"Proverbial," and Other Very Short Stories

by Mockingbirb

"Ponies Don't Have Fingers (,Piles/ /of/ !!/Pretentious ;Punctuation!!!)" [Slice of Life; Rated E for Everyone]

Beside Twilight was a cart. Its cloth cover hid her mysterious invention.

In front of Twilight sat three grumpy ponies, the All-Equestria Invention Contest judges.

Twilight announced, "I've built a typewriter for ponies!"

"Nonsense!" the contest's chief judge scoffed. "Writing Equestrian requires DOZENS of letters, so a typewriter needs DOZENS of keys. And hooves are so big, we simply can't fit enough keys onto a single typewriter. So Equestrian-language typewriters are impossible."

Twilight smiled. "Letter keys are overrated."

She yanked the cloth aside. Her invention looked like she'd scrambled three typewriters together, cut off all the human-style keys, and bolted on a few hoof-size paddles instead.

Twilight sat her plot upon a bench, pointing all four legs towards her mechanical monstrosity.

"Get out! Go away! Not another word!" the assistant judge warned.

Using all four hooves at once, Twilight banged out three lines at a time...using only small-print punctuation marks.

; ; ;-- ;   ;   ;--;    ;   ; ;--; ;-;  ;   ;-
;-; ;-- ;   ;   ;  ;    ; ; ; ;  ; ;-;  ;   ; ;
; ; ;-- ;-- ;-- ;--;    ;-;-; ;--; ;  ; ;-- ;- 

Author's Note:

For anyone using a screen reader, the punctuation marks spell out "HELLO WORLD."

This story was written for a "Break the Rules!" theme. Some example 'rules of writing' are at this link (in case you want to break some, and follow others.)

I broke Elmore Leonard's rule against sadisms (rule #3 at this link.) I think Leonard has a point, but on fimfiction.net, avoiding saidisms risks alienating some people.

Also, some people have a rule against sentence fragments.

But primarily, using punctuation marks to get 'free words' that aren't counted by the official word counter would usually (in most months) violate the spirit of the Flashfic 150 Contest rules, I think.

https://wordcounter.net/ is the Flashfic 150 Contest's official word counter.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

I can’t help but think about how Estee’s ponies play piano. Looks like the monstrosity in Twilight’s old student apartment/literal ivory tower paid off.

[Mockingbirb]

11546700

Does it seem that way? I don't think I'd read Estee's piano story at the time when I wrote this story...looks like it was roughly the beginning of 2022. I STILL think IF the story explained exactly how ponies play complicated piano melodies with only a small number of paddles (fewer than one paddle per letter or per playable note?) I don't remember how that worked.

I mean, the point of Twilight's idea is to be able to type Equestrian letters while using a smaller number of paddles than typable letters...and using only pony-serviceable technology, I think.

[FanOfMostEverything]

11547071
From 50% Move, 100% Fire:

They all looked at the instrument. It was -- large. Very large. Even for unicorns, the oldest pony pianos were meant to be played by hoof -- side hooves. For the most classic styles, the musician lies down on their side along on the long bench, orientation varying depending on whether their left side is dominant or their right. The higher hooves aim for the keys, which are distinctly wide -- they have to be in order to prevent one hoof from pressing five notes at once. The lower ones hit the register shift levers. Some curling up and stretching can be required to get at all the octaves: it took a long time before double-jointedness stopped being the secondary requirement for expert skill. The style looks incredibly awkward, feels worse during long performances (especially since padded benches didn't arrive for seven centuries, mostly because previous generations of piano teachers refused to let any student be more comfortable than they'd been), and sounds beautiful -- if done properly. And as for doing it properly... well, the best way to become master of a classic piano is to have the appropriate mark. Everypony else just gets to silently curse the parents who felt the skill could be developed anyway.

Mostly the bit about lying on her side and playing with all four hooves.

[Mockingbirb]

11547076
In my head, I was imagining Twilight sitting Lyra-style. imho, wanting to see what you're typing, and using a technology based on human style typewriter technology but modified, were parts of the challenge.