I Hate It Here c02: When Life Gives You Lemons...

I Hate It Here
by Kirb Hysteria
Chapter Two
When Life Gives You Lemons...

5:30 PM, April 17, 2012

Manehattan Central Park

Ah, yes. The park. The one place where I can go to clear my mind. And my mind definitely needs clearing after what has happened so far today.

After leaving my apartment for the first time in three weeks, the first thing I did was what I normally did every morning I was on the job: go to Sunbucks, the coffee shop. Sure it’s part of a mega-corporate empire which pays most of its workers minimum wage, sure the employees do nothing to hide the fact that they have little to no enthusiasm for their jobs, but they sure have some good coffee.

I went up to the counter and ordered the same thing I did every morning: a cup of straight black coffee with three shots of espresso, hold the hay. Usually the pony serving me gives me 10% off because of my being a regular customer there. Today, however, there was a new worker there who insisted that I not only pay the full price, but that I pay extra--she had heard of my work and thought I was the sadistic moron everypony makes me out to be. I stated that this was against the Sunbucks rules and demanded the 10% off, but because of that she doubled the price and refused to give me my coffee unless I paid it.

What did I do next? Well, some very foul words were exchanged, and let’s just say that I’m now banned from that Sunbucks. Great, now I have to find a new way of waking myself up after only having two and a half hours of sleep the night before. I need to remind myself to do a column on that sometime.

I almost took the subway to the editor’s office, but I instead decided to take the long way there by hoof. I was hoping I’d find a good coffee shop along the way. I didn’t. I kept my head low and my shades on the whole time, to make sure nopony recognized me. Luckily, none did, or if they did, then they had no need to point me out, because they were too busy doing whatever ponies usually do in Manehattan at 10 AM.

Have I told you about my editor yet? I think I mentioned him once in passing, but I never really gave a good description. His name is W. Written Word. I have no idea what the first initial stands for, but I like to believe it stands for “whorehopper” because that’s what he is. He’s got sort of a reddish gray coat, and a mane that is not sure whether it wants to be brown or gray. His cutie mark is an open newspaper with question marks and exclamation points on it. The first thing he always says to me when we talk is, “Where’s my column?” Though he sometimes claims he cares for my well-being, I know the only thing he really cares about is the column.

When I finally met with Mr. Word, he gave me a big rant about how I’m “slacking off,” “losing touch” and all sorts of clichés. He then showed me a picture of me on my first day of work as a journalist, eight years ago, and asked me something like, “What happened to the Marker Hysteria I used to know?” I still vaguely remember my first day. I was young, I was handsome, I had a good haircut and a fairly good nerve. I would always walk into work every day with the same clueless smile on my face and wearing nothing but a tie around my neck. I told Mr. Word that the old Marker Hysteria died as soon as he stopped covering bands and celebrities and started focusing on real issues.

Mr. Word told me that my next assignment was to cover the royal wedding. Yes, apparently Princess Celestia’s adopted niece or whatever, Cadence, will be getting married to Shining Armor, the captain of the Royal Guard. Though I tried my hardest to make sure Word knew that I wasn’t a crappy gossip journalist, he had already made up his mind.

I stormed out of his office in a fury, but didn’t get far as the lack of sleep finally kicked in and I passed out right in the middle of the hall. Several hours later, I was awakened by the smell of fresh coffee, as Word’s secretary had prepared a pot. As much as I wanted to leave and as bitter as the coffee wound up being, who was I to deny a fresh cup?

And so here we were. If that was too long for you to read, I’ll sum it up in one sentence: I had to write a column in less than a week pretending I cared about the wedding of two ponies I didn’t and still don’t care about, and I also had to find a new place to get coffee.

As you can tell, I had a lot on my mind when I walked through the park. I wasn’t completely alone, of course. There were other ponies abounding in the park. Two lovers were kissing by the fountain, fillies and colts were running through the bushes, and the old stallions and mares were playing chess underneath a tree.

While I walked, I noticed a filly sitting alone on a bench. She was faced away from me, so I couldn’t get her full details, but I could see some things. She was very young, probably eight years old. Her coat was a pale yellow and her mane was two tones of green. She didn’t appear to have a cutie mark. As I continued on, the filly glanced up at me. A yellow horn sat on her forehead, and her cyan eyes shot a hopeless, abandoned glance directly at my face.

I almost felt tempted to ask her, “Why aren’t you playing with the other fillies and colts?” but I knew that in Manehattan, everybody minded their own business, and it might have blown my cover, so I just looked back at the road I was on.

As the sun began to set and the sky lit up bright red, I decided to turn back and go home. During my walk back through the city, however, I felt a peculiar feeling. You know that feeling when you think you’re being followed? Yeah, that’s what I felt like. I’m sure it was just nothing, though.

…

5:45 PM, April 18, 2012

Manehattan Central Park

Well, it was clear that my assignment wasn’t going to go away if I put it off, so I finally decided to come up with some ideas on what I’m going to write about for my piece on the wedding. Problem is, the juices of inspiration had run completely dry. Obviously, it was too late to go into Canterlot and grab an interview with the couple, so I wasn’t going to do that. Since all the rest of the royalty lived in Canterlot, I couldn’t get an interview with them, either. And I couldn’t speculate about conflicts going on in their relationship, because as I said, I’m not a gossip journalist.

The sun was setting, so I decided to return to my apartment. As I started heading home, however, I again felt the feeling that I was being followed. I knew this time that it wasn’t just my paranoia, because this was the second time it had happened. This time, just like the last, the feeling stopped at the edge of the city. I guess whoever--or whatever--was following me must have gotten scared off.

…

5:35 PM, April 19, 2012

Manehattan Central Park

My tape recorder has been missing for the past few days, so if I come up with an idea on the spot I can’t record it. Luckily, that isn’t really a problem since I don’t have any ideas for my piece. That in itself is pretty bad, though, because it is due in two days and I have not made any progress on it so far.

The feeling returned again as I was walking back home, but this time it didn’t just stop at the edge of the city, and instead followed me all the way to the apartment complex. I finally stopped in my tracks outside the building and turned around to see a young unicorn filly standing behind me.

“What are you doing? I know you’ve been following me. Now scram!”

I turned back around and approached the door, ready to turn in for the night, when something comes to me. That was the same filly I had seen at the park two days ago! I turn around again, but she was gone.

…

5:40 PM, April 20, 2012

Still no closer to finishing my column, or even starting it, for that matter. I stayed inside my apartment all morning long, and while I have started the column several times, I have not even gotten close to finishing it. The result of these beginnings without endings is a growing pile of crumpled papers in the trash can next to my desk.

I decided to go back to the park today. Sure, it hadn’t helped me in the past few days, and it didn’t help me today, but I knew that the filly would be there, and I needed to figure out what she wanted and why she kept following me. So as usual, I stayed for an hour or so and then left. The feeling returned; I knew she was behind me, but when I turned around, nopony was there. I continued walking non-stop until I arrived at my apartment complex. I walked up the stairs, but this time the feeling continued, and I could hear little hoofsteps struggling to keep up, and heavy breathing like the panting of a little filly who hadn’t walked up such a large flight of stairs before. Finally, I stopped right before my apartment.

“You know,” I said, “if you keep following me like this, I might think you’re some kind of weird stalker.”

No sound.

“Hey, I know you’re around here. I know you’ve been following me tonight, and I know you’ve been following me for days. So come out and tell me what you want.”

After a few seconds, the filly emerged from the shadows. She struggled to look me directly in the eye. I pushed my sunglasses to my forehead, but that didn’t seem to help.

“Um… mister… you dropped this…”

Her horn lit up with a bright blue glow and something emerged from a saddlebag of hers, surrounded by a magical aura. She set it down gently on the floor, and I immediately realized that it was my tape recorder.

“Wow, I’ve been missing this for days. I don’t know what to say, really…”

I looked up to see that she had begun retreating back down the stairs.

“Hey, wait!”

She stopped and glanced up at me. I could tell by the hopeless look in her eyes that she hadn’t had a good upbringing.

“Come back up here, I’d like to talk to you.”

The filly slowly turned around and walked back up to the top of the stairs.

“What’s your name?”

She looked away and didn’t answer my question.

“Um, my name is Marker Hysteria.”

She still looked away, incredibly shy. I could see it would be tough to talk to this one. That’s when I noticed something that I hadn’t before. She was incredibly thin for ponies of her age range, so I guessed that she was suffering from malnutrition and needed food.

“Hey, kid. Ya want some food? You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”

The filly still didn’t respond. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the keyring. As soon as I opened the door, however, the filly followed me in.

“Don’t you think your parents might get worried?” I asked as I shut the door. “Y’know, with you running off, following a complete stranger into his apartment? I’d feel bad if I didn’t at least call them to say you’re okay.”

She looked down sadly, not saying a word, and though I had not turned the light on, I could see the red fill her cheeks.

“No? Fine. Just don’t tell them you were here when you get back. I don’t want police on my doorstep for fillynapping.”

I shut the door and turned on the light, since it was already dark outside. After taking off my overcoat, I walked to the small refrigerator in the corner of the room and opened it to reveal only a small salad inside. Guess I should’ve gone shopping sometime this week, but this would work for now. I shut the door and looked back to find that the filly was already sitting by the table.

“Do you want some salad? It’s all I have, really…”

The filly nodded and I brought it to the table. I pushed the salad in front of her. She glanced down at the salad, then up at me with a questioning look.

“Nah, have as much as you want. I don’t need any.”

A large smile formed on the filly’s face, which she then plunged into the salad.

…

10:20 PM

“No, no, no!”

I crumbled up another piece of paper and threw it into my ever-growing pile by the trashcan. I swear, I was using so much paper now that soon I might have to buy more. I turned back to my desk, grabbed a new sheet of paper to write on, and with pen in mouth, I was almost ready to begin writing another draft of my thoughts on the royal wedding.

“Mister Hysteria?”

The noise came from my right side. I looked over my shoulder to see the filly staring at me with her cyan eyes that could make even the toughest of ponies shed a tear.

“What is it that you keep writing?”

She pointed to the pile of papers.

“Oh, those. Well, I’m trying to write a column for the newspaper, and it’s supposed to be about the upcoming Canterlot Wedding. Only problem is, I have no idea what to write.”

I turned again to the filly, who had a blank look on her face.

“Oh. I guess I have to explain this further. You see, I’m a journalist, and my job is to write a weekly column in a newspaper…”

“No, no, no, I got that. I was just confused because I don’t remember seeing your name in any of the local papers.”

“Ah. Well, I’m not very popular in this town. The really popular ones are covering flower shows and celebrities and junk, but not I.”

“So what type of writing do you do?”

“Gonzo journalism. I will look deeper into current events and issues than other writers will, and add my own opinions and thoughts into it.”

“Hmm.”

After a short pause, I said, “Say, shouldn’t you be in bed now?” and pointed to the clock with my left forehoof.

“Oh, okay. I’ll just go back home…”

“No, no. Don’t worry, you can stay here tonight. I can tell you don’t want to have to walk all the way back there, especially at night.”

“And with the stairs.”

I chuckled. “The stairs are one thing, they start out painful but you get used to them. Manehattan at night is something completely different; you can never get used to it because it’s always so unpredictable.”

When I approached the filly, she was already in bed. I pulled up the covers, knowing that she probably hadn’t slept in a bed for weeks or months.

“Say, you never did tell me your name.”

“Oh, didn’t I? Um, my name is Lemon Drop.”

“Lemon Drop. Hm. Well, goodnight, Lemon Drop.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Hysteria.”

I turned away and walked back towards my desk. But then something hit me. I glanced back over and saw her sleeping in my bed.

She was sleeping in my bed.

In my bed.

My bed.

Damnit! I’ve been cheated again.