Clean Up
Pop!
Pinkie Pie stared as the balloon burst into an explosion of confetti, her eyes trailing the colored pieces of paper as they slowly drifted to the ground. She let them all settle before moving onto the next balloon, never advancing until every single piece of confetti lay still, as routine dictated.
Pop!
The balloons were all that was left of the lively party that had been here not even two hours ago, waving ever so slightly as a slight draft pushed them back and forth. Reds mixed with yellows, brushing against greens and oranges as they all clustered together in multicolored blobs. They were a staple, always expected and never forgotten. The party wouldn’t start unless there were at least a couple dozen of them scattering the floor, Ponyville’s premier party planner made sure of that.
Pop!
Pinkie glanced around at the dirty walls of the barn as the confetti fell, the streamers and banners for the “You had a super-duper successful harvest!” party had been the first to be taken down, stacked neatly to go back into Pinkie’s not-very-secret-secret party supply closet to be used again later. She always took those down first, no matter what else there was to do, removing them had always impacted the mood the least she found.
Of course, that wasn’t anything but a sweet little lie she told herself. The mood was impacted the moment somepony stepped over the threshold, that invisible barrier that separated the outside world from the little bubble of happiness that contained the party, unnoticeable to anypony but herself. The moment that a pony stepped through it, it was like somepony had poked the bubble with a needle, and the happiness began to slowly drain like a leaky balloon.
Pop!
The games had been cleaned up next, they were always second on the list. The apple bobbing tub would be tipped over and drained, the leftover apples going back to Sugarcube Corner with Pinkie to be baked into pies and strudels in the morning. Pin the tail on the pony would be taken off the wall to be put back in its box, and the mat for twister would be placed neatly folded on top of the chairs Pinkie had commandeered for musical reasons.
With every game she cleaned up, the hole in that happiness bubble grew bigger and bigger. Ponies left faster, in much bigger groups. The games being cleaned up meant the party was over for them, and when the party was over the guests became the air trying to squeeze its way out of the balloon, ripping through the latex shell.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Pinkie ignored the hole in her own mane. She began to pick up the pace, no longer waiting for the confetti to reach the ground before she popped the next one.
She moved over to the long tables that lined the left side of the barn, stabbing the balloons binding their legs together with needle-like precision, trying not to glance at the tables' empty surfaces. She always cleaned them off third, ponies stayed the longest for food, smiled the longest for food. Whenever there were leftovers at a Pinkie Pie party, ponies stayed the latest in order to lay claim to them. Near the end Pinkie pie always stood at attention near the front, diligently handing out tupperwares full of cupcakes and nachos to any guest patient enough to wait in line.
When that was done, once all the food had been handed out, Pinkie swept off the tables. Plates in the plates bin, trash in the trash bin, small tables in the table bin, everything was cleared. It was usually then when the happiness balloon truly burst, the air of ponies that had kept it inflated finally escaped through the initial needle hole, and the only things left inside were Pinkie, balloons, and empty tables.
The party had once been lively, but now it was dead, deflated. The only sound that echoed through the space now was the harsh pop of balloons, and soon the point would be reached where that would stop too, and the barn would become as silent as a crypt.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Psshhhhhhh-
Startled by the absence of the usual loud burst, Pinkie was pulled from her thoughts as she stared down at the sunny yellow balloon in her hooves. This balloon decided that it was stronger than the rest, denying itself and Pinkie the satisfaction of a quick death. Instead, it began to wither away slowly, whistling as its lifeblood escaped through a tiny pinprick hole. Pinkie’s ear twitched as she held the dying balloon gently, cradling it as if she was holding one of the cake twins. Her mane mirrored the balloon’s siblings on the ground, laying flat down her back.
She had once tried to extend the life of a balloon, back when she was still a filly on the rock farm. It was from her first party, the party where she found her cutie mark.
The party where she finally found what made her happy.
She never wanted that party to end. She ate until she nearly vomited, she danced until it felt like her little legs might have fallen off, and when her father told her she had to clean it up, she shook her head until it felt like it may just pop off. She begged him to let her continue, to keep the party going. It made everypony so happy, why couldn’t she keep it up just a little while longer?
Igneous just patted her head. He said the silo was needed for farm work, and she had made them happy already.
Disagree as she might, and drag her hooves as she did, bit by bit she took down the party. The streamers were taken down, the tables were put back, and she began to pop the balloons one by one, savoring the last morsels of the once fulfilling party. Then it got down to the last balloon, the last surviving remnant of the party that kickstarted her new life. As she held the balloon in her hooves, staring deeply into its yellow rubber surface, she couldn’t bear to destroy it.
One silly face later and the balloon was named Surprise, and Pinkie found an empty spot on a shelf in her room to keep her. She would stare at her every night until she fell asleep, watching the glossy yellow surface move slightly from the everpresent draft that haunted the old farmhouse. Surprise was a colorful splash of happiness compared to the usual grays and browns of the dreary farm.
A few more weeks later, and Surprise was the only splash of happiness left. Her family couldn’t afford more parties, a day taken for a party meant a day behind on work, and that made the happiness turn inside out and morph into guilt. It was back to the fields after that, those boring grayscale fields that never felt right. She was never good at rock farming to begin with, she always seemed to lag behind her sisters in production. It was already unbearable, seeing her father try his best to hide his disappointment when she was only able to complete half the field she was supposed to in the day. Now she had found something she could do, that she was good at, that actually made her feel worth something, and she couldn’t stand being in those fields anymore. She had tasted happiness and she was going to chase it down.
When Pinkie left home to travel, Surprise was her first companion. They went to the next town over and set up a party for another foal's birthday, and Pinkie was over the moon with joy. She felt as if somepony had filled her head with helium and each step she took launched her thousands of feet into the air. She took in the smiles and little cheers from adults and kids alike and felt that empty pit of self worth that gnawed at her soul be filled like a colorful balloon for the second time she could ever remember.
Pop!
Pinkie was taught that it was rude to stare at other ponies, but in that moment it was hard not to. She stared at the older mare that was carefully popping balloons with a pin held delicately between her teeth, unaware that not even ten feet away there was a small pink filly who felt as if it was her own soul being popped instead.
After too many seconds Pinkie worked up the courage to go ask the mare what she was doing, asking if there was anything she could do to make the party better for her with a slightly too tight smile.
“Don’t worry hun, you're not needed right now. You've already done so much today, I wouldn't want you to tucker out.” the kind old mare chuckled.
Pinkie stopped hearing after “you're not needed.”
Cleanup sucked, Pinkie decided that day. Cleanup meant poking a hole in herself and bleeding until there was nothing left but a dried and shriveled up corpse. It meant forcing herself to poke holes in the others and sweep their plastic bodies into the trash, wondering when everypony would see she was just like them and sweep her in there too.
That night was when she first noticed Surprise had a leak. After staring at the balloon every night before bed for a month, it was easy to notice an appearing wrinkle. Pinkie had jolted out of the loaned cot with a thud as she bolted to the side of her traveling companion, frantically turning her around in her hooves. Surprise finally seemed a little too small to be just a mistake from tired eyes, and as Pinkie held her up to her ear she could hear the tiniest hiss from the tiniest hole.
She remembered almost tearing apart her saddlebag as she searched for the tape she had packed as a last minute thought, sticking a piece over the hole with all the haste and urgency of an EMT stabilizing their patient, breathing a sigh of relief when the hissing stopped. The balloon was her little bubble of happiness, reminding Pinkie of the joy that these parties brought to the others. She was determined to not let anything else happen to Surprise, not if she had a say in it.
But of course, do you ever have a say in that?
In the morning, Pinkie bounced to the next town. In the afternoon, she had a party. In the evening, she tried to stop her sorrow from showing as it was all taken down. At night, she found another hole to patch.
The morning after that, Pinkie hopped to a different town. In the afternoon, she had a party. In the evening, she put on a big smile as she avoided looking at the corpses. At night, tape wrapped around Surprise.
Then the morning after that, Pinkie skipped to another town. In the afternoon, she had a party. In the evening, she didn’t think about how worthless she was after the cleaning began. At night, she added more tape to the old wounds as a precaution.
Another town. Another party. Another piece of tape.
Another false smile to pretend she wasn’t a leaky balloon.
Tape can’t hold the air in forever.
By the time they got to Ponyville, she didn’t think either of them were anything but tape.
Ponyville didn’t seem like anything special at first, another quaint town among dozens filled with more smiling faces than she could look at. She had settled into her routine quickly, asking around to see if it was anypony’s birthday, wedding, cute-ceanera, anything worth having a party for. She had eventually settled for throwing an anniversary party for a nice earth pony couple who ran a bakery in town, shaped cutely like a gingerbread house.
The balloons had gotten inflated and tied into bunches, the three layer cake had gotten baked in that very kitchen, and pictures of the happy couple had been arranged in little spots around the room. Surprise had taken up her spot at the end of one of the tables. Pinkie always got weird looks when she insisted Surprise be present at every party, but that never stopped her. How could they understand that Surprise was as much of the party planner as she was?
Walking around during the parties they had set up was Pinkie’s favorite part of any given day, and today was no exception. She basked in the praise she received from the Cakes and every pony that attended, her false smile feeling real for the first time all day. It was during parties like this where the tape that covered her felt almost real to her, where she could ignore the itchy, fur tearing sensation of adhesive and feel like the bright cheery smiles she gave were still hers and not a crudely painted expression of eternal glee.
She bounced around, going from guest to guest to make sure they were invested in the party, every thank you and smile making her bounce a little higher as the helium filled back up slowly. She continued bouncing higher as the night went on, the top of her mane brushing against the ceiling when she jumped especially high. And when the night especially felt right, when she was almost flush to the ceiling and her skin finally felt like hers again, she turned to shoot Surprise a look of excitement.
Crashing to the floor had never hurt so much, a dull thud sounding out as the helium escaped through the tape that had surged back to bind her every limb.
Surprise was gone.
Pinkie didn’t even feel her breath quicken as her eyes frantically scanned where her best friend had once lain, darting to the surrounding floor with a desperation she felt through her core. She turned and turned and turned and she spun around the whole room, trying to catch a glimpse of the smiling face of the tape coated balloon so she could return her to a safe spot. She caught a glance of yellow from the corner of her eye and as she snapped her head to take it into account she froze.
There, laying on top of a mound of used paper plates and plastic cups, on top of half eaten cake and tossed away toothpicks, sat Surprise, the latest addition to the overflowing trash heap, her drawn on smile looking closer to a frown.
Pinkie felt the tape strangle her as she registered the eyes that were staring at her, making it difficult to breathe as it slowly tightened around her throat. Dozens of adults looked at her with expressions of concern she was blind to, adults that could finally see her for the walking corpse she was. She stumbled backwards as she tried to choke in a breath to explain to them that she was different from Surprise, to beg them to not toss her in the trash can with her, that she was still useful. The tape only tightened further, the adhesive tearing fur from skin as she tried not to cry.
She felt herself hit a fuzzy leg backing up and whipped her head around to see who she had inconvenienced. Pinkie met the gaze of a stout blue mare, Mrs. Cake she remembered, as the older earth pony looked at her with a face of deep worry and a furrowed brow.
“Are you okay dear?”
Pinkie started sobbing.
She didn’t remember much from the rest of that day. Mrs. Cake had picked up her small sobbing form gently and brought her upstairs into their guest room, laying the pink filly down on the bed. She had ended up staying with Pinkie for the rest of the night, rubbing her hoof in circles on her back as she heaved and hiccuped out tears that lasted until she had fallen asleep.
Pinkie got sick the next day, she guessed that it had been a mixture of traveling for months without any real break and her emotional breakdown the previous night, but whatever the cause, it left her with a high enough fever she couldn’t leave the bed.
The Cakes didn’t seem to mind, they took care of her for the week it took her to recover, making her food to eat and spending time each day talking with her. Pinkie kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for them to finally see her as the leech that she felt like she was and toss her to the trash like Surprise, but it never fell. A week turned to two, then three, then a month, then two months, and with each passing day she kept waiting, and each day after that she was still allowed to stay. It felt unreal to her, but at the same time she couldn’t help but feel thankful. She didn’t think she had it in her to go back to traveling now that she was by herself, it wouldn’t feel the same. Her mane still hadn’t poofed back up, staying stubbornly straight no matter how much tape tried to hold it up.
Sometime during the third month, she asked the Cakes to teach her more about baking, something they were more than happy to do, taking her up as an apprentice.
When the fourth month came around, they helped her set up her first birthday party since she started living with them.
On the fifth, she asked if she could stay with them for a while longer if she helped out around the bakery, and they enthusiastically agreed.
Slowly, day by day, milestone by milestone, Pinkie felt the tape that clung to her skin and wrapped tightly around her soul loosen, and pieces of it began to fall off. The Cakes saw the Pinkie beneath that tape, the Pinkie that had covered herself in a mask of smiles so nopony would see the shriveled up sad balloon beneath it. But they didn’t sweep her aside when they saw it. They gave her a home, one she didn’t think she deserved, one that she couldn’t understand what she had done to deserve, and they cared. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t being useful, that she wasn’t throwing grand parties to make everypony smile all the time. The cakes still smiled at her everyday, straight mane and all, and she felt the stranglehold of tape loosen.
By the eighth month, her mane puffed up for the first time since the party.
By the ninth, the tape had all but fallen off.
A deep breath returned the pink party pony to the present, realizing the balloon held in her hooves had deflated a good few minutes ago. She gently set it down on the ground, stepping back from it. Pinkie fought back the dread that had been forcing its way in her head since the end of the party by forcing her head up and truly looking at where she was.
She was in a barn. That barn was owned by Applejack, one of her very best friends and maybe cousin, one of the ponies she trusted the most and who trusted her right back.
That barn was in Ponyville, her home of so many years where she knew everypony and everypony knew her. Where she could walk down a street and get bright smiles directed at her without her even needing to crack a joke. Where she could spend all day talking to her friends and family who she loved with all her heart and she knew loved her back.
Ponyville was in Equestria, the country where she was a national hero that had saved it more times then she could count on her hooves. Where she was an element of harmony that would be written about in history books as a pony to look up to, to aspire to be.
The pit in her soul filled as she glanced back down at the deflated yellow balloon. Sometimes that little pink filly who had just arrived in Ponyville was still there, that filly who was nothing but a ball of tape. It was hard to ignore her voice some days, her voice always caused the tape to creep back up her legs as it tried to cling around her face, blocking her ears from any voice that wasn’t her own and clogging her brain with scenarios that terrified her to the core.
The taped filly would raise her head and look at the deserted barn that held nothing but dead balloons and ask why she was worth any more than them. She would tell Pinkie that the tape was there to protect her, shielding the unhappy pony that nopony could ever possibly love from the outside world.
But the tape didn’t have as much of a hold anymore. Its adhesive was old and worn as if it had been left outside for too long, and every moment spent hanging out with her friends allowed her to tug off the tape just a little easier. The quiet moments talking to them about the little things, the relaxing moments where she didn’t have to set up a party or perform a grand gesture of appreciation, where they would just sit and talk and smile at her for just being their friend. The somber moments where they saw her true self, the one that she had hidden behind the tape mask with a drawn smile, and instead of throwing her out they'd ask how they could help. Those moments incinerated the tape off of her fur as if she was in the center of a blazing inferno of her friend's warmth.
Everyday she spent with them it became easier to answer that small taped fillies question. To show her exactly why she was worth more than the dozens of popped balloons around her.
Her ear twitched as she heard gentle hoofsteps approach from behind her.
“You alright Sugarcube? You’ve been starin’ at that balloon for a while now”
Pinkie turned around to see Applejack trotting closer to her, an expression of confusion mixed with a hint of concern across her face as her eyes glanced down to Pinkie’s flat mane.
“Oh Applejack,” Pinkie chuckled a little, shaking off the strips of tape that had begun to crawl up her hooves as her mane regained its shape, “I’m better than I ever have been.”
Giving her a soft smile, she bounced out of the barn on steps laced with helium, carrying a soul that had once been a mess of tape, but now carried her high like a fresh balloon.
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- ZM · 2.1k words · 79 2 · 386 views
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As a non popper looner, this hits really hard.
I love balloons and it really hurts my soul when they're popped.
It's awfully mean of Pinkie to not ask anypony if they want to take the decorations home, or keep them for herself.
11931822
I have zero clue what that means, but im glad you enjoyed the story nonetheless
what a sweet ending! really well done story and cover art!!
11931933
Thanks! I really appreciate it
I love these cutie mark extended metaphor things, absolutely amazing first story
For a first story, this was really good. Sad, deep and emotional.
That being said, there are a couple of bugs. There’s a slight problem of capitalization, for one. Things like Cake twins and Elements of Harmony are proper nouns; they should always start with an uppercase. On the flip side, “sugarcube”, in this context, is not a name and should not be capitalized. And the second, rather glaring, issue is your tense. You see, the story begins and ends in the present with Pinkie undoing a party in AJ’S barn. The middle section is in the past, and narrates how Pinkie came to be. Those two sections should be different tenses - either the present is in present tense (Pinkie stares as the balloon bursts..) and the past in past tense, or you have the present in the past tense and the past in past perfect tense (It had been from her first party, the party where she had found her cutie mark). If this is confusing, I’d be happy to shoot you a PM with more details.
There’s also a slight issue with your dialogue punctuation, but it really isn’t that obvious since there isn’t too much dialogue.
I’ve always been of the belief that there’s always room for growth, but forgive me if I came off as rude. Your story is beautiful, though, and has earned its place in my Best of Sad shelf.
11932243
Hey no worries! I really appreciate critique in all shapes and forms, cant get better without it after all. I don't think ya came off as rude at all.
Ill be honest, i did forget about the tense when writing, so thats something ill definitely go back to adjust later and keep track of in future stories. Could you elaborate more on the dialogue punctuation? Just so i know what to fix in that regard.
Thanks for letting me know about it all!
11932318
I don’t want to spoil your comment section with technical fixes, so I’ll PM as soon as I can.
11932331
okily dokily!