A Quiet Friday Night
Lyra Heartstrings sat in front of her computer, staring blankly at the screens she was perusing. Another episode of Two Best Friends Play, uninspired reposts from Tumblr, more arguing on the internet between two ponies who both came off as idiots, another day. With a sigh, she opened her email and browsed to see if anything needed to be sent to the spam folder. Spying several offenders, she sent them to the electronic purgatory of the internet. Sometimes this was the highlight of her day and Lyra liked to pretend she was some kind of goddess who smote the sinful.
It sadly was over too soon.
As the unicorn leaned back and glanced at the clock, it only read about 5: 20. Much too early for bed and Bon-Bon was out in Canterlot for a few days so she had the house to herself. It was strangely quiet and she had resigned herself to a quiet weekend. She pulled up Wikipedia and began absent-mindedly reading a random article just to cure her boredom. One article lead to another and eventually Lyra found herself reading a hypothesis on unicorns being able to swap bodies by combining magic. She shook her head and blinked, feeling her eyes itch. Rubbing at them slowly, she pushed herself away from the screen and headed to the kitchen to get a drink of water.
She glanced at her game system that was tucked underneath the television. Setting her glass aside, Lyra picked up a case and eyed the shadowy silhouette on the cover, the equine figure cast in shadow. After a few moments of deliberating, she decided against playing Dark Souls again. Bon-Bon hadn’t appreciated her last outburst of rage and torrent of obscenities being hurled at the game and had given her a disapproving stare. While her friend wasn’t there, Lyra still felt guilty about almost breaking the glass table when she kicked it during the rage quitting.
With a quick glance at the cover again, she replaced the case on its shelf before picking up her glass of water and returning to her room with it. A small chirp from her speakers told her that there was somepony who wished to speak with her. Opening the blinking window, Lyra was unsurprised to see Vinyl had messaged her. Reading her response, she quickly began typing.
[5:28:41 PM] V.Scratch: Hey what’s up?
[5:28:52 PM] Lyra: Not much. Mostly just browsing the internet.
[5:29:02 PM] Lyra: Kind of bored really.
[5:30:25 PM] V. Scratch: Sorry. If I weren’t in Manehatten, I’d pick you up and take you somewhere fun.
[5:30:36 PM] V. Scratch: BRB PIZZA’S HERE
[5:30:42 PM] Lyra: Don’t you have to work tonight??
[5:31:21 PM] V. Scratch: Nope, took the night off to surprise Octavia when she gets back from her concert.
[5:32:45 PM] Lyra: What kind of pizza did you get?
[5:33:15 PM] V. Scratch: Extra cheeeeeese <3
[5:33: 18 PM] Lyra: Nice.
[5:34:07 PM] V. Scratch: Oh dammit, I forgot to put the clothes in the washing machine. I’ll brb.
[5:34:12 PM] Lyra: Ok, I’ll just be looking at videos.
Lyra minimized her chat window and restarted her cycle of across the internet, playing some music in the background. Same videos, a cute cat picture, etc. As she continued her search, the unicorn remembered the comic she hadn’t checked on in a few weeks and excitedly typed up the address. Just as she reached the page and began reading it earnestly, her minimized window chirped and Lyra opened it up with a hint of bitterness. She began responding, trying to keep her slight frustration away from her conversation.
[5:37:16 PM] V. Scratch: Sorry bout that.
[5:37:23 PM} Lyra: Eh its fine. You weren’t gone that long.
[5:38:30: PM] V. Scratch: So you want to talk more about the project? I know we’ve both been busy lately but maybe now is a good time to talk about it?
Lyra sighed and rubbed her temples, trying to stave off a headache before replying.
[5:39:12 PM] Lyra: Vinyl, I’ll be there in less than two weeks. I’m sure there will be plenty of time to work on it then, ok? It’s a Friday night and I just want to relax.
[5:40:23 PM] V. Scratch: okay. I’ll just eat my pizza then.
[5:41:15 PM] Lyra: Alright.
Minimizing the window, Lyra returned to her comic and began reading it eagerly. It had long since gone downhill in the storytelling relying too much on flashbacks and extremely large pictures of the battle ensuing but she read it still out of habit. After a scant 15 pages, the chapter ended and she felt herself frown. Shaking her head in confusion, she turned back to her chat with Vinyl and began typing out something before changing her mind and closing it once more.
Lyra decided to check the fanfiction stories other ponies had written. She looked at the triple digit number of chapters she had left to read and she sighed, not wanting to force herself to read. Still, it was over two hundred chapters… Maybe it was a good idea to pick her favorite one and read some…
She quickly chose one at random and began to read, sipping her drink as she did so. Scrolling slowly down the popular fan-pairing fic, she could almost hear them speaking and just as one of the characters leaned in to kiss the other…
Her Skype chirped.
With a barely contained growl of rage, she switched back to the chat and was about to snap at Vinyl when she realized it wasn’t her. Scrolling through her contacts, she clicked on the glowing name and took a deep breath to calm herself before responding.
[5:54:26 PM] Ditzy the Muffin Mare: Hey Lyra.
[5:54:31 PM] Lyra: Hey, Ditzy. How are you doing?
[5:55:20 PM] Ditzy the Muffin Mare: I just got home from work.
[5:56: 33 PM] Lyra: Long day?
[5:58:43 PM] Ditzy the Muffin Mare: Yeah…
[5:59:41 PM] Ditzy the Muffin Mare: Today was the last day of the month and everypony had things to ship. So now my back and legs hurt.
[6:00:12 PM] Lyra: Oh, I’m sorry Ditzy. Are you okay?
[6:01:21 PM] Ditzy the Muffin Mare: Yeah, I’ll be okay. I’m just going to get some dinner and then lay in bed with my computer to look at puppies.
[6:01:35 PM] Lyra: Well, if you want to talk, I’m here.
[6:02:23 PM] Ditzy the Muffin Mare: Thanks.
Lyra returned to her fanfiction and after a few more minutes, successfully finished it without any interruptions. She got up again to get a snack and heard her computer chirp, but she decided it could wait until she got back. After pouring popcorn into her hot-air popcorn machine, she bounced back to her room simply because she could. Seating at her comfortable chair, she popped open the window and read the message.
[6:04:31 PM] Ditzy the Muffin Mare: Thanks for being my friend, Lyra.
[6:04:42 PM] Lyra: Aw, you’re welcome. Thanks for being my friend too.
Lyra waited a few minutes for a reply but there wasn’t even a notification of her typing so she decided to draw for a bit. Plugging her tablet into her computer, Lyra lifted her pen and began scribbling to test out the cursor. As she sketched and hummed to herself, Lyra slowly became more and more frustrated with her drawing before she closed the program angrily. She looked at her open fan-fiction tab and decided to check for any new views on her story. Thirty seconds later, she felt discouraged by all the porn that was in the featured box. One of her favorite fanfics was inspired off a certain game and had the mature tag so she needed it on in order to see updates. She felt bad that a lot of talented writers she read from never ended up getting up on the featured box.
Opening a new document, Lyra began typing quickly:
Sometimes, we try really hard to do something meaningful and then there are those who manage to barely try yet accomplish whatever they set out to do. While I understand life is rarely, if ever, fair and that it is hopelessly naïve to wish for such a thing, I find it sad that so many have such a desire for fame or recognition that once they find somepony in a position of being noticed, they try to strive to recreate it or end up being inspired and then end up losing interest so quickly. Why is that everypony tries so hard? What’s the point in trying so hard to get attention? Are our lives so empty and meaningless that we seek out attention from complete strangers when we should only worry about whether we are happy with ourselves?
When we seek out something so hard, it tries so much harder to evade our grasp. I remember a saying I heard as a foal: happiness is like a butterfly. Difficult to capture but when you turn your attention upon other matters, it may come and land upon your shoulder. Perhaps we should focus more on what makes us happy. If nopony likes our story or us, who cares? So long as the ones I love care to be around me, I don’t need the approval of anypony else.
She glanced at the chat window with Ditzy and smiled.
I just need my friends and my family to be truly happy.
Everything else will come naturally.
Lyra saved her journal closed it with a yawn. She glanced at her clock.
6:27 PM.
She quickly typed up to Vinyl.
[6:27:36 PM] Lyra: Hey Vinyl?
[6:27: 45 PM] V.Scratch: Yo?
[6:28:11 PM] Lyra: Feel like working on the project for a bit?
[6:28:30 PM] V.Scratch: Sure, let me just grab my microphone so we can start brainstorming ideas?
[6:28:47 PM] Lyra: Good idea.
As she waited for Vinyl, she typed up a message to Ditzy.
[6:28:53 PM] Lyra: You still awake, Ditzy?
[6:29:23 PM] Ditzy the Muffin Mare: Getting ready for bed.
[6:30:31 PM] Ditzy the Muffin Mare: Want to bake tomorrow?
[6:30:43 PM] Lyra: You got it!
Leaning back in her chair, she briefly reflected on how lucky she was. She had great friends, a wonderful marefriend, a roof over her head and food in the fridge.
It could be worse.
It could always be much worse.