Plastic Smiles and the Strength They Hide
She shut off the alarm clock the moment it sounded, blindly fumbling a hoof over its top button. Doing so allowed the filly sleeping in the next room to rest a little longer before they needed to get up and ready for school. The mare, however, had a few daily preparations to attend to before leaving for work. But like every morning, she didn’t want to wake her daughter.
Naturally, at this time, the sun wasn’t up quite yet, so the room was all shadows and silhouettes. Not to mention the smallest sound could be heard through the paper-thin walls, few of which were peppered with holes from earlier incidents when she first moved in.
However, with practiced ease and years of routine, the grey pegasus silently maneuvered through the house. Without waking up her darling unicorn, she glided down the stairs to the living room. She then hovered into the kitchen to start preparing breakfast. Once she was done making it, she noticed the time and began eating her portion on the fly so she wouldn’t arrive late to work again.
Sandwich in hoof, she fixed herself and her daughter a lunch. She left one of the boxes on the table while still chewing breakfast, and quickly searched for her work clothes. By the time she slipped on her uniform, the sun had risen, and she was prepared to start her day. The mare opened the door, walked out, and gazed into the great unknown.
She could cook, clean, decorate, and always knew where everything was even if she was blindfolded within her home. However, the moment she stepped outside, it became uncharted territory to her no matter how hard Ponyville’s most recognized mailmare tried to map it out.
Derpy loved repetitive tasks, mainly because she could perform just as well as anypony else once she had it down. But that always involved ‘burning a few muffins’ as she put it. Unfortunately, that was the same reason why most ponies saw her as a clumsy idiot at best and a malevolent bringer of misfortune and destruction at worst.
As she delivered each letter, Derpy would get the occasional stink eye or cold shoulder. Some would give her pitiful looks while others would hide their annoyance from her. Still, Derpy could always see past their facade regardless of her poor eyesight. Some days, like this one in particular, her thoughts would wander back to moments when she felt her lowest.
When Derpy got hired to work for a moving company, she was thrilled to finally be given a chance to prove her worth. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. During her first day, she heard the phrase ‘twitchy tail’ yelled from a distance and had been in Ponyville long enough to know what it meant.
Derpy and her coworkers instinctively braced themselves for the inevitable. Too late did they notice the teetering cargo in the wagon was about to collapse. Derpy tried to stop it, but she miscalculated the distance between her hooves and the furniture, dropping half the load on an unfortunate mare below.
Even after explaining that to her boss, it wasn’t enough to convince him to not fire her. Despite it being her first day on the job. Delivering mail was assuredly much more comfortable; same addresses, same route, same ponies, and a relatively same time schedule. What Derpy found difficult, however, was the fact every envelope and package she had to deliver had a different style of writing. Because of that, she was constantly mixing up letters. If more than one were sent to the same address, she could rarely figure it out straight away.
A few regulars would receive weekly, if not daily, mail from the same pony. Otherwise, each letter, at first glance, was written in a totally alien foreign language. Because of this, Derpy’s first few days on the job hadn’t gone so well. It was only a month later before she finally caught up with the rest of the mail ponies. Due to that, almost everyone in town looked at Derpy in a way suggesting they’d all be better off without her. She was already used to such treatment, but that didn’t help erase the feelings of doubt, regret, and painful memories of her own foalhood.
She remembered a time where just about every classmate she knew poked fun at her eyes and clumsiness. The bullying got so bad that she’d had to transfer schools, but that was only after nearly drowning in a river.
One of her classmates thought it would be hilarious if they put a rain cloud that they froze the night before in an obstacle course. One they knew Derpy had difficulty with, but everyone else had no trouble completing. Derpy flew into the prank cloud in no time. She slammed into the solid chunk of ice and spiraled out of control towards the river below.
The moment she’d hit the ice-cold water, she thought her life was over. She was trapped beneath the dark, freezing waves for what felt like hours. Finally, after her vision started to dim and redden, a chaperoning pegasus, one who had witnessed the whole ordeal, dove in to rescue her. After that, her hearing was never quite the same, with a mild ringing in both ears. Her ability to process information also suffered. The most likely cause was the damage her oxygen-starved brain had sustained.
Soon after, her family moved to start a new life elsewhere. Even so, the bullying continued. That was until a particular rainbow-maned filly not only stood up to what seemed like an army gathered around her but also gave her rare words of encouragement. She cried alone for hours that night—but they were tears of happiness, not grief. She was so relieved to know there was somepony out there her age who actually cared about how she felt.
Her foalhood never got any easier, but just knowing that somepony was willing to stand up for her made all the past hard times seem less stressful. But all that was just history—right now, Derpy was about to deliver the last letter for the day. She was excited to be back home in time to welcome her little bundle of joy that had brought a smile to her day, even during the dreariest of times—Dinky.
Derpy glided down to the door and knocked. “Delivery!”
She heard a startled gasp muffled by the door. After a brief period of tumbling and shoving of things inside, the door opened up, and the face of the residential homeowner poked out. It belonged to a dark blue mare with a glittering silver mane, a bright streak of orange-gold running through it.
“Oh! Hey… uh, mailmare… how’s your day going?” she asked with a smile that seemed welcoming, but to Derpy, it looked hauntingly familiar.
Despite her vision impairment, Derpy took in all the details of the forced smile, stiff expression and posture, and slightly misty red eyes on the silver-maned mare. “Um…” Derpy stared for a moment as she tried to place a name to the odd mare’s face.
Finally, she realized the expression presented to her was one she’d seen many times throughout her life, on the faces of enough ponies to know its meaning. But the face she remembered wearing it most was her own. She spent hours at a time for months practicing that smile in front of a mirror until she had it down to a fine art. “Are you alright?” Derpy finally asked.
The mailmare’s question seemed to throw her off, a bewildered look crossing her face. “I… I uh,” she then glared at Derpy, “look, just give me the mail and get lost! Please!” She snatched the envelopes and slammed the door.
Derpy blinked. With her job done for the day, she reluctantly began to leave, but something obliged her to turn her head back around and stare at the house one last time. Making up her mind, she knocked on the door again, and by doing so, she heard a muffled crash, then an aggravated set of hooves storming over to the door. “What!” the mare barked.
The mailmare shrunk back slightly, folding her ears down. “Uh… Oh, horseapples, please don’t let this cost me my job,” she said as she rubbed the back of her neck. “Listen, just stop lying to yourself, okay? You might think nopony else understands what you’re going through, and you’re right, they don’t. I know that because I’ve felt the exact same way for most of my life.”
Judging by the shocked look on the blue mare’s face, Derpy felt like she was getting through to her. “I’m not saying that I can relate to whatever problem you’re having right now, because that would make me the liar. But I can’t just leave you here knowing how alone you feel. You’re not alone. So, I just thought that I’d let you know if you ever need to get anything off your back, or if you just need some comfort, feel free to drop by my place anytime, I’ll be there for you.”
The dark blue mare looked as if she’d been slapped across the face. Derpy, not wanting to stick around longer than she had to, flew off.
Derpy hummed a cheery tune as she cleaned up breakfast and washed the dishes. Today was particularly special because it provided her the rare opportunity to start the day with her daughter.
Yesterday while she was running her route, an accident happened at the post office. It was one she could have easily been framed for, but thanks to being absent when it started, she was not. Instead, Derpy was given the next few days off. She was told it would take some time to fix the damage, but she knew they just didn’t want her to get in the way.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden knock at the door. At that moment, an eyelash got in Derpy’s eye, and instinctively she began rubbing it. It came out, but now her vision in that eye was blurred. Given she was home though, it wasn’t much of a problem for her. She shook her head, almost blindly fumbling to the hall. Another knock came just before she opened the door.
A pony she couldn’t immediately recognize stood outside. “Uh…” With a combination of head tilting and eye squinting, she could almost make out a familiar form. “What can I do for—”
The pony outside threw themselves onto her, wrapping Derpy in the most genuine hug she’d been given in a long time. Embracing the pegasus tightly, the blue pony began trembling, bawling out years’ worth of pent-up grief and agony.
With their mane closer, Derpy could make out the silver color with a warm streak of gold. “There, there.” The grey mare smiled softly and returned the hug. The two just sat on the floor quietly. The pegasus allowed as much time as the mare needed. All the pain and hurt she saw in those eyes the day before required more than mere moments to expel themselves. Derpy softly rubbed her back in comfort.
After what seemed like a minute to Derpy, but hours to her more than welcomed visitor, the stranger spoke between sniffles and sobs, “I-I’m sorry for… I didn’t… I thought there… tha-thank you.”
Derpy shushed her, then said, “Come on in, I’ve got some leftover muffins. You can tell me anything you’d like. Whatever makes you comfortable.” Derpy knew how slow the healing process was. If the mare didn’t want to talk, she didn’t have to. Draping a wing over her guest, the pegasus ushered her inside.
The mare sobbed, leaning on Derpy for support as they gingerly trotted into the living room. Sitting her guest on the couch, the pegasus tried to gently let go of her. The unicorn’s hooves clung to her for a second before releasing their grip.
Derpy returned within mere moments with a tray of muffins balanced on one wing. She offered it to her guest, the mare taking one with a small smile. Her eyes watered as she nibbled on it. Were they burnt or something? The mailmare gasped. She knew they tasted overcooked. Derpy was about to apologize, only to be silenced by the unicorn tackling her a second time.
The blue mare sobbed, tears and muffin crumbs soiling Derpy’s coat. Amongst the sobs and wheezing, the unicorn blubbered about years of misfortune. Reassured by the occasional pat on her back, she continued on about the loss of everything she held dear until she got to the point where the mailmare knocked on her door twice. Twice preventing a noose from strangling the life out of her.