Sorry, it’s been a while, again. I’ve dedicated a lot of time to this new play. I’m sure he’ll like it. It’s completely original, I think, and has elements that can be changed and worked around. I didn’t write any music, since that’s not really what I do but I’ve made notes where I think a song would fit.

I came up with a love story set in a semi-futuristic, steam-powered city. Personally I’m interested in what the costume design team will come up with. The main stallion is an inventor who’s trying to invent a robot that will serve him like a maid, but it’s distracting him from his social life, and from his hired assistant, who has fallen madly in love with him. I guess it does seem a little cliché, but there’s a part where the robot is almost done and gets sabotaged. It comes up right after a part where the assistant kind-of tells the inventor, and he thinks she was responsible, but really he just did it in his sleep. Then he finds out he didn’t need a robot, just somepony to love and they live happily ever after.

I still don’t know if it’s very good. The way I wrote it makes the dialogue seem real choppy and I feel like I have to add way more stage directions for the actors to follow. But that’s the thing about plays; most of the emotion is up to the actors. If there was a way I could just write the story and not have to come up with all these instructions, I think I’d be a lot happier.

Maybe I shouldn’t be a playwright. Maybe I should just be a novelist and leave it to more practiced ponies to write stage productions.

As of now, though, I don’t have to work at the café. I’ve already worked my four days this week, so I get Friday to myself. I should have probably used it to work on the script, but I just feel like procrastinating today. I’ve given all my free time to it so far, almost two weeks’ worth, I deserve a break. Don’t I?

I showed up for breakfast and Slalom was there. She relieved Pearl for the day, so we decided to hang out together. I had told Pearl of my luck with the director and she was certainly excited for me, but I hadn’t told her anything about the script. She hadn’t asked, either. So, in the approximate two weeks that I’ve had to work on it, she doesn’t know anything about it.

She was leading me through the city, and I wasn’t really paying attention where she was taking me. I figured now might be a good time to bring up my project. I usually preferred to talk to her privately. I still loved spending time with my other friends, but I didn’t really like to confide in them the same things I did with Pearl. I don’t do it on purpose, she just seems more like family, and the others are just good friends.

“So I’ve been working on the script,” I open.

“Script?” She reacts. After exchanging looks with me she smirks. “Oh yeah, your new play. What’s it even about?”

I told her everything about it, beginning to end. Occasionally she’d butt in with her opinion and I’d argue playfully, yet seriously. I’d kind-of respond just to humor her, but the whole time I kept my face real serious. She’d interrupt to tell me she thinks a song should go there, sometimes by singing out loud herself. It was embarrassing, but once I even chimed in, matching her key and carrying on the random melody with a grab-bag of lyrics with whatever came to mind. It was nonsense, but great fun.

In the middle of our song, a few memories came lurking to the front of my mind. First I remembered being selected from the rest of the middle-school chorus to sing a solo for an upcoming performance. I felt like I could do it, no problem; I loved singing, I was good at it, I knew the song, and I figured it’d be a good experience. The night of the concert was a different story, though. I sang the solo fine, but afterward Gravel told me he could barely hear me. I was terribly embarrassed, thinking if he couldn’t hear me that nopony could. I took a few more solos after that, if only to better myself. I haven’t pursued any singing since the end of high school. The choir was not really a thing I like to reminisce.

The second memory was of Dale singing songs with me. We had similar tastes in music, and whenever we were in the same room, listening to a song we both enjoyed we’d sing along. Sometimes, though, we’d just break out like Pearl and I were doing right now.

I snap back to reality and notice Pearl’s uncharacteristically quiet. She noticed I was remembering things, and let me do so on my own.

I cleared my throat and she knew I was back. “What were you thinking about?”

That’s how I knew she could tell. “Singing,” I told her, “from when I was younger.”

“Good or bad memories?” She asked, concerned.

I took a moment to answer, thinking hard about how to do so. I didn’t want to make her worry that I was now in a bad mood, or anything like that, but she’d be able to tell if I was lying. So, “Both, I guess.” She grinned a bit, and I knew she’d ask for more about that. Instead of bringing up the memories, I just explained. “It started off bad, but ended good. Thinking back, though, the bad wasn’t that bad. Especially since it really only made my future better.”

“That’s good,” she agreed.

We walked in silence for a while, and I was stuck thinking if she was letting me ponder some more, or if she herself was pondering something. What kind of things did she have to think about? Did they involve me? Were they good or bad?

The silence was killing me. “So where are we going?”

She chuckled a bit, likely amused that I waited this long to ask. “Oh, you’ll see.”

I think about keeping my next comment to myself, but figure I’ve got nothing to lose with her, “That makes me feel better.”

She laughs out loud some. I smile, though I was kind of serious. I straighten my glasses while she turns to me. “Why don’t you try to guess?”

I roll my eyes. “If I wanted to guess I wouldn’t have asked.”

“If I told you, I wouldn’t be trying to keep it a secret.”

“Big deal,” I grumble. “What good are secrets?”

“I don’t know, my secretly-gay friend, what are they good for?”

“O-oh no, that’s different.”

“Not really.”

I’m starting to get a little irritated. Whatever, she opened this can of worms. “That’s long-term, and can have some pretty serious repercussions depending on who knows, and when everypony knows it’s too unpredictable. As for this, the only reason for keeping the answer a secret would be the value of the surprise, for which I don’t much care. Telling anypony else wouldn’t have the same effect, but that also doesn’t matter because the surprise isn’t meant for them. And while revealing a secret like mine may have a similar surprise factor—“

“Timber,” Pear interrupts. I hadn’t noticed we’d stopped walking. “We’re here.”

The Manehatten Police Department. I immediately knew why she’d brought me here, and like floodwaters breaking through a dam, my thoughts drowned each other out trying to get to me. I’d probably take up too much ink and paper writing down every thought that came to mind. Pearl said something—I think it was a comment on the size of my recent paragraph—while she opened the front door to the office building. When she looked back I was staring at the “MPD” sign above the door.

“Hey,” she called, reviving me. “It won’t be bad. Just…” I could see the water wheel in her head while thoughts were evenly dispensed to her, helping her think of the right idea. “Just meet Cosh. He can tell us where your, uhh, attacker is. Then we can decide whether or not to go see him.” I’m still unsure, looking at the ground carefully, wishing something would break through the sidewalk and eat me whole. “Or, not.” She has her hoof on my shoulder now.

I look up and purse my lips, as in “I really don’t want to, but don’t want to let you down.”

“If nothing else,” she smiles kindly, “meet Cosh.”

As if on cue, a tall officer comes through the front door calling Pearl’s name. “The receptionist told me she saw you out here. What’s going on?” He turned to me. “Who’s this?” The tone was polite, but not the least bit friendly, and the look on his face suggested he felt threatened by me.

“Cosh, this is Timber,” Pearl comes to my rescue. “The, hmm, victim I told you about?”

His eyes softened suddenly. “Oh, this is him?” He’s still looking at me. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m sorry about what happened.” I expect him to shake a hoof with me, but he’d rather assert dominance by wrapping it around his girlfriend. “There’s a lot of gross ponies out there.”

I can’t tell if he means homosexuals, or just rapists. (Ignore it.) “Well,” I say, sheepishly, rubbing the back of my neck, “honestly, I’d almost forgotten about it. It was quite a while ago.”

“But something like that must have scarred you pretty bad,” he said. He sounded like every jock I knew growing up, but Pearl seemed to like something about him, and she was not somepony to pick a stallion for his thick-headedness alone.

I bite my tongue, wanting to say something, not knowing what, and hoping I was letting off an agitated atmosphere to let him know to back-off. I could be held responsible for my actions, even if provoked. The guy was on-duty, after all.

Pearl came to my rescue again, however. “That’s kind of the thing,” she said. “Umm.”

She wasn’t sure if she had my permission. She didn’t want to ask about it if I didn’t want her to.

“What thing?” Cosh said, but we ignored him. Pearl and I had our eyes locked together. I couldn’t read her mind, but I felt like she was trying very hard to save me from Cosh, but without betraying me. I had to think of something. Something to save her from herself.

“Nothing,” I spit-ball. “The truth is I’m an author. I had an idea for a book and wanted to talk to the rapist, for research.”

“Really?” The flabbergasted smile really pissed me off, but I kept it pleasant. “Do authors really have to do all that extra work?”

I felt like saying something along the lines of “I know it’s hard to believe for somepony who didn’t even study for a school test,” but again I manage to maintain a pleasant demeanor.

“Well,” he gives in, with a really stupid smile, “Lavandula is being held in the penitentiary downtown. I don’t really know how long he’s in for, since he turned himself in. Uhh, yeah. Anything else?” I notice that he doesn’t seem to be threatened by me any longer, as if an intellectual like myself isn’t on the same level as him, or his girlfriend.

“No, I think that’s everything,” I tell him, hoping he’ll stop talking and we can leave.

“Yeah he seemed really torn up when he came in that morning.” He’s talking about Lavan now. “He wasn’t crying, but the look on his face had me really worried.” Maybe he does have a good side.