box

The town where I lived had gone downhill over the years. We used to have a factory, making cheap plastic toys in the shape of cartoon ponies. But that got moved to somewhere far away.

Now the last few jobs in town were a few people working in the local job retraining center, teaching each other how to do things like editing each other's resumes for the millionth time.

I was so sick of re-editing Bob's resume. Why couldn't we switch resume editing partners for once? Just one time I wanted to edit Janice's resume, or Lamar's. I'd heard that Lamar had a real job once, before the factory left town.

I heard a sneeze.

I looked around. Where did that come from? I didn't see anyone.

Another sneeze. It seemed to be coming from a cardboard box in an alley. I walked over to it and opened the top just in time to get a spray of mucus all over my face.

"Blorg!" I said, "Ooog." I pulled my T-shirt up to wipe my face enough that I felt I could open my eyes. "Oh yuck," I complained. But finally I noticed what was in the box. It was a little black creature with crimson hair on the top of its head and neck.

"What the CENSORED are you?" I said.

"How dare you say oh yuck to me?" an imperious voice answered me. "I am one of the most amazing ponies in all of L'Questria. You should feel awe!"

"L'Questria?" I said. "I thought they canceled that show. Right after they moved the factory out of town."

The creature sneezed again, luckily missing my face this time. "Biped, I require warmth and nourishment. It is your honor and privilege to help me. You will forever remember and bless the day that you were lucky enough to meet me."

The creature started to shiver.

I thought, even if it gives me something horrible like bubonic plague, could death really be that much worse than what my life was like now? Besides, even if I had to go to a hospital, maybe I could ask to edit the nurse's resume. So I bent down and picked up the sad little creature. Its fur was soft even though it was also damp.

I held it against me, and it nestled its face between my neck and shoulder.

"Awww," I said, "you're a cute little guy, aren't you?" I felt a sharp pain in my neck. Oh great, it probably had fleas and they must be biting me. Well, too late now, I was probably already infected.

After a minute the pain stopped.

"Good," the creature said, "Your blood is satisfactory. I am now refreshed." From inside its fluffy fur it unfolded two large, leathery wings.

"Eeew," I said, "those look like bat wings."

The creature said proudly, "I am a half batpony half unicorn. That gives me both wings to fly, and a unicorn's magical spell casting powers. Also, my horn is invisible, so nopony knows that I have magic unless I reveal it. And my batpony side gives me the ability to mesmerize other beings and make them comply with my wishes and, if I so wish, they think that nothing's wrong."

"Pleased to meet you," I said. "My name's Jake. Do you have a resume?"

"I do not need a resume," the creature said.

"Aww, everyone needs a good resume," I said. "Especially in this economy. With a good resume, someday you might even be able to score a job interview."

The creature looked confused. "Not a job? Just an interview?"

"Even just an interview is better than nothing," I said. "They usually let you drink free coffee. Sometimes there are doughnuts. Once I heard of someone having a lunch interview, where they buy you a whole lunch. And if you're really lucky, there might be expense reimbursement, even mileage compensation. That's almost like having a real job if it was very short and only paid you about as much as you have to pay in extra expenses to get there and back."

"Did I ever mention that I am the secret love child of Princess Celestina herself?" the creature said.

"I don't think you ever mentioned it to me before now," I said. "Of course, we only ever met a few minutes ago, so you hadn't much chance to."

"Get me out of this rain," the creature said, "and into a warm place. Unless you like dark, dreary, cold places, in which case I still hope we can get out of the rain."

"No problem," I said. "I have a home where the roof doesn't leak very much, except when it rains really hard. I can't afford to turn the heat up or turn on all the lights, so it'll be cold and dark. And with my depressed personality from living in this town, my home should be very dreary!"

"Sounds ideal!" the creature said. "Take me to your dark, dreary, depressing shelter."

***

I opened my back door (the front door was boarded over) and let us inside. I tried to flip on a light, but when the light didn't come on, I remembered the bulb was burned out. Angry about the burned out bulb, I started cussing up a storm.

After a minute, the creature interrupted me. "Biped, there's no need yet to attempt advanced worship of dark forces. Wait until later when I have better trained you. Besides, you're not addressing them with correct protocol. I will teach you when we have time, and then you can doom your pathetic soul properly."

"Oh...kay," I said.

"Did I ever mention," the creature said, "that I am a secret cousin of Her Royal Highness Celestina herself?"

"I don't think you mentioned...didn't you already say something about being her love child?"

"We have a very complicated family tree," the creature said. "The better to concentrate magical potency and dark forces into one single creature: me."

To me it sounded not so much like a family tree as a tangled shrub, or maybe a family stick (as the old redneck joke goes.) But I didn't like to make fun of someone else's ancestry. Someone's ancestry is seldom their own fault anyway.

"Did I mention," the creature said, "that through meddling with secret, unholy time travel magics, I am my own great, great grandfather?"

I started to get annoyed. "Why don't you go CENSORED yourself?" I said.

"What a prescient guess," the creature said. "In order to better concentrate my family's magical potential into my own self, I went back in time and I am in fact several of my own ancestors. It's not really a problem, because I am so devastatingly attractive.

"In fact, I suspect both my mother and my father of being myself in disguise, wearing fake mustaches and wigs. But it's too early in the saga to know for sure. Will we ever find out the amazing truth?"

"I'm sure I'll get to hear all about it, when the time comes," I said. "But for now, let's sit in the living room and mope in the darkness. Maybe I can even get the TV to partly work."

"Sounds fine to me," the creature said.

***

"Your blood offering earlier was pleasing to me," the creature said, as it rummaged through my pantry. "But I also desire solid food, as a dessert." I heard sounds of ripping packaging.

The creature returned to the living room, carrying a bowl with some snack cakes and doughnuts in it. The creature was chewing.

"That stuff can't be any good for you," I said.

"Why isn't it good for me?"

"Probably everything in it."

"What's in it?" the pony said, a bit of creamy filling falling out of his mouth and onto the already-stained carpet.

"I'm too lazy to get up and dig the package out of the trash to read it. But I'm sure it has sugar, more sugar, a little white flour, lots of preservatives, and some kind of shortening...oh my god. Probably animal shortening rendered from the cheapest possible sources and all mixed together. Dead cows, dead pigs, maybe even dead...horses and ponies. That can't be right, for you to eat your own kind."

"On the contrary," the pony said, "for me to eat the renderings of deceased ponies is exactly right for a dark creature such as myself. I would even pay extra for the opportunity to so express my darkness. Not that I'm paying for any of these, because I'm really doing you a great honor by giving you the opportunity to serve me for free."

"Of course," I said bitterly.

***

As we sat on the couch and watched the near-absence of picture on my best broken TV, a thought occurred to me.

"There is something a bit odd about you," I said.

"No!" the little creature said, "My batpony mesmerism is failing to hold your mind captive! What did you notice? My devastating charisma? That I sucked two pints of blood out of you in under a minute? That I am a scary alien creature from another world?"

"I don't mean any of that," I said. "But when we met, I introduced myself, and told you my name. But did you ever tell me your name?"

"Indeed!" the creature exclaimed, "How could I have failed to have taken that opportunity, when my name is so well thought out, so well crafted, and so magnificent in its impressive full rolling majesty, like a dark, chilling, terrifying thunderstorm drifting slowly across a grassy plain. I shall tell you the many words of my full name, including all titles of nobility, both hereditary and earned. Hear and tremble, you pathetic but very fortunate biped, for my fear-inspiring, honor-encrusted, deeply meaningful name is--"

In a flash of light, a large horse creature appeared in my living room, magically gleaming white and radiant like a half unicorn half pegasus half something. Both creatures disappeared. But a second or two later, the larger horse thing reappeared.

"Sorry about removing him so abruptly," she said. "But I had to get him out of this dimension in order to prevent him from revealing too much and possibly causing a scandal."

"Really," I said. "A scandal."

"Never mind," the large pony said.

I smiled, thinking about how I enjoy bluffing when playing poker for our town's supply of broken, mismatched buttons and counterfeit pennies. "I understand all too well."

The pony said a bit nervously, "You wouldn't."

"The truth is very important," I said. "Who am I to hide it?"

The pony said, "You probably don't even know that pony's name. He said he hadn't told you."

"He IMPLIED that he'd never told me," I answered her. "But that pony hasn't a very good memory for what he's already said." I thought back to what I had seen in several self-glorifying OC stories. "Why, sometimes in one paragraph of speech he calls himself a duke, and three paragraphs later he calls himself a prince."

"You're bluffing!" the pony said. "You just made a lucky guess if he happens to be both of them. Which he isn't. Not in the least."

"I won't repeat his full name," I said, "because I suppose neither of us has enough patience and that much spare time to waste. But I will mention that the name includes references to darkness, the word crimson, and blood."

The pony gasped. "He DID tell you his name. Oh my. Please don't tell anypony."

"I WOULD like to buy my home some roof repairs. And a full solar power installation. With a full bank of batteries. That way if he ever comes back, I'll have a better place to host him in, which should help keep him from walking around and sharing his secrets with anybody else."

The pony narrowed her eyes. "Do you want me to do you a special favor? How about if I DON'T use my command of the sun to bring it down to you and burn your miserable hide off the face of the planet?"

I laughed. "Earth's sun is different from your world's. You don't have that kind of power here."

The pony gave me a small, naughty smile. "Are you so sure I'm bluffing? Because if I'm not bluffing, you'll hardly last long enough to find out. Or maybe INSTEAD of killing you, I will simply find ways to make your life more miserable." A glow appeared around her horn.

"I don't think you can make my life more miserable," I said.

Her smile widened. "What if I turn you into a cross between a frog and an orange? Or I could bring my nephew back here, and leave him here for weeks. AND I could make you a half frog half BLOOD orange for the entire time. My nephew might suck all the blood out of you just to get some vitamin c."

"Erh," I said, "I think I don't want to demand anything too extravagant. So how about a mere reimbursement for reasonable expenses incurred while hosting and caring for our noble friend? Plus a modest surcharge for labor and interest."

The pony looked down her nose at me and sniffed scornfully. She used her magic to float into my palm a small stack of coinlike discs. "I hope this is enough," she said, "This is almost ninety bits."

With my other hand I dug into the stack. It wasn't real Earth money. It looked and felt like plastic play money. In fact, it looked exactly like the rare limited edition optional extras for the tenth season Dirty Lucre's Bank Playset. If I showed it to the right toy collectors, it should get me a big stack of real money.

"They're nice," I said, "but do you have any in the original packaging?"

"Original packaging?" she said, "I don't understand."

"Did these come from the mint in little plastic bags with a paper label at the top, and a hole punched through the label?"

"That doesn't make any sense to me. Our coins arrive from our mint in wooden boxes, each guarded by a rabid badger. Do you need a box? Or do you need a badger? Or rabies?"

I stroked my chin. I couldn't remember ever seeing any wooden boxes in any of the toy stores or collector's guides. "I guess I don't need any of those. But thanks."

***

I sat in the darkness and gloom of my living room, listening to the rain drip from the ceiling and into buckets that I'd scavenged from the trash in a neighboring town that was so much better off than us that they could afford to throw away old broken plastic buckets.

For part of one day, magic had found its way into my life. But now, all I was left with was two or three cheaply made plastic coins. I say two or three, because I lost all but two of the coins to an eNeigh Internet auction scam. But I thought there might be an extra one under the couch somewhere, if I could find it.

I felt a shift of weight on my lumpy couch. "Hey," said the voice of the half batpony half unicorn, "Let's make a deal. I like those junk foods that I ate when I was here before. Feed me more of them, and I'll stay here until Auntie Celestina will have to come back and rescue me again. Then you can blackmail her some more. It's a good deal all around for both you and me. We could even make a regular thing of it."

"What the CENSORED," I said, "why shouldn't we? There's nothing worth watching on the broken TV today anyway."

"CENSORED?" the pony replied. "I have to teach you how to swear properly. You have no idea how much lighter you'll feel when you've been relieved of the unnecessary weight of your soul. You'll really be better off without it."

"Let's do it," I said.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
If you want to read the story that partly inspired this one, take a look at My Little Dashie. (link)
With that story, ROBCakeran53 inspired a large number of this website's other stories. Obviously he deserves partial credit for all of those stories, especially for this one.