Equestria Suicide Hotline

by SoHo

Pinchy

A few days after, I was on my way to aunt Berry’s mansion. She was very rich. And very drunk. And I’m pretty confident she was as rich as she was drunk. Meaning that after you took a look at her bank accounts, just thinking of her liver would send shivers down your spine.
She sent me a telegram the day before, saying I’d have to call on her today at twelve for dinner. She always sent telegrams, no matter whom, no matter what.

“Dear nephew- Hic – I must speak to you urgently –Hic - let’s eat together tomorrow …”

I was always happy seeing the tiny square of paper in my mailbox. What she ended up telling me was never urgent, even though her telegrams always said so.
But she lost all notion of time long ago, anyway. Sometimes she’d just stop by the giant mirror in her hallway and whisper something like “Time goes fast, even when you have no memory”. And then she’d down one. Maybe so she could forget her life was ending one minute at a time and she was old and ugly and wrinkled. Or that her memory went missing. Or maybe it just felt good to down one.

Probably all of the above.

I can clearly remember the first time I saw Berry drunk. It was at my 8th birthday party. She liked playing the comedian for her friends or family. She was good at mimicking stuff, mostly Royal family, but sometimes animals too, like squirrels or a Siamese cats in heat.
Have you ever heard a Siamese cat in heat, Mr. Suicide Hotline Pony? Sounds like a manticore raping a violin.

Back at my birthday party, we were all lying in front of her and she wasn’t seeing us. Then she suddenly caught her breath and threw up everything her stomach could hold. And judging by the color and the smell, it was more than just cake and lemonade.

To comfort me, I was told Berry had been sick. An upset stomach. But I knew it was a lie, because after having ruined her whole carpet, she burst into laughter and sang “Happy birthday, my little virgin”. And after puking, ponies aren’t usually that cheerful.
From that day she was always dead drunk to me. And she seemed too old to stop. Being drunk was her everyday life. Even her dreams reeked of alcohol.

Anyway, I found her by the fireplace, her cheek softly resting on one of her front legs, as if she was trying to be classy even though she naturally was. Above the fireplace, a rococo mirror reflected her back, her neck and her purple mane.

“I’ll have my liver scrubbed out somewhere in Canterlot, in a rehab center … Sober is how I want to die, my nephew … I don’t want to die staggering … I don’t want to take the grim reaper for a delirium tremens …”

So Berry was thinking about her death, purgatory, big empty hallway and mystic light. The old mare apparently wasn’t feeling too good and I guess that’s why I was here. But I couldn’t be mad at her. Family is family.
She never felt concerned about this before. Once time disappears, you achieve some kind of immortality. And when something serious happened, like her heart attack twelve years ago, she’d just say a little prayer and promise “Never again”.
And in the evening, feeling protected, saved by divine providence, she’d drink to her own heart, still tired from stopping a few hours earlier. And when the doctors asked her to stop drinking, begged her to stop drinking, she’d just say they only had to invent a drink that wouldn’t harm her health.

“So when are you going, Auntie?”
“In two days … that’s why I’m a bit in a hurry … You know Pinchy?”
“Your daughter”

And my cousin. We didn’t talk much. No wonder since we never met. She was born nine or ten years ago from an unknown father and kept away from the family. Berry’s shameful secret. The first time I was told about her, I immediately pictured her pink with black stripes.

“I can’t take her to Canterlot, those bastards at the clinic don’t allow it … and I don’t want her to be alone here … This house can be so empty sometimes … You know foal kill themselves too … They call it an accident but I know they’re wrong, they die of loneliness … So there’s something I’d like you to do …”

Of course, I knew exactly what she was going to ask, but I liked looking dumber than I was so I said “What is it?”

“Take care of her while I’m gone … She needs some attention and you’re family, I don’t trust the servants, or the gardener, I caught him giving her dirty looks … I knew you can give her all the kindness she needs … You’ll take her to the countryside, sing her lullabies … She’s at a special school for unicorns so you’ll only have to look after her on Sundays … But you won’t ever leave her alone … Am I right?”

Yeah, yeah, whatever.

I’ve never had children and wasn’t planning on it but she didn’t seem to mind. Which made sense since she probably made this decision between two bottles. I didn’t want to upset her so I just smiled and nodded.

The truth was the last time I went near a foal, he was almost killed. By the way, please don’t call the police; I’m not the one who did it. That particular day my friends hung him from a tree by his rear legs and used him as a buck bag because he was fat and ugly and always alone. My friends were bastards, but bastards always seem happy the way they live, or at least keep their problems for themselves, hence me hanging out with them. I wasn’t there at the time and I found them all excited and drunk from the cider one of them stole from his father, so I lied down and drank too, watching the foal flying back and forth and crying until he had no tears left. At some point he wet himself and piss splashed all over the place and we all laughed out loud, protecting our faces with our hooves, then he stopped moving so it didn’t take long before my friends were bored and left me alone under the tree. Well, almost alone.

Anyway, they soon forgot about the foal. The only difference between my friends and I was nobody told my friends hanging foals was bad.

But that, I couldn’t tell Berry.

Before I left and after a hundred of do’s and thousands of don’ts, Berry called a unicorn servant to sign a check for me. She’d be gone for 3 months and said 50000 bits “should be enough to cover the expenses”.

Yes, you heard right. Fifty grands. I mean, what in Tarnation was she expecting me to buy? Truffle soups for breakfast, caviar sandwiches for dinner? She said I could take Pinchy to the beach so she could make sandcastles and all. No shit I would go the beach, I would even go the day after.

So this servant flew the check toward me and I was shaking so much he had to try three times before finally managing to slip it in my saddle pocket. Then Berry whistled and Pinchy came down the stairs.

In the end, the small unicorn brat wasn’t striped or anything but she definitely had a dumb, ugly zebra face: big eyes, big lips, and big muzzle. Even worse, this and her smallish pink body made her look like a living, walking aborted fetus. Apparently, pregnancy wasn’t good enough of a reason for Berry to stop drinking. Call me a liar, Mr. Suicide Hotline Pony, but I swear it took me weeks to realize she wasn’t retarded.

Pinchy hopped by her mother’s side and nuzzled her fur, staring at me with her huge round eyes. I tried to smile, and said something like “Hello, I’m your cousin, nice to meet you, I really like your mane”.

She didn’t reply and kept staring, and I felt a bit uncomfortable so I pretended to look at the fireplace while Berry tenderly and patiently explained everything to the silent unicorn. And when she told her about me and our soon-to-be cohabitation, I stupidly smiled to her, trying to make a good first impression. I forgot everything about my dignity, and couldn’t stop thinking about the check. My dignity belonged to me, after all. I could deal with it later. I would apologize to it on a beach, in front of a turquoise blue sea. My dignity and I both liked sunbathing and not actually doing shit.

Berry rose from her hooves and, grabbing her daughter by the skin of her neck, carefully dropped her on my lap. As far as I’m concerned, I knew there would be no problem. She could shit on me that I would keep smiling. But the damn brat saw things differently, and she started wailing and whining, and I couldn’t help but notice her teeth were whiter than mine.
Berry gritted her teeth and gave me a worried look. Pinchy tried to bite my leg. And I thought about my check and felt like each tear made the zeros behind the 5 disappear, one by one. So I reacted. Without any fuss, I calmly but firmly grabbed her by the waist, and with my free hoof, gave her one spank, two spanks, three spanks.

And that shut her up good. Like it did to me before.

Anyway, my hoof instantly reassured everybody. Berry gave a confident smile. Pinchy clenched her jaw. And the zeros all reappeared like stars in a stormy sky.

So we worked out the last details about foal-sitting and we all felt ready in no time. Berry was slightly disturbed, seeing how much her offspring loved me.

“No good bye hugs for mommy? You naughty, cutie, silly filly …”

I went back home on coach. Pinchy fell asleep and since I knew right away the driver would bug me with his life, I closed my eyes and tried to do the same. And even though I overslept this morning, there was no way it would stop me from sleeping like a log.

The coach took me to the grocery shop and I went in to buy some kid stuff. For the first time ever, I picked a toothbrush: unicorns love these things, it makes them feel privileged. Damn useless hooves. Then I picked a spare blanket, a basket for her to sleep in and a few books with nice-looking pictures, and I went to the checkout.

In the waiting line, I made my daily review on the dreams I had last night.

I could only remember one, which won the “Best Dream Prize” in my night festival since it was the only one who managed to leave its mark on my mind, like a movie you would clearly remember the day after you saw it.

The scene took place in an industrial park, the kind you see everywhere in Manehattan.
Through the window of a café I spent the night in, I recognized a stallion I didn’t really know but I was used to see for whatever reason. I guess you could call him a symbol. A rather unpleasant embodiment of a rather unpleasant feeling I had. It was as if my soul knew him by heart but my eyes didn’t. And that day, my soul had introduced him to my eyes.
This middle-aged pony was real classy. He stood straight but was limping a bit.

So I left the café and went to meet him.
“I know you, my mind says you’re Death.” I said.

“You mind is sick, my friend. Cure him, and then it’ll tell you I’m actually Life.”

I kept my mouth shut for two minutes and then said:

“I only trust my mind, prove me you aren’t Death and I promise I’ll have it cured.”

The stallion didn’t say anything. He turned around and watched two young ponies setting fire to cardboard boxes in a factory whose chimneys continuously spat thick smoke, dark as night. Then he turned back to me, and smiled like a foal about to do something stupid, before running like hell to the factory and rushing into the flames.

The two ponies mouths hung wide open, and they looked at me and cried in unison : “We saw him burn, he was alive, more alive than your mind could ever be … We saw him burn and embrace the night…”

Anyway it was my turn to pay, and the pony behind the cash register shouted and pulled me back to reality.

All things considered, this dream is really dumb. So I guess I’m not cleverer when I’m sleeping. You know, Mr. Suicide Hotline Pony, I kind of wish I was a genius in my dreams. At least it would give my daytime stupidity some rest.

Comments

[xZFluttershyZx]

Amazing! So much tone! So much voice!

I think I'm hooked

[that1dude]

Dude...

All I can say is...

Moar.