Chapter Text
Rows of workers stood side by side under the bright fluorescent lights, punctuated by large slowly rotating fans. Their hands moved quickly to separate, connect, and color bits of plastic, before handing the pieces off to the next worker in line.
At the end of one of the rows, Baihui picked up the vacuum-sealed completed product and placed it into a small cardboard box with practiced efficiency. A bead of sweat rolled from her forehead, which she wiped with a towel.
Supervisor Jingling walked between the rows, examining the workers. He noticed one of them holding up the queue.
“Heitao!” he shouted at her, causing her to jump. “You’re holding up the queue.”
She didn’t have time to turn to face him. “I’m sorry—”
“If you have the energy to talk, you have the energy to work harder.” he interrupted. “Don’t let me see you slacking off again.”
Jingling continued walking the rows. He continued his patrol, before going back inside his air-conditioned observation room. He grabbed a bag of shrimp crackers from the cabinet and a pair of disposable chopsticks to eat them with, and then watched them while he listened to some music and ate his crackers.
Baihui glanced up during the brief window between packaging and saw Heitao herself glance towards the window. Baihui couldn’t tell for sure from this distance, but she looked like she was crying a little. Unlike Baihui, she was a newcomer, and had only been working for the past two weeks, and was only in her teens.
Baihui turned back to the boxes and plastic and the plastic in the boxes that lay flush on a large pallet.
“You can do it”, Baihui mouthed to herself under her mask. “Don’t give up.”
Suddenly, Heitao collapsed.
“Ai ya…” Jingling sighed to himself as he put another piece of shrimp-flavored puffed wheat, and then put the bag down on his desk while he headed into the warm factory. “Keep working, everyone! Don’t look at her, okay?” he said, though no-one was.
He walked over to Heitao, and examined the situation. She was conscious but blinked up at him blankly. She had just temporarily lost consciousness from heat and exhaustion.
He turned to the person next to her. “You’re a big strong guy, right?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Take her to the break room and give her some water.”
“But what about my—”
He turned to his other neighbor, and to Heitao’s other neighbor. “You two can cover their positions, right?” he asked them, before he left to go back to his room.
He watched them inevitably slow down. “This isn’t going to look good for the interim report.” he muttered to himself, as he resumed eating his bag of shrimp crackers.
Not long after, he heard the other door to the observation room unlock and open. He checked his watch. It was already 14:55.
“Ni hao, Daiti,” Jingling greeted.
“Good afternoon, Jingling,” the man who entered said. “You can take off early. I know you’ve been looking forward to Golden Week and all.” He started to put his coat up, but paused. “What is that music?”
“How do you not recognize it?” Jingling was flabbergasted. “This is practically the anthem of our job.”
“I know what it is, I just don’t know why you’re playing it. It’s literally from a children’s show.”
“Says the person working for a toy company.”
“This is this and that is that. I do this for the money.” He sighed. “Well, did anything happen that I should know about before you leave?”
“Well, Heitao fainted, so I had someone take her to the breakroom, and now two others are covering her and the other guy’s shifts.”
“Why didn’t you… nevermind. You can go.”
“Sure,” Jingling replied, although he was already putting on his coat. “You should keep the music on. It’ll get you in the working mood.”
“Yeah, sure.” Daiti replied flatly.
Jingling left and headed to his car.
Finally, his two hour shift was over. He didn’t hate his job, but he had expected something else when his uncle in the CCP said that he had a job for him in the toy industry. Something with a lot fewer annoying co-workers who fainted all the time or jumped out the window even though there was a net that would catch them when they tried. At least he liked the toys they made.
Jingling arrived home. He lived alone with his parents with their maid Nvpu in a small three-story mansion, and even though he didn’t really need the money, his parents insisted he have a job so he would get out of the house sometimes.
“Mom, Dad! Wo hui jia le!” he greeted the house. He smelled the scent of soy sauce and garlic frying from the kitchen, although he wasn’t particularly hungry on account of eating shrimp crackers and rice cakes or something while at work.
His mom peeked her head out of the kitchen. “Welcome back, son. How was work?” She held a spatula in one hand.
“It was good Mama.” He put his bag down and hung up his coat. His job didn’t require anything really, but he brought with him CDs to listen to music and emotional support figurines. He turned to her. “You don’t have to go through all the effort to cook. Just have Nvpu do it for you.”
“No no, it’s alright.” She stirred fried the frying stirred vegetables and meat of unspecified specificity with her long metal spatula. “I enjoy cooking, and today’s a special day for you since it’s your last day of work. So I’m cooking up your favorite dish, food!”
“Yay, I like food.” Jingling replied.
He looked around the living room. He didn’t know where his dad was, but he was probably still at work doing some bureaucratic work or other work, like he usually said he was after he came back home from work.
“Your father said he had some extra work that he has to finish before Golden Week, so he’s going to be late.” his mom said.
“Oh?” he acknowledged. He brought his bag upstairs to his room, and flopped onto his bed. He grabbed the book on his desk, “Twilight: the last Sparkle bender: book 1: Twilight: the last Sparkle bender”, and continued where he left off:
「CHAPTER」—
He heard his mother call his name. He was annoyed to have been interrupted, but when she called his name again, he went downstairs.
“Shen me hui shi, mama?”
“There are people at the front door asking for you. They’re from CCTV, the national television broadcaster of the People’s Republic China, owned by the Chinese Communist Party.”
He looked at the front door. Standing at his doorway were three people, one reporter-looking guy who was carrying a notepad and a pen, a man with a large camera with a furry microphone attached, and a third guy.
“Konbanha” (pronounced “Konbanwa”), the reporter-looking guy who was carrying a notepad and pen which was made of metal like those Zebra pens that made your hands smell like metal because they were made of all metal and had a grooved grip which increased the surface area of contact between your skin and the metal and made the metal smell, except it wasn’t Zebra because they didn’t sell them in China or something or at least there’s probably a more popular brand and in any case this reporter-looking guy who was carrying a notepad and pen which was made of metal… didn’t have that kind of pencil, said in Chinese. (That means “good evening” in Japanese.) “I’m Jizhe. You’re Jingling, an employee at the Hasbro My Little Pony toy factory, right?”
“How do you know that?” Jingling eyed the man suspiciously.
“We’re part of the government. AI-powered drones powered with small nuclear reactors scan the populace and keep records on everyone. Did you not learn this in high school civics?” Jizhe answered. “Anyway, that’s not important. What is important is that we’re doing a reality TV show showcasing the lives of toy factory employees after the Christmas toy rush. Not that we support Christmas or believe in Santa Claus, only in Communism, but it is our understanding that Americans and Japanese people and Puerto Rican people love My Little Pony and buy lots of the little plastic ponies during the Christmas season. So, naturally we were wondering, what exactly do you guys do in your off-time?”
“Oh.” Jingling wasn’t very good with authority figures and wanted to just keep reading his pony book and admire the defective off-color ponies he got for free from work. “Well, why don’t you ask one of the other workers?”
“We tried, but there was a problem with that, in that they were still working.”
“Oh, right.”
“You and a few other higher ups were the only ones not working.”
“I thought Golden Week was a nationally enforced holiday.”
“Whatever.” Jizhe replied dismissively. The third guy pulled out a thick packet of stapled together sheets of paper with the words “CONTRACT” in big Chinese characters at the top on the first page and then a bunch of mumbo-jumbo in between that and an “x” followed by a bunch of underscores at the bottom of the last page. He gave this paper to Jizhe, who gave it to Jingling, who gave it a look. “Sign at the ‘x’ followed by a line saying you agree with the contract, to give us permission to follow you around everywhere you go and film you.”
“What’s in it for me?” Jingling asked.
“Um…” Jizhe turned to the third guy, who was wearing an earpiece and muttering something.
“It’s part of your civic duty, as an alternative to being drafted.” the third guy answered. “Oh, I’m Sannin, by the way.”
“China has a draft?” Jingling asked.
“Now it does, at least.” he said. “So basically you have to sign it or else you’ll be sent to Brazil or Detroit or something.” He turned to the last page of the document. “It says so right here.” he said, pointing at the paragraph above the signature line.
“No, not Brazil! Okay, I’ll sign it.” Jingling looked around the room for a pen.
“Here, you can use my Zebra-like pen.” Jizhe gave him the pen.
Jingling would’ve preferred a BIC, but he signed the contract and handed it to Jizhe, who gave it a look over.
“Oh, can you also put the date in? On the line below where you signed.” Jizhe pointed at the line below the signature line.
“Ah, I missed that.” Jingling stared at it for a moment, and then looked up at Jizhe. “What day is it today?”
“Oh, at the time of writing it's January 5th.”
“Thanks.” Jingling wrote that down, and handed it back to Jizhe.
He looked over it. “Alright, looks good.” He looked up at Jingling. “Anyway, filming begins tomorrow.”
“Alright, safe travels.”
“You too.” the camera guy said, his voice deep and husky. The three of them left.
Finally, Jingling thought, as he started to head back to his bedroom and continue reading. He passed by the kitchen, which still smelled like soy sauce and garlic.
“What did they want Jingling-chan?” his mother asked.
“Oh, they are going to film the life of a toy factory worker, ie my daily life.” he answered.
“Wow, my own son, on TV!”
“It’s nothing special.” he replied, but inside he was proud as he finished heading back to his bedroom and started to continue reading:
「6」
He read the rest of chapter 6, and turned the page to chapter 7. He was about to start reading.
“Jingling!” he heard his mother call. “Dinner’s ready!”
Jingling sniffed the air, and smelled the smell of his favorite food that his mom cooked, food. He put his book down and hurried downstairs to eat. He was hungry as FUCK. Like the wolf. From the song, Hungry like the wolf; though he wouldn’t know that because that is an English language song.
His mom had cooked food, which had soy sauce and garlic, and also a soup. His dad had returned home by this point, and was sitting in his usual suit.
They ate the food, and he went back upstairs. He continued onto chapter 7:
「CHAPTER 7
Jecka looked blankly at Mx. Theerpee.
“Jecka”, Mx. Theerpee said. “Tell me what’s on your mind right now.”
With the little bit of rational thought that possessed her mind, she had taken 6 blood-soaked steps towards the soda-covered door, before stopping and looking at the mirror. She saw her face in the mirror, coated in the vaporized remains of Horse, and stared at it for a long time.
“Jecka?” Mx. Theerpee asked again.
Eventually, she raised a hoof to her face, feeling the sticky red liquid sponge out of her matted fur and drip onto the floor. She looked at her red-stained toenail, and looked back at the mirror, the spot where she had squeezed a shade of red lighter, sticking out with dryness but still clumped together. She felt her stomach magma wish it was lava, but she had barely eaten anything the whole day since she had Hestavíg matches almost constantly and it was already past dinner, so nothing came out, just a slight burn at the bottom of her esophagus. She hoofed her face again, and again, squeezing more and more and more drops of crimson onto the tiled bathroom floor.
“Are you alright?” Mx. Theerpee asked. “Does your face hurt or something?”
“Filthy.” Jecka muttered while clawing at her face. She climbed into the bathroom sink with her small filly body and turned on the faucets, passively letting the cold water run over her as it slowly became a lukewarm temperature. She watched the water turn red before it faded, and then she shifted her position to a more blood-soaked area of her coat.
It was beautiful, the way that the pale water turned red, the color diffusing outwards making blossoms and butterflies, before the flowing current picked it back up and carried it down the drain.
She dipped her head into the water and felt the water invade the dry parts of her mane. She held her eyes closed, her ears filled with the static of rushing water, and was gone from the world for almost a minute before she lifted her head out of the water and took a deep breath. She shook the water from her face.
“Jecka?” she heard. She opened her eyes, looking at a small potted plant on the windowsill. She was laying fetal on the bed, and she sat herself up and looked around. It was a familiar place, but still she asked, “Huh? Where am I?”
“We’re in the Ponyville Behavioral Health Facility, Jecka.”
“No… I know that, but I was…” She looked at Mx. Theerpee. “I’m sorry. I mean, I’m not, really, but what’s happening? Did I try to kill myself again?” She looked down and saw several bandaids on her ankle, and ran her free hoof over them. “Oh, I did,” she answered.
“Yes, and I’m your therapist, Mx. Theerpee. I believe we’ve met before. I was going to administer your depression test but you started spacing out. Is something on your mind?”
“Um…” Suddenly, she started crying. “I— I don’t know why I’m crying. Sorry.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hoof.
“It’s okay, I know there’s a lot going on in your head right now.”
“No, I mean, can you hand me a tissue?” Mx. Theerpee handed her a tissue and she wiped the tears from her face, but she continued crying. “Can I have another tissue?”
Mx. Theerpee grabbed several and handed them to her. “Are you alright?”
She didn’t respond for a while, her breathing becoming faster. Mx. Theerpee waited for her with a calm but concerned expression on her face.
Jecka took a deep breath. “Mx. Theerpee, I’m scared. Mx. Theerpee.” She continued wiping her tears. “I’m scared I’m going to die. I’m scared that the people I don’t hate are going to die.”
“Well,” she began in a steady voice. “We’re all going to die eventually, and then it’s the heat death of the universe where life or any kind of beauty or complexity is impossible. Though, that’s long after horsinity and even Equestria and even earth and even the solar system so it’s pointless to think about.”
Jecka wanted to correct her, but knew that she needed to keep what she had seen in the mare’s room a secret from everypony, and instead she glanced out the window. Nothing in particular was happening outside, just some wind blowing into a field of grass dotted with a few trees.
“Well, let’s start your depression test, okay?”
“Okay.”
Mx. Theerpee asked her questions and she answered with “4”.
Mx. Theerpee looked at the checklist and tallied up the total. “Wow, Jecka, you got an A+. One hundred out of one hundred.” She looked at the next page. “Oh wait, that means you have chronic terminal depression.”
Jecka looked back out the window blankly.
“Don’t worry about it too much. We have the finest ketamine in the country here in Ponyville, I’m sure you know. And you know, Celestia has her plan for everypony. If you believe in her, which is easy to do because you can actually see her at the grocery store sometimes buying lemons or if you wake up early enough raising the sun from some hill, then things will go your way.”
Celestia had a plan for Jecka alright. She got out of the sink and opened the door. Outside, she heard the familiar sound of rubber sticks hitting the plastic shell of the GameRectangle controller. The metallic smell of blood was replaced with the faint smell of sweat and dried squid and skunk. Somehow, it didn’t seem real.
“Jecka?”
“Oh, what?” She looked up at Mx. Theerpee.
“We’re going to the ketamine chair room, where we tie you to the ketamine chair and stick IVs of ketamine into your veins.”
“Okay, oh.” she yodeled.
They made their way to the ketamine chair room, where the ketamine chair was. She sat down. She knew how it went.
“Okay, now I’m going to stab you in the calf with this needle.”
“Okay.”
Soon after, she fell asleep from the ketamine…」
The spoiled man-child factory supervisor wiped a tear from his eye, and yawned, and wiped a tear from his eye. Heart-wrenching, he thought, though he had never used a wrench in his god-damned life, not even in his ponysona’s Celestia-damned life where he was also a factory supervisor and had a cutie mark of a wrench to indicate his work as a social engineer. Anyway, he thought that the switching between the present moment and Jecka’s memories excellently portrayed how affected she was from Horsecode762’s sudden death, which wasn’t used in the standard competitive Hestavíg ruleset. And reading of sleeping, he noticed he himself was tired, and decided that that was a good place to stop, even though it wasn’t the end of the chapter.
He put his Twilight Sparkle themed bookmark, which said “Reading is magic!” (in Chinese), in the first volume of 「Twilight: the last Sparkle bender」, 「Twilight: the last Sparkle bender」, by Miss. Meyer. He took a shower and brushed his teeth, and then turned off the light and went to bed.