From the Neck Down
Ya know, there are days I wonder how I get myself into these situations. Time and time again, I hear, ‘Oh Derpy, your head’s full of hot air,’ ‘Can’t you fly straight for once in your life?’ or even the famous, ‘Derpy…’ in that tone they always use. You know the one. Like, when your parents catch you doing something stupid they think you know better than to do, or when somepony expects better of you and you don’t live up to those expectations. Disappointed, is the word.
I’m really not a walking, or I guess flying now, dictionary like Twilight so I don’t always have the words, and I can’t fly like Rainbow even though I was almost a top flier before my eyes got all weird when I was young. I was never top of the class in anything, I even got held back a grade once when my reading level dropped, but that never got me down. As a matter of fact, I’m kinda the opposite. I’m high right now.
No, wait, that’s not, um… I don’t do drugs. How do I put it? There’s a word for it, I just… high… altitude? Whatever, I’m sticking with that one. I’m stuck at high altitude. So, why am I stuck so high? Well, that’s a question to be answered, and since I’ve got time and I’m not going anywhere soon, I might as well try to figure it out. The thingy, the uh… what was it? What happens before and after that uh… gives something meaning?
Context is the word, I think. It gives you a time and a place. Answers all those W’s on the list. The Who, What, When, Where, hoW, and Why. Let’s see… my Summertime Blues led me to Substitute for my boss, Light Trick, and really, I Can’t Explain many of those W’s as it is. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, I’m trapped in the sky, because I flew too high. It was supposed to be A Quick One, While He’s Away, the job I mean, not some kind of Amazing Journey.
So, since I’ve already answered the Who… and the what, I guess, I’ll try to get the other W’s next. Where? Well, if I knew that, this wouldn’t be such a problem for me. It’s not hard to get lost on cloudy days like today, well, for me anyways, but this really was supposed to be a quick job. I just needed to deliver a letter to Canterlot. That’s really not so long of a flight, just a hundred miles or so round trip, nothing too hard to an adult pegasus. Better carriers than me usually can get the job done in an hour as long as there’s no strong headwind.
That said, I’m really not a better carrier than me. I am me, so that means something is bound to go wrong. I have something like 20/100 vision, and glasses can’t really solve the problem of an eye that won’t focus where I want it to, so my depth perception is downright awful. Flying into things I think are further away, flying the wrong direction because it looks like I’m going the right way, but I’m really not.
I honestly wonder why a pony with eyes like mine got a job flying for a living, but I can’t complain. It pays my bills, keeps my kid happy, and isn’t too hard on me. I usually only deliver locally though since my uh… let’s just call it a ‘track record,’ for going long distances usually has me make a one-hour trip a two-hour trip. In this case though, it might end up a much longer than two-hour trip. More like, a ‘however many hours until the clouds break up or somepony finds me’ trip.
It would be one thing if I was half-way through the clouds, but no, I can’t get my hooves in a position where I can even break the clouds myself. Stuck is the word. I tried to Twist and Shout and Shout and Shimmy, but this is a kind of stuck where nopony can See Me, Feel Me, nothing of the sort. Please, Please, Please, won’t somepony come by? Won’t you come My Way? Oh, Who am I kidding, that’s not gonna happen. I Can See For Miles, and there’s nothing but cloud cover every which way. Not that me seeing for any distance is worth much to begin with, but whatever.
I hope Doc feeds Dinky. I’m kinda supposed to do that, but if I don’t get out of this at some point, then that’s not gonna happen. Wait! Did I ever figure out all my W’s? I went on a capital tangent, I never did get to when, how, or why… When? I’m wearing a watch, but I can’t exactly get to my hooves right now, so that’s not one I can answer. Based on the blindingly bright sun, which really isn’t helping my already bad eyesight, it’d have to be somewhere around eleven or noon. That makes… about three hours since I left Ponyville this morning, so… I’m screwed. Though, this has happened enough times to get the Doctor to start calling her around now to make sure she does get fed.
Ooh! Maybe he’ll get somepony to look for me! That’d only be another hour if I’m lucky! But uh… today hasn’t been my best day for luck. Hmm… Well, that covers when. How? Oh, well, that’s an easy one. With it being as humid as it is, the sky naturally accumulates a lot more vapor than it would on a regular day, so that leads to thicker, stickier clouds that make for good house building material. It’s easy to stand on, but not very easy to break. And when you fly like I do, that just spells disaster. One misjudged swoop turns into an Unholy Trinity: sticky, accidental, and me.
Speaking of how Dinky was born, I’ve been having deja vu to back in those days since these weird mornings started up where I wake up in a hurry to go puke. I have half a memory of a wild night involving Doc and I at one of Berry’s parties. It certainly isn’t a bad half-memory, but it isn’t a safe one. I should know better, and he should definitely know better, but when you get invited to one of Berry’s parties, you don’t go home sober… or alone, more often than not. Actually, that was probably our biggest mistake in the first place. We went to one of Berry’s parties.
Oh well. I guess it wouldn’t be that bad if that were the case. I wouldn’t mind, and it’d be enough of an excuse to make this thing permanent. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could finally do things the right way? It always ends up backwards for me. I’m not the smartest pony in the world, I haven’t been able to see right for most of my life, and I get taken advantage of a lot. He’s the only one who’s ever been nice to me for no reason, and I think that says a lot about him. Heck, he even takes care of Dinky about as much as I do these days, maybe that wasn’t a bad night after all?
Ooh! I could finally get a dress from Rarity’s shop, and we could invite Twilight and the princesses to the wedding! I could see mom and dad again, and I could get him to finally introduce me to his family, and he could… move in and maybe… maybe it could finally be… Pure and Easy…
Would he do it? He cares a lot about Dinky, and he’s probably the only pony she’s ever gotten to play ‘daddy’ for her. And… well, maybe he played ‘daddy’ for me too, hehehe… But uh, never mind that, he could be a real father for her. Make this crazy life of mine stable for once. That… that would be nice, wouldn’t it?
“How nice that could be…”
“Hey!”
Ooh! Is that Wizard!? Maybe he can get me out!
“Hi! Did you come to help? I could really use a hoof here,” I say to the cloud cover below.
“Yeah, Doc sent me. Said you hadn’t made it back home in time for lunch. You uh… hangin’ in there?” I roll my eyes, but this male mail pony just starts laughing like he can see me do it.
“Ha, ha, very funny Wizard. Now are you gonna help me or what?”
“Yeah, yeah, gimme a sec. Come on, even you have to see the humor in this.” I feel tugging on my hind legs, and then use my forelegs to try and push up on the cloud. I push and push, but this stuff is almost like rubber. The tugging stops and I hear him start to breathe hard.
“Wow. That is a sticky situation,” he says.
“Oh, don’t tell me you need to go get somepony! I’ve been here for hours now, I don’t want to blow the whole day here!” The clouds next to me start to rise like when you put your hoof against taught plastic, but eventually it sinks back and shoots Wizard down.
“Uh… maybe? This crap is hard to break. How did you even get stuck like that?”
“I was trying to get next to it, and I guess I misjudged the angle and then I went right through it, but uh… well, I stopped at a point, as you can see.”
“Well… let me see if I can’t get a better hit on it. Hold on a little longer.” I feel the wing flapping wind go away, and after a second or two, I realize what he was about to do.
“Wait, wait, Pinball, Stop!”
“HAAAAAAH!!” The air comes rushing up from under me. The dent in the cloud beside me starts to come up and up and up… Wizard’s head pops above the cover…! And then the clouds pull back into shape. Wobbling to a stop, Pinball Wizard is now trapped with me in this sticky cloud cover.
“I uh… So maybe that wasn’t my best idea today.” I do as best I can to stare down the violet coated pony Behind Blue Eyes.
“Yeah. No, no it was not.” He tries to laugh it off, but he too can't get his hoof through the head hole.
“That was my bad. I at least brought a radio with me, so we can call for help. This will get resolved somehow,” Wizard explains.
Well, great. Now I know how that disappointment feels. You had one job… I let out a groan and try my best to relax.
“I guess we’ve both got our heads stuck in the clouds.”