The Place of Which We Never Speak

by pinkamenapoison

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Rainbow Dash’s arms were closed around to hold me inside, and I was squeezed into the dark of her sweating chest, which was now covered in a new layer of flab. Going around Town Hall’s basement full of ponies, each night we met over and over again: this is Blossomforth, this is Cloudchaser, this is Rainbow Dash; Dash’s colorful mane was uneven and matted, so knotty in places that the colors swirled together. Her arms wrapped tighter around me, her hooves petting the back of my head
“It will be alright,” Dash says. “You cry now.” From my knees to my forehead, I feel every twitch in Rainbow’s body. I feel her stomach growl and her skin move unnaturally with its newly added layer of fat. I feel her sweaty chest rising and falling with every breath; every shallow unwanted breath.
“The doctor’s in Canterlot are great. You said they caught it early, so I’m sure they got it all,” She continued. “Wingrot is almost always survivable if you catch it early.” Dash’s shoulders draw themselves up with a long, deep inhale, then drop, drop, drop in jerking sobs. Draw themselves up; Drop, drop, drop. I’ve been coming here every week for almost a year now; Every week Dash wraps her arms around me, and I cry.
“You cry,” She says and inhales and sob, sob, sobs. “Go on now and cry.”
Her wet face settles down on top of my head, and I am lost inside. This is when I’d cry. Crying just feels right when you’re in the smothering dark, closed inside somepony else, when you see how anything you could possibly accomplish will end up as trash. Anything you’re ever proud of will be thrown away. And I’m lost inside. This is as close I’ve been to sleeping in almost a week. This is how I met Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash cries because 6 months ago, her wings were removed. Since, she’s nearly given up. Her once finely sculpted body now sags with weight that it isn’t used to. The extra pounds look out of place on her tiny frame, but then again so do the long scars running down her back. This is when I’d cry because right now, your life comes down to nothing, and not really even nothing, oblivion. Take away your dreams, and you no longer feel alive…or want to be.
It’s easy to cry when you realize that everypony you love will reject you or die. On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everypony will drop below zero. Dash loves me because she thinks my wings were removed too. Around us in the Town Hall basement with the donated grimy sofas are maybe 20 ponies, all of them clung together in pairs, most of them crying. Some pairs lean forward, their heads touching ear to ear. Some just touch each other’s skin, comforting one another, sobbing. I peek out from under Dash’s fat. My eyes immediately dart to the bright pink mare holding a crying stallion in her arms. Her face twists when she sees me staring. She doesn’t have scars either.
“All my life, I wanted to fly with the Wonderbolts,” Rainbow moans. “And now-I don’t know why I still try to go on living.” Her words are echoing but not really connecting. My eyes are still locked onto the magenta mare in the corner. She knows why I’m staring. It’s like she could read my thoughts. Faker. Faker. Faker. Super curly bright pink mane, her fur a lighter surgary shade, her eyes huge and blue and shimmering. My back was always covered, the nonexistent scars always hidden. I used a special potion that the zebra witch in the Everfree Forest had made for me, it makes my horn disappear. At whatever meeting I'm attending, I'm blending. Just another broken face in the room. She didn't hide anything.She flaunted her falsities for all to see, she wore them like wore medals. The longer I stared, the more familiar she seemed. She was in most of the support groups that I crashed. And she was always out of place.
When you start looking for these groups, they all have vague uplifting names. The blind pony support group was called Seeing It Through. The depression group is called Keep Smiling. And Sunday afternoons at Taking Flight in the basement of Ponyville Town Hall, this mare is here, and I can’t cry with her staring.
This should be my favorite part, being held and crying with Dashie without hope. We all work so hard all the time. This is the only place I can really give up and relax. This is my vacation.

I went to my first support group after I’d gone to my doctor about insomnia, again. Three weeks and I hadn’t slept. Three weeks without sleep, and everything becomes an out of body experience. My doctor said, “Insomnia is just a symptom of something larger. Find out what’s actually wrong. Listen to your body.” I just wanted to sleep. I wanted some pony to cast a sleep spell on me, give me a potion to knock me out for a couple of days. My doctor told me to chew on drowsy root and get more exercise. Eventually, I’d fall asleep. The bruised, old fruit way my face had collapsed, you’d have thought I was dead. My doctor told me if I wanted to see real pain I should swing by the park on Tuesday evenings. Listen in on the group for ponies who have lost their family members; unicorns who have lost their horns; Pegasus who have lost their wings. Watch them grieve and then my problems would seem less extreme. So I went.
The first group I went to, there were introductions: This is Dumb-Bell, this is Drizzle. Everypony smiles forcibly, like they’ll be killed if they don’t. I never give my real name at these meetings. The little skeleton of a mare named Lemony Gem sat sad and empty in the middle of the crowd. Her mane was fixed so that her broken horn couldn’t be seen. She said the worst part of losing her magic was that suddenly she was rejected by her special somepony. That he’d left her the second she was imperfect. All she wanted was to be loved. What are you supposed to say to that? What can you say?
Despite the overwhelming sadness I felt for these broken ponies, the guilt I felt for entering their sanctum crushed me. Needless to say, I didn’t cry at my first meeting. I didn’t cry at my second or third or fourth either. I didn’t cry for the grievers. I couldn’t. This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away. A copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you.
And then there was Rainbow Dash. The first time I went to the wingrot group, Rainbow dash latched onto me and started sobbing. She strutted right across the room when it was hug time. Her eyes glazed with tears. Shuffling her hooves weakly, she slid across the basement floor to heave herself on me. Dash attached herself to me. She wrapped her arms around me. She told me how close she’d been. How the day she had her audition she noticed the discolored patch of flesh. How she’d slowly just wanted to never wake up. Strangers with this kind of honesty make me go all rubbery, if you know what I mean. I watched her sink lower, tears welling up again. I heard her say, “Maybe I was always meant to be a loser,”
Dash showed me pictures of her with Soarin and Spitfire at the Gala. She told me about the Rainboom. “It was a stupid way to live, I guess,” She says, and she’s crying again. “Living in a dream.”
This was all I remember because then Dash was closing in around me with her arms, with her head folding down on mine. Then I was lost in oblivion, dark and silent and complete, and when I finally stepped away from her soft, fatty chest, her fur was a wet mask of how I looked crying. At almost every meeting since, Rainbow Dash had made me cry. I never went back to the doctor. I never chewed the drowsy root. This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom. If I didn’t say anything, people in the group assumed the worst. They cried harder. So did I. Look up into the stars and you’re gone.
Walking home after a group, I felt more alive than I’d ever felt. I didn’t have a missing horn or a rotten wing; I was the little warm center that the life of the world crowded around. And I slept. Fillies don’t sleep this well. Every evening I died, and every morning I am reborn. Resurrected. Until tonight, so much success, until tonight, because I can’t cry with this mare watching me. Because I can’t hit bottom, I can’t be saved. I am biting the inside of my mouth in frustration. I haven’t slept in four days. With her watching, I am a liar. She’s a fake. She’s the liar. At the introductions tonight, we introduced ourselves. I never give my real name.
“This is for wingrot, right?” She asks. When she gets her acknowledgement, she says her name is Pinkie Pie.
I watch her from beneath the sweating flesh. To Pinkie, I’m the fake. Since the second night I saw her, I can’t sleep. Still, I was the first fake, unless, maybe all these ponies are faking with their lesions and coughs and tumors, even Rainbow Dash. No, not Dash. I watch Pinkie roll her eyes as I continue to stare.
In this one moment, Pinkie’s lie reflects my lie, and all I can see are lies. In the middle of all their truth. Everypony clinging and risking to share their worst fear, that their death is coming head on, like the poison is working its way through their veins. The clock is ticking. Well, Pinkie is rolling her big, sparkling blue eyes and I’m buried in a carpet of fat, and all of a sudden I’m in insomnia distance again.
“Dash,” I say. “You’re crushing me.” I try to whisper, then I don’t. “Dash.” I try to keep my voice down, then I’m yelling. “Rainbow Dash, I have to go to the bathroom.” And there I hide for the rest of the meeting. If the pattern holds, I’ll see Pinkie Pie again tomorrow night. And I’ll sit next to her. And after the intros and the guided meditation, after we share our feelings and it comes time to hug, I’ll grab the little bitch. Her arms squeezed tight against her sides, my lips pressed to her ear, I’ll say, Pinkie Pie, you big faker, get out now. This is the one real thing in my life and you’re ruining it. You tourist. The next time we meet, I’ll say, Pinkie, I can’t sleep with you here. I need this. Get out.

Comments

[asmcint]

I cried.

Good work, hope to see more like this.

[pinkamenapoison]

1461885
Thank you. This is my first fic, so I've been stressing about it. Its nice to know its liked. I will have chapter 2 up by the weekend.

[Jon Hoof]

This fic has problems. I can see potential, but the structure of it makes it kinda hard to read.

[pinkamenapoison]

1478341
The way its written is straight from the book. All of Chuck Palahniuk's books are written in a weird, slightly confusing manor. I kinda wanted to keep that sort of writing style going. After re-reading the fic I noticed a few misspellings and grammar mistakes that I intend to fix soon, but the structure is supposed to jump around oddly.