I loved the night. I kept wondering why and found many minor reasons, but nothing stood out. Be it that nobody could see you, that the moon’s cratered surface always gave decent light like a reading lamp, or that the houses and highways started glowing the dark. Same went for the snow in wintertime, reflecting the dim light and creating an almost magical aura.

I don’t exactly remember when I started going out for those little walks. Someday, I simply felt like doing it. That was why I always took a walk when I could not sleep, admiring the path I only took during daylight. I followed this exact path several times a day, accompanied by my two dogs.

One was named Fiete, a slightly smaller Beagle who I could swear was more intelligent than he would admit, and Fanny, a Landseer. She was tall compared to Fiete, but that was normal for her breed. Although she actually belonged to my mother, she enjoyed being with Fiete, thus she often stayed in my apartment.

Yes, I still lived in my parent’s house, but I have my own room. My mother acquired the house when I was sixteen, and I asked if I could have one of the empty apartments. She left the penthouse to me, though I had to fix it myself. My mother and her friend each occupied one of the other apartments, and my grandma lived down in the cellar.

Well, she didn’t really live there because most of the time she stayed with her friend and only came around a few times a month just so the apartment didn’t get dusty.

Strangely enough, marriages didn’t seem to last in our family. I have three uncles, two of which were married and have children, yet they both got divorced after a couple of years. Pretty much everything to tell about my family. I was barely old enough to comprehend what my parents were arguing about when they broke up. My two brothers were still too young, and I was quite glad I was the one to find my mother in the kitchen crying her eyes out and not one of them.

Those weren’t memories I would wish anyone to have, but still I have quite a few of them because my stupid brain just kept remembering such things. For example, I could still recall my third birthday, but I have no memory of the party a few months ago, and that was not because of the alcohol. While I do drink every now and then, I completely fucked up myself when I was young, which gave me an experience for life. I never tried smoking, though; it was hard enough for me to breathe since I was born with asthma and still carried around an inhalator, just in case.

When it was discovered, I had to stop playing football and was no longer allowed to fully participate in school sports. It was actually really hard as a child when you cannot run for a long time. Some kids simply didn’t want to have anything to do with you when you couldn’t keep up with them. However, I have long since learned to deal with my illness and hardly recognized it anymore. Only my fairly strong breathing might give others a guess.

My free-time activities have long since switched from building tree houses, which I did more than once, to playing video games. Over the course of time, I had become very good at working with the computer, but hey, what did you expect when you hardly do anything else? If I was not busy crafting something, I played games instead, which eventually led me to another hobby: videos.

I recorded myself playing games and uploaded them on the Internet. The greatest thing about that was that I did not need to show myself. Since I spent a lot of time sitting, I would not consider myself to be good looking. That did not really help me with the girls, but I kept telling myself that I wanted to have someone who liked me for what I am, not for what I look like.

I am not a dreamer, though, and I know how superficial our society is. Call it luck, but despite that, I have had several girlfriends. Yet when I saw my friends constantly swapping partners, I could not help but wonder if I kind of lagged behind, though I have never felt this way.

I pondered over a lot of things while I walked between the fields, such as what I could have done differently today or how much this world actually sucked. There were people who didn’t mind making fun of others on television or believe they could change the world by spreading a certain video. I was a realist when it came to those things.

However, I could also completely space out at times. I did like to lose myself in thoughts of a perfect world or other ‘what if’ scenarios. When this happened, I usually conceived stories for My Little Pony. I was known as a ‘brony’, a male fan of the show.

I had a lot of time for this ‘work’ as I had finished my training and had also worked as an assistant for an IT specialist. Unfortunately, my contract was not extended, and I developed the idea of studying at a university. Being twenty-three years old, I may have been a little late for that, but there have been others who have had it worse.

My thoughts often trailed to my future while I walked. It was the best relaxation I could think of. The chilly night breeze blew across my face as I trekked between the fields all alone. Today, I once again mused about what could have been different. What if we had magic instead of technology and how far would we have developed it if the Middle Ages had not existed? How would the world be like if we were not humans but ponies instead?

I sometimes believed that if I actually vocalized my ideas and others heard them, I would be sent to a psychiatrist. Yet, who had not at least once dreamed about being someone or something completely different?

After such a long walk, those thoughts often lurked in my head while I lay in my bed in the middle of the night. But never once did I imagined what I would do if such a thought actually turned into reality.

Author's Notes:

Translated by Mightyena-Lucario
Thank you very much for translating this /)

Edited by JBL. Thank you!