Author's Notes:

Skip this. This could have been done way better.

I stood up today. Yes. I. You know who I am. I am Anonymous.

I stood up today and breathed a long, slow breath. I counted to ten. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the deep throbbing in the back of my skull. My body certainly did not make it easy. I felt the pain lash against where the neck meets the base of my hairline, like the crazed man in my dreams crushing my brain in with a baseball bat. The difference is in the dream, I didn't wake up.

I threw on a long sleeved shirt, despite the weather being sweltering today in Equestria. How I got there doesn't matter. For all I care, you can imagine that I'm in my happy place, that I'm a lunatic that has gone crazy and needs drugs to come back to reality and I've sworn off my pills. Or if you're really desperate, you can imagine some huge portal in the sky dropped me down to the grass, somehow failing to break any of my bones, and I suddenly appeared in a place where I could never find another being like me. Because I'm 'special'.

I rose out of my room, ducked under the bedroom door that was too short for me, and stepped out into my rent-controlled housing. Other than the lack of central-air, it really wasn't awful. I can't afford to decorate the walls. The fridge barely works. The garbage disposal is a joke, but it's what I have. I start the coffee pot to brew another batch of old coffee grounds with the distinct flavor of corroded steel. I've ran vinegar through the damn machine a thousand times. All it did was make me throw up twice.

I ate my breakfast. Threw on pants, and then went to work. In one of the few places that anyone without a special talent can do. Daycare.

The fact is that I hate talking about my job. So let me tell you what I think of it. I'm not talking about the fun daycare. I'm talking about the ponies who struggle. It's the harsh reality of every world. Something's wrong with everybody. Some just more obvious than others. This was a place on the outside of town where families who couldn't 'do it anymore', brought their loved ones to be cared for. Either so they could lift the burden off themselves or so they could let themselves forget, and try to find a way to forgive themselves when they were alone with their own thoughts.

The really rough ones, the ponies who would hurt themselves, hurt others. Bleed. Cry. Scream. they had a special area to themselves where the public didn't have to see or hear them. The government paid well for that. I take care of the ponies who are more often... misunderstood.

I have many different ponies under my care. Sometimes I get one that refuses to get out of bed, or they are drugged up so badly, that they have to be wheeled around the facility. But on this particular day, the reason I even decided to open my mind to the world, there was a new patient.

She goes by the name Lyler Heartstrings. She currently has an older sister by the name of Lyra Heartstrings, and two loving parents that live outside the town of Ponyville. Lyler was previously admitted to a different facility where her parents live, but we don't have that documentation. Her parents alerted Ponyville Authority that her sister was likely harboring her under negligent conditions. When social services investigated, they determined that she was not under negligent care, despite Lyra's problems with alcohol.

However, she was deemed a serious danger to herself. She had a cactus plant named "Mr. BoomBoom" that she claimed to 'give birth' to. I'll save the gory details. I'll just skip the story to where I think it gets important.

She was the last on my rounds, and I did it purposely. The weight of the mundane every day hangs on me as a ball and chain would already. Taking on more responsibility in this pitiful place seemed like hardily something to jump for joy about. I walked in, and introduced myself.

"Well Good Morning, Lyler!" I said, making full use of the expressions I practiced in the mirror. "How are we feeling today?"

"FUZZY!" Lyler screamed.

I winced at the sheer pitch that the mare screamed at.

"Now that's not our inside voice, Lyler," I said calmly. "We have to use our inside voice or else we get more shots, okay?"

Lyler's eyes widened. She raised a hoof to her mouth and clamped it tightly.

"Now do you think you can be nice and quiet, and be respectful to all of the other ponies here?" I asked.

"MA-" she paused, feeling the band-aid on her hoof. "M-maybe."

"Good," I replied. They hate shots. They all hate shots. "Now just be a nice little pony, until I get back."

An hour or two passed, and I came back with lunch and pills. She was prescribed a sedative and a muscle relaxant to start, pending full psychiatric evaluation.

"Time for Lunch, Lyler"

"Thankies," she said, keeping her inside voice and wagging her tail softly. She kept glancing out the window. "But cun I go bek home to Lyra nao?"

"Not yet, Lyler," I said.

It gets easier to lie to their faces. Most of the time they don't remember

This one did. It was about a week later. The perky, energetic mare I saw weeks ago slowly faded away. It's a part of the system, honestly. Sometimes they just... break. It makes caring for them easier. The broken ones tend not to fight at lunch.

I was bringing in her tray and sat down as I studied the mare. Her mane was brushed. She was wearing her uniform and staring out at the window.

"Looking at the sky again today?" I asked.

"Flowers," she replied.

"Are they pretty?"

I took a spoon, ready to just move on to the next room, when she refused to eat.

"They all look so similar," she says. "But if even one petal is out of place, somepony won't pick it. The flower just... stays."

I didn't know what to say, so I tried to just press onward.

"Ready for some creamed peas? I hear they're good today!"

But she continued on, as if I weren't even there.

"So we water it. Tend it. Fertilize. Trying to make it pretty. Acceptable. Conform. But what do we do then if it's not picked? What's the point? What happens when it's torn away from what made it special and unique in order to just be... normal? What if it just... can't?"

It takes about 6 or 7 weeks for a pony to die of starvation. And it was the longest seven weeks of my life. For the first few weeks, I listened to her talk about the flowers. Then, she wouldn't speak; just sit and watch outside. Then, she wouldn't leave bed.

I went to her funeral. Her sister was there. Looked exactly like her. I couldn't even bring myself to approach until after the ponies had all left. I didn't have anything to say. Even if I knew what -to- say, I couldn't help but feel somewhat at fault. That I did this. Other patients had came and gone... but this one. Something stuck.

I found the most malformed, broken, diseased sunflowers that were outside her room's window and left them on her grave. It just... it seemed right.

So I suppose that's why I'm writing today. You've probably been bored reading this bullshit, so I'll cut to the chase and just get this over with.

This is my Official Notice of Immediate Resignation. I'm leaving due to personal reasons. I hope you understand.