A Collapse

by The Red Parade

This Is Not a Drill

I was looking for you in the garden.

The sound of birds and rustling leaves echoing across the garden, your name gliding across like a rock skipped over water. You were waiting on the bench where we first met, the one beneath the great oak tree. I was impressed that you knew its name, and you were amused that I thought you didn’t.

You wouldn’t know it, but I started paying attention to these kinds of things.

I bought a book from the used bookstore, across from the shop where we had our first date. I would read it in between customers and during downtime at the store. It always smelled of sweets and fresh doughnuts, but the more I read the more I could smell those trees too.

A customer asked about it once. Said it was good reading. He nodded when I mentioned your name, and said that any pony who understood nature was a pony worth knowing.

I remember the way your eyes lit up on our fourth date when I said I tried writing poetry. I confessed that I wasn’t great, because I didn’t know all too many words. And you said that it wasn’t about how many words I knew, but how I used them.

That thought kept me for many nights after.

Your lips pressed against my own. The scent of your cologne that lingered in my room for many nights after.

When I found you, you were waiting under the tree. “Hello, love. You reek of sugar.”

“You love it.”

You smiled and leaned into me, your warmth burning into mine.

Years later, I watched a shooting star pass over the place where we used to live, stars blinking in and out like distant, tiny lights. What were the chances?

“What are the chances?”

“Chances of what?”

“That I’d fall for you.”

I remembered our walks through the park, staring at the clouds. Counting all the birds. Sharing embraces, stealing kisses beneath the moon. The words you said to me that would stick in my head forever after, stronger and more potent than anything I could ever hope to capture.

“Why do you say that?”

Why was the sky blue? Why did I love the way you said my name? Why did things have to end this way? Did good things always give way to bad?

You just smiled, in the same way that enraptured me the first time I saw it. “I thought of you as a pony who kept many secrets, Celestia knows that I do myself.”

“So you’re saying I’m simple?”

“I’m saying you’re open. That’s a good thing. Equestria needs more ponies who don’t clutch their pearls.”

That’s a good thing. You’d say that a lot over the years. You’d say it when I said you worked too hard, draping a blanket over your shoulders as you slouched over at your desk. Smiling in the flicker of candlelight.

When did you fall asleep? Why are there more bad things than good ones?

“Oh, chin up, Joe. You ask too many questions.” You leaned back, patting the seat next to you. “Come, sit. Enjoy the world for a moment. Try not to worry so much about why things are the way that they are.”

“Why should I?”

You laughed. “Of all the ponies in this city, I’ve never met one like you, Joe.”

“And I’ve never met a stallion like you, Marble Black.”

Your name escaped my mouth, diffusing through the trees. Lost to the wind.

I never thought that it could bear such weight. Each time after it would feel heavier. Darker. Losing its substance like a ghost in the daylight.

The heaviest it came was when I spoke it to that guard, who stared out listlessly with a thousand-mile stare.

“Black Marble. His name is Black Marble.”

“<THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC MESSAGE>.”

“What?”

“I’ll let you know if we find something.”

Long after I moved out, I found myself skipping the third stair, the one that’d always creak when you put weight on it. It started as a habit, then became a superstition. I know you never put much faith in those kinds of things.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked you, as we split a plate of greasy fries in a suspect Fillydelphia diner.

You shook your head, dabbing the corners of your mouth with a handkerchief. “I do not.”

“How come?”

“<THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC MESSAGE>.”

The answer kept me up at night. I couldn't remember what it was.

“I have to go to Manehattan next week.”

I sighed. I wish I hadn’t said anything, because I could tell that it upset you.

You frowned. “Joe, I know how much it means to you tomorrow, but I told you. Loving me comes with the job.”

“I know,” I said, but you weren’t convinced.

I hadn’t really thought about it much until it became a problem.

“I’m an appraiser for the Fancy Pants Jewelry Association,” you told me on our first date. “He’s a fine enough fellow, but I do wish he’d provide us with just a little more foresight. I often don’t know where I’m headed until the day before!”

“I run a donut shop.” It felt so plain, so wrong to say, but your eyes lit up just the same.

“Oh, lovely!”

“It’s nothing much.”

“I’ve been trying to get him to rearrange, but I’m not sure if I can without putting my promotion in jeopardy.”

I stared down into the black sludge they called coffee and didn’t answer. “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”

“<THIS IS NOT A DRILL>.”

The first time you left, it nearly caught me off guard. You had left a message so suddenly that I barely had time to make it to the station to wish you well.

But I had a plan for when you returned.

“What’s your favorite so far?”

“The chocolate glazed ones,” you said without hesitation.

“Really?” I smiled. “I’d have thought you’d like the more daring ones.”

“Simplicity is often overlooked,” you replied with a wink.

Every time you returned, I’d have a warm plate ready for you.

But that first night, that first night was the hardest I’d ever worked. Things had to be perfect, nothing less would do. I must have made dozens of batches before settling on one I deemed to be good enough.

I’ll never forget the way your eyes lit up that night.

I was looking for you in the garden. It was raining, the setting sun blocked out by thick gray clouds. Nothing but the sound of falling water to fill the air.

You didn’t show, and I got upset.

“I’m sorry, love.”

“It’s four in the morning, why did he wait until now to tell you?”

You sighed quietly, rummaging through your drawers. “I don’t know, but I can’t tell him now.”

“You can! Just come back to bed.”

“<SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY>.”

“Fine,” I said. “Go, then.”

“<DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR>.”

I was surprised to see you at the store. “Aren’t you meant to be in Manehattan?”

“I spent all night fighting for him to grant me leave,” you said with a frown. “Not that it matters, I see.”

I wish I could’ve seen clearly then. I wish I had kept my mouth shut. “I don’t care. You know how much this meant to me.”

“And you know how hard this would have been for me to make this work!”

“It’s not every day that there’s a Royal Wedding!”

“You’re acting like I didn’t try to make this work!”

“Did you?! Did you really?!”

“<AN ONGOING SITUATION IS DEVELOPING WITHIN CANTERLOT>.”

“<BEWARE OF CREATURES PRETENDING BE PONIES>.”

Words blur, thoughts fade. Crossed out like notes in the margin. I don’t remember much of it. I only know how hurt you were, and how you slowly turned to leave.

No more birdsong. No more wind. Just a distant ringing, and the cutting of music from the radio to a dull, constant tone.

A flash of light and it was over.

I was looking for you in the wreckage, covered in debris and dust. The store turned into a derelict warzone. Sirens ringing outside. The only response to a call was the ringing in my ears, the shouting in the streets.

Neither of us should have been there then. I should have been at the palace, ready to serve the wedding patrons. You should have been cities away, working on sealing one more deal for Fancy Pants.

I remember the last sad smile you gave me before you ducked away, lost to the throng of the train station crowd.

I saw you lying there, crumpled on the floor. The smell of blood and smoke hanging in the air.

“<THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC MESSAGE FROM THE ROYAL GUARD EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION SYSTEM>.”

You didn’t answer to the cry.

Shapes moved past, my eyes blurring as my throat tensed up. I don’t know how long it was before a young guard seized me, panic in his eyes. Tearing me away from you.

“<AN ONGOING SITUATION IS DEVELOPING WITHIN CANTERLOT, UNITS ARE RESPONDING. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY>.”

I tried to fight him, to get to where you lay. “<DO NOT GO OUTSIDE. DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR. BEWARE OF CREATURES PRETENDING TO BE PONIES>.”

He dragged me down the street, littered with ponies that looked like you, laying still on the street. “<THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL>.”

I was looking for you in the garden.

The tree we met under was gone: nothing more than a smoldering trunk. The birds have all flown away. In their absence I can only hear a distant ringing. Sirens, screams and cries in the distance.

The only response to a call was silence. A city still healing from what it had seen. A hundred questions hanging in the air.

How could this have happened? When would the bleeding stop? How can we remember what we lost?

How can I ever trust anyone I ever see again?

Visions creep at the corner of my mind. A shut hospital door. A blanket draped over a bed. A still and silent heart monitor.

I still don’t know what happened. I went back to the store to find a pile of rubble waiting for me.

The place where we went on our first date is gone now. It’s been replaced with a flower store. My store, the book of trees, everything. The memories haunt me, pulling me from my sleep in tears. I claw and reach for your body, but it isn’t there.

The years have passed all the same. I don’t remember any of them.

It hurts to think about. The memories come in a rush, shattered and disjointed. Scenes flashing by in a random order.

How do we move on from what weighs us down? How do you condense a story of love that ended in an awful way, in a few thousand words? Why am I here, and you aren’t?

I was looking for you in the garden.

I didn’t know what I was expecting back then, so I took the first bench I saw, too fearful to do anything else, until I heard your voice. “Hello. Are you Joseph?”

“Call me Joe. Are you Black Marble?”

You smiled, and it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. “<DO NOT GO OUTSIDE. DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR>.”

“The honor’s all mine. Um… shall we go somewhere?”

“<THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL>.”

Comments

[dertoxbraid]

this is brilliant. the quality of writing is just spectacular. i can’t convey in plain text the emotions this piece has made me feel.

The place where we went on our first date is gone now. It’s been replaced with a flower store. My store, the book of trees, everything. The memories haunt me, pulling me from my sleep in tears. I claw and reach for your body, but it isn’t there.

heartbreaking…

Hello. Are you Joseph?

did this happen years after the Canterlot invasion?

[SigmasonicX]

This was a nice story. Interesting how the changeling invasion was integrated, and that resolution is intriguing too. If this is after the changelings turned good, then I wonder how common these replacements have become.

[VioletsInSpring]

11446635
I think that's a very valid interpretation, but I think the story is more about the confusion of having to deal with the memory of your loved one killed in a violent attack that you can sort of blame yourself for, but no one else will. The guilt can become destructive in the sense that you might never feel like you've "paid your due" as it were. In the story, I don't think Joe is at all responsible for Black Marble's death, but it's the kind of situation you can when you're thinking about all the things you could've done to avoid the tragedy. I read the end of the story as Joe remembering both he and Black Marble's meeting and the tragedy itself interlacing within his memories. As Joe puts it:

It hurts to think about. The memories come in a rush, shattered and disjointed. Scenes flashing by in a random order.

Joe's trying to remember the good things he can about Black Marble, but they're all mixed up with how he feels about Black Marble's death. Sort of like how when you remember a loved one that's died you might remember the good, but it's mixed with a twinge of sadness. I also don't think Pony Joe's gotten over the death in any meaningful way, which I think heightens this problem.

The whole story is about him reminiscing on these moments but the intrusive PSAs of the Canterlot attack are intruding into the mouths of the ponies he talked to. In one case, I think it's happening within the memory, namely the one where he's talking to the guard about Black Marble. In general, though, those announcements are symbolic of how some of the memory has started to actually fade, as well as how the joyous emotions have become tainted with this inextricable sense of loss.

But, that's just my interpretation of the text

[Bicyclette]

well this one is certainly a thinker! 

It hurts to think about. The memories come in a rush, shattered and disjointed. Scenes flashing by in a random order.

How do we move on from what weighs us down? How do you condense a story of love that ended in an awful way, in a few thousand words? Why am I here, and you aren’t?

this feels like the key to the whole thing to me. there is a collapse here: of the linearity of time, of the distinction between what was once thought true and what turned out to be true. this captures what it feels like to hold too much of a story in my head at once, and i’m not talking about a story like a movie or a novel but a story of what someone or something important means to me. fleeting impressions of events, competing and conflicting perspectives, all spilling out at once and over each other and resistant to the work and reduction it takes to hammer all of that down into something coherent to communicate to someone not in your head. 

(of course, in the course of normal life one does not often try to compress the entire story of the meaning of someone into a single moment of thought. but a traumatic loss is great at forcing such things.)

this inversion of the deuteragonist’s name:

“And I’ve never met a stallion like you, Marble Black.”

Your name escaped my mouth, diffusing through the trees. Lost to the wind.

I never thought that it could bear such weight. Each time after it would feel heavier. Darker. Losing its substance like a ghost in the daylight.

The heaviest it came was when I spoke it to that guard, who stared out listlessly with a thousand-mile stare.

“Black Marble. His name is Black Marble.”

and the repetition of 

I was looking for you in the garden.

joining the last section of the story to the first, feel like they really fit that theme. and my favorite part was the tragic absurdity of this scene in particular:

He dragged me down the street, littered with ponies that looked like you, laying still on the street. “<THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL>.”

[Vivid Syntax]

Really incredible work here. You did an excellent job of capturing the torrent of confused emotions that stem from a powerful experience like this. There was a very natural through-line where every thought felt like it led naturally into the next at any individual moment, even though the whole recollection is very fractured. Lots of love went into this story, clearly.

Much like Joe, I imagine I'll revisit this scene many times. Very well done, and congrats on placing in the contest!

[The Red Parade]

11523723

Hey thanks! Funny enough your Sensation story was one of the first ones I ever read on FimFic so it's funny to see things come full circle haha

[Vivid Syntax]

11524775
That's awesome! I hope you enjoyed it (and the current sequel, if you're into that sort of thing), and I can't wait to read more of your stuff!