A Better World
Edward Gustavus Lorde, known by many by his nickname, Ed G, sulked downward as he entered into a Starbucks. Before going inside, he sneered at an infant who dared to grow inside his mother’s womb and be born like the selfish shit that it was. He grumbled as he waited in the long line, fantasizing over how short the line would be if every other human on the planet was eradicated due to their selfish ways that they were clearly all personally responsible for.
Finally, after two agonizing minutes, he made his way to the counter and the perky barisita behind it at the register. “Hello, welcome to Starbucks!” she chirped, ignorant of all the suffering she was inflicting on the world. “What can I get started for you?”
“I’ll tell you what you can start!” Ed G had begun talking. He clearly had this all in his head before he came in. “You can start by single-handedly ending all hunger in Africa and ending all wars going on in the Middle East!”
The happy smile of the barista faded into a long, stretched-out frown, looking off to the side for anyone that could help her out. “Uh… we just make coffee here, sir.”
“GOD DAMMIT!” He slammed his fists on the table. “You humans are all so selfish! Can’t do a thing to help your fellow person! You all deserve a slow and painful demise!”
He then ran out of the store, lamenting and weeping over the downfall of human decency. The girl, frozen in shock, suddenly felt her Apple Watch buzz on her wrist, looking at it to see that her earlier $100 deposit that day toward the ALSA was successful.
Stingy cunt.
Ed G then sat at his laptop on the desk in his bedroom, unable to help himself as he perused the internet of the worst humanity had to offer. He found a picture of a 2005 Nissan Altima and a young teenaged girl who excitedly posed beside her new gift on her driveway. It was disgusting. Disgusting for her to drive a car that would fry the atmosphere the moment she turned it on, and disgusting for her parents to not give the car to the homeless man who lived two towns away instead.
He then squirmed as he saw a dog cuddled snugly against a smiling middle-aged male on their clean, well-made bed. Clearly, the dog was submissive to his evidently physically abusive owner. He then spotted a trailer to the film Hacksaw Ridge, a movie wholly about the glorification of war and the act of humans killing each other for sport.
It was as Andrew Garfield carried the wounded body of a fellow human that did not deserve salvation that he finally slammed his laptop down, throwing himself face up onto his bed and looking up at the ceiling.
This world was suffering. He was suffering on it. Existence was too painful to have to bear the torture of sharing the world with such filthy animals. Clasping his hands on his chest, he took a deep breath as he prepared his thoughts.
“Dear God…” he whispered softly. “If you can hear me… first… fuck you for creating humans and letting them destroy the once-beautiful world you created. Second of all, I want nothing more than for humans to learn the errors of their ways. If you could be sure to kill off every other human on planet in the most gruesome, hellish way imaginable, maybe you’ll earn my respect… until then…”
Ed G’s troubled mind finally wandered off to sleep, the sounds of burning flesh and cries of agony filling his heart with peace.
Ed G opened his eyes to find himself and his pajamas suspended in a void of swirling turquoise and silver. It was like floating in the middle of a lake, though his body was neither cold nor wet. What he did feel, though, was conscious. His surroundings were far too dreamlike, though he felt it all as though he were awake.
“Where… am I?” he asked out into the abyss.
“You’re in a safe space,” a gentle ethereal voice cooed behind him.
Spinning his body around with surprising ease, he looked to find none other than a pure-white alicorn adorned with golden jewelry approaching him.
Ed G shifted backwards in initial fright, making the alicorn giggle. “Relax, young one. I am Princess Celestia, ruler of the distant land of Equestria. And who might you be?”
Could this be it? he thought. Could I really be serving as the ambassador for my species with an alien race already far superior to his own?
It was too good to pass up, and he pulled his chest a bit forward. “My name is Edward Gustavus Lorde, but most people call me Ed G.”
“Why would they call you edgy?” she chortled.
“No, Ed. G. My initials.”
“Oh! My apologies, Ed G. The reason I have brought you here is that I heard great distress from your realm, so much so that it made its way over to my world. What must be troubling you so that you exert such palpable hurting?”
Ed G began to cry loudly, both in immense sadness and joy, though Princess Celestia refused to yield and hear the poor creature out. “My kind… my species… is doomed!” Celestia let out a gasp, though continued to listen. “Humans are destroying themselves, the creatures that walk the earth, and the very earth we walk on! It will only be a matter of time before they all but destroy themselves!”
“Goodness me!” she breathed. “Just what are these humans doing?”
“It’s horrible! They kill each other in the streets and on the battlefields they made, they abuse the ones they love, they allow the poor and weak to starve and die, they even purposely destroy forests so they can poison the very air we breathe!”
The color and light in Celestia’s faded, traumatized by the very acts of which Ed G spoke of. “That does indeed… sound terrible. Ed G, it would be my greatest honor to help rid your world of such suffering and bring peace to it.”
“Yes!” Ed G bounded at Celestia and wrapped his arms around her neck in a tight hug. “You can’t let them win! You have to beat them!”
“I will do everything in my power to see that this plague is eradicated. Now go, my friend. Go and await the dawn of a better world!”
“My… friend?” As Ed G let the words ring in his ears like a chorus of cathedral bells, he felt his vision growing warm and bright. He had never heard the words before…
Ed G’s eyes shot open, and the first thing he did was spring out of his bed and turn on his TV. His stomach lurched as the screen booted up. Finally, the vision of a news anchor popped on, and beside her was a picture of several sky-blue portals that had appeared over the Washington D.C. with the headline on the lower-third reading “Alien Race Makes Contact with Earth – Meeting of Leaders Imminent!”
Ed G squealed with joy. Celestia had indeed kept her promise, and the well-deserved reckoning of mankind was finally upon itself. His eyes remained glued to the television as the US President awaited on the runway of the Andrews Air Force Base with several military vehicles and hundreds of armed guards, soldiers, and policemen.
Ed G laughed hard; he couldn’t believe the stupidity of the humans. “You brought guns to a magic fight?! Celestia is going to destroy you fools!”
Finally, a chariot containing Celestia and an entourage of pegasi guards landed on the runway and rode Celestia up to the president, his wife, and the members of his cabinet minus he Vice President. Once the chariot had stopped, the president began to approach Celestia and Celestia stepped off her chariot to approach him.
Ed G began to look a little nervous; both at the spear-armed equine guards who refused to engage with the primitive apes and their guns, and the humans who refused to fire at will as he expected. Once the president and princess were inches from each other, he kept intent watch; perhaps she was waiting to get close to assassinate him from a closer distance.
“Greetings,” the president spoke, “I am the leader of this country.”
“And I am the ruler of mine,” Celestia warmly responded in kind. “I have observed your world for not too long and am rather dismayed by what I’ve seen.”
“That’s why I have to destroy you all!” Ed G just waited for the lines that he was certain would come.
“Yes,” the president somberly replied. “Our world is not quite up to the standards we would like it to be. Have you come to help us?”
“Nope!” Ed G’s voice could not be a higher pitch.
Celestia frowned, much to Ed G’s anticipation, but was shattered to suddenly see her smile to the leader. “I have. There is much work to be done, but together, I believe we can build a better brighter world.”
Ed G felt his joy sink down into his feet and virtually drain to the floor as the president shook the alicorn princess’s hoof. The cheers he heard from the crowds that gathered around felt like screaming in his soul. No. This had to be some kind of sick joke. Fumbling with the remote, he changed the channel, only to be dismayed with another frightening image.
On another news station, the headline was different: “US Government and Alien Equine Race Band Together for World Peace.”
No. This couldn’t be! This news must have been fake!
Ed G let the remote fall to the floor as he bolted from his room and outside, unable to believe the world he was living in.
He ran through the streets of his city, watching in shock as pegasi flew down from the clouds and unicorns poofed onto the sidewalks before shocked passersby. Doubt now clouded his mind. Maybe he’d get to see these humans receive the punishment they all deserved. Instead, he saw as a pegasus and a nearby jogger hugged one another and a unicorn receive an embrace around the neck from a young girl with her parents.
Ed G pulled his hair at the sight. These humans didn’t deserve love! They deserved death!
He then saw the lights of a cop car in the distance. Finally! Something to prove the blight that all humans were! Running to the lights and turning the corner, he saw as a cop was engaged with a shootout with two dark-skinned young men hiding in an alley. Another unicorn ran around the corner and stopped beside Ed G.
“What’s going on?!” she asked.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Ed G cried in rapture. “Look at those bad people shooting at each other! You have to stop them!”
“Okay!”
The unicorn ran into the crossfire with her horn charged and immediately, several bullets from the guns of the men and police officer stopped inches from her body, suspended in the air. Frightened, the cops and ponies both dropped their weapons and put their hands up in surrender. This was it! She finally saw the light.
“Yes!” Ed G purred. “YES!”
Dropping the bullets to the street, she picked up all three men and carried her closer to her, allowing her to wrap her arms around them in a large group embrace.
“You shouldn’t be fighting!” she said. “You have your whole lives ahead of you!”
The two thugs looked guiltily to the ground. “Man, I’m sorry!” one of them said. “I’m just having trouble feeding my family!”
“Oh, you poor thing! Here!” The unicorn charged her horn, and three small sacks of money fell into the hands of the two gang members and policemen.
The second thug peered into the bag, his eyes shooting open. “Oh, shit! Is this real gold?”
“It sure is! But, I mean, it’s only like ten bits. No big deal, really!”
“This is incredible!” The cop said. “Now I’ll be able to put my daughter through college!”
“Hey,” the first former-thug said, “how’s about we get some drinks. On me!”
The four motley friends all laughed and walked side by side to the nearest bar, the two former-thugs dropping their guns to the street. Ed G was furious! How could she befriend such violent monsters instead of killing them peacefully?
He ran up and picked both guns up looking at them ruefully. He could tell that these ponies had been poisoned by the humans’ influence. If they weren’t going to save humanity from themselves, then he’d have to be the one.
Ed G pushed his way through the crowds gathered at the Capitol Building, weaving his way through humans and ponies alike. Standing at the top of the steps, Princess Celestia and the president were already in the middle of a huge speech.
“All across the country,” he continued, “crime rates have been dropping to record lows in nearly every state, every city, every town!” The crowds were cheering at the dystopia these ponies were foolishly creating. “Even across the globe, earth ponies and pegasi are helping plant crops to fight famine and controlling rains to end their droughts and provide clean drinking water!”
Ed G couldn’t bear to hear much longer. They didn’t need food and water. They needed pain and misery! He was finally getting close to the front, his newly-acquired guns hidden in his sweatpants waistband.
“And with the help of magic,” the president stated, “we’ve been making progress in science and medicine that will save billions of lives and produce hundreds, if not, thousands of breakthroughs in technology in the next few years alone!”
“Stop…” he was in the last five rows where it was most congested.
“And with their surplus of gold and precious jewels,” he said, “the economy will flourish, ensuring prosperity for every working class citizen!”
“No…” He fought an arm out through the front.
“And with the love and friendship they’ve been providing for all of us,” he concluded, “we have been able to attain peace and diplomacy with other foreign nations, as well as our brothers and sisters here at home, and we will continue to see to the peace and diplomacy between human and ponykind forever!”
“STOP!” Ed G finally broke through, smashing the back of the skull of one of the crowd members swinging his gun around. He fired wildly at the president and Celestia, only for their bullets to also be easily caught by several of the unicorn guards there.
Several human agents pulled their guns out and fired, filling Ed G’s body with lead and his organs with blood. As he was thrown to his back, the sounds of screams all around him, the agents approached to ensure they had successfully finished him.
Ed G dropped his guns, knowing his time on this wretched planet was done, but was certain his death would prove an example for the cruelty he endured at the hands of the violent humans. With the last of his strength, he lifted a fist into the air before he let it fall limp at his side as he expired.
The president and Celestia looked to the slain body of the martyr, and the two looked to each other with mourning and understanding.
Celestia came forward. “We know that it will be harder for some to cope with the new world, but we will ensure that they see the light before they succumb to the darkness!”
The crowd cheered as Ed G’s body was carted away in an ambulance, never to be seen, heard from, or remembered again. And the whole world turned out fucking terrible.