The Tower of Bubbles
"Why can't people pay attention to me? How much do I have to suffer just to remain in the spotlight for everyone to pay attention to me?"
The red eyes of the white feline who levitated in the air at the eye – level of the grey pegasus standing, bored through the pegasus's golden eyes and into her mind, as if it could peered into her soul and see the pony, she was.
"What is your wish?" the feline blankly looked at the grey pegasus with barely any emotion on its face, as it floated, patiently waiting for her to answer the question, it had imposed on her.
The grey pegasus answered without a beat, this was surreal to her, her mind had imagined this area – this cat, who soulless eyes she had stared into, as well this area she was in, didn't exist. They were just a mere figment of what her mind had conjured up to suit her creative mind.
The endless reels of memory from her mind started to play simultaneously as she unconsciously recalled what she had wanted, as soon the white cat had forward its question to her; her subconscious had mentally answered the question asked by that white cat, in an instant.
Opening her mouth, she answered the cat's question as she could, "I wish for …" she didn't tremble as she spoke, her answer was in a plain and blunt honesty voice, with no regret lingering on mind as she made her choice.
After making a wish, how would she ever regret anything for the miracle she had wished for, that she wanted to be realized from her wish to reality.
Could she ever look back, to remember what that miracle would cost her?
The grey pegasus stared out from one of the windows from on the many units of the high - storey building that stretched into sky, in the busy city, into the streets below that had branched through the city like veins in a pony's body. The city was busy like cells in the body, with ponies walking about the city to vehicles along with different modes of transports travelling through the city.
Activities in the city would still continue to move regardless of what anyone's actions at that moment, stopping for a rest even for a moment, the world would still move on regardless of anything. People who lived in the cities on Equestria weren't just composed of earth ponies, unicorn and pegasus, there were other species from different parts of the galaxies, lived here as well.
Digital translucent bubbles with different shades of color that came from the spectrum of the six color of the rainbow, were freely floating in Ditzy's bedroom, These weren't real bubbles made from chemical like in the past but a program that was download on to her home's cyberspace to emulate the characteristic of how real bubble would react in real life.
They aimless floated in the air, like she did in her life, only changing their routine when someone had changed the one of the setting in their programming. She had once obeyed her parents' commands for her, before an epiphany had hit her like a bubble bursting, a slow realization of her life.
Ditzy slowly walked away from the window to look at the bubbles that were floating about in the room. She observed them out of boredom as she sat on the chair near her computer; they were mindlessly floating about in her spacious room sometime in groups or other time by themselves.
These bubbles in her room were like visualization of her mind, not much of her opinions or thoughts mattered to her parents. She had to become what her parents would imagine her to become, becoming generic like all those bubble despite their different shades of color, she had to conform like everyone else to society, no matter what their differences were. Whatever different thoughts she had, she had to keep them to herself, contained like those bubbles.
Her bedroom had a computer placed on the table, along with the bed on the opposite side of the window that she could look out of, down at street below, as hovercars passing by each other, off to their destination.
"Ditzy, can you come here, we need to talk about something." Her father had called out from the kitchen, causing Ditzy to responded with "Yes, I'm coming, dad." She walked toward to the kitchen to see what he wanted from her.
Even before she entered the kitchen, she could smell the strong smell of chocolate drifting from the kitchen bench into her nose, where her father had poured the sweet smelling muffin mixture into the trays of mold before putting the tray in the oven so the muffin would be baked, ready to be eaten by the family.
Her sister was there, sitting on one of the chairs on the edge of table, reading an article about the different types of religions that had once existed in deep past of Equestria on the latest model of the tablet available. It stood up right in front of her, as she mentally scrolled down the bar to read more on the subject.
"So dad, what did you need to talk to me?" she asked, knowing too well what her father was about to say. After all, one of the benefits of after living fourteen years with your parents, aside from not paying rent, the key to knowing what your parents wanted before they said anything to you," Don't tell me, you're asking me why I didn't any electives this semester, right?" As well as being able to answer what they wanted to hear, "Dad, don't worry about me."
Her father had turned away from the oven, "Why didn't you chose to do the electives that the university was offering, this semester?" disappointment was written on his face as he looked at her, "It would have look good on your report, when your employers look at it. It will be such a disappointment when Dusk Shine's parents ask about how well you are studying." Her parents were concerned with how their relations with their friends that they did business with, stood.
"But dad" whined Ditzy folding her arms, sitting down on the chair next to her sister, "I told you again, I don't want to do it, I know that you and mum want me to pick some electives to do this semester. But I don't want to since they are very time-consuming and not very easy to do, and the subjects don't interest me that much, I would rather do something that I find interesting."
"But still, it would make you stand out in the crowd, the more you know, the more higher chance you have of getting a job over someone, even if you don't enjoy it." Insisted her father, trying to advise his daughter of what he really thought was the best for her " Think of the advantages, you will have over other people trying to apply for the job."
"Still not interested." Ditzy stubbornly refused to bend over to her father's advice "I will improvise when I get there." Adding on. "It would be a waste of my time if I don't have the additional knowledge that the employers are looking for."
Her father could only mentally sigh at his daughter's negative attitude toward his advise to her, to spend more of her time studying and to add some electives to her study. His other daughter had acted as if nothing had happened, continuing to be struck in her own world, reading the document on her tablet.
Oh why he had wondered, why couldn't she be more like his younger daughter? She wasn't like this when she was younger in fact how she used to studied was like her sister, in the past. What had soured in the past for her to be like this?
With a frown, he asked, "Why can't you be like your sister," pointing to his other younger daughter reading from the tablet, as she heard these heated conversations between her irate father and apathetic older sister day in and day out almost like daily routine, she would often ignore these situations between her parents and sister as she didn't know how to fix these problems coming up in her family, without making the situation more worser,"Taking up extra electives along with her other subjects, think of what people would when they compare you to your sister who is not older but younger than you."
Ditzy could care less of what people thought of her and what she should do to win their approval. Even if the majority rejected her, she would be still accepted by the minority of people in society, her friends who knew her the best, maybe even better then her sister or parent. That was not enough for her to be happy but it was enough to keep her satisfied. Deadpanning as she stared at her father, "I guess I'm a bad sister, right?" She asked more to herself, not impressed by her father's unfavorable comparison of her to her sister.
The automatic system of the oven had sounded in a woman's voice that his muffins were now baked, ready to be eaten, "Your muffins have been baked, they are ready to be taken out of the oven."
Without wearing any mitten on his hands, he grabbed the trays of muffin from the oven, as the blistering heat radiated from the metal surface of the tray, even boiling the air near it.
Most normal ponies that have their gene modified or genetically born with resistance to able tolerate to the above average temperature would have putted on their mittens even before attempting to touch the hot metal tray; the heat could have melded their skin on to the tray, even the heating radiating in the air near the tray was hot enough.
The intense heat radiating from the trays; meant nothing to the pony holding those trays, he could tolerate the intense heat that would have melded his skin on to the tray.
Holding the two trays in each of his hands, he turned to ask his daughters, "So do you girls, want any of these chocolate muffins?" Putting aside the conversations he had with his elder daughter for now.
Today, her parents had invited a family of one of their friend over at their house for dinner. Ditzy had to wear her best clothes to dine like the ones that she would wear to the many social events that her parent would bring her sister and her to socialize.
"Now, Ditzy keep in mind there are guests with us for dinner," Her mother reminded her as if she was still a young filly. "Remember not to talk about the family business or in front of the guests, so it don't bring embarrassment to our family."
Ditzy nodded her head in confirmation that she understood her mother's commands that was not only directed to her but to her sister as even though she wasn't there in her room.
Just staring at the colorful bubbles, dancing in the light shining from the light source struck on the ceiling of her bedroom, reflecting off a lighter and soft glow from their surface. Why couldn't she remain shining in the spotlight of people's eyes? Why did she have to become part of background where no one could see her?
Different holographic screens had materialized in front of her parents to inform them that on their doorstep stood a group of unicorn waiting for them to open the door. The automatic system of the unit had shown a real time recording of the ponies that were outside waiting for them to open the open for them.
Her family and her family friends were at the dinner table, eating the foods that were placed at the table by her parents. Most of these foods were not made by hands but were printed and process by machines like most food.
The aroma from the food smelt divine as if it was perfectly made by the hands of a god. Religions that had once reigned over Equestria as ruling force, slowly faded away unable to keep with the physical abilities of technology, being unable to reproduce the miracles that they have claimed by their gods after hearing their wishes and prayer.
Night Light and Twilight Velvet were sitting next to each other at the table, picking off their choice of food to place on their plate from a selection of food that were placed on the table along with their son, Dusk Shine.
Twilight Velvet took a single glance like the eye of machine scanning for information, at Ditzy Doo who eating before asking her mother, "Does Ditzy Doo do any electives at school." Being curious about her friend's daughter.
"No, she doesn't do any electives but she excels at doing her main subject." Ditzy's mother replied showing no sign of dismay at her daughter's lack of interest in doing more elective, attempting to make up for her daughter's 'laziness'. This was family business; there was no place especially with people who weren't family, to make fuss over anything like her daughter's progress at university.
"That is a pity, you have such high potential," Velvet smiling as she said it was if she expected more from Ditzy like everyone else, but Ditzy couldn't care less of what people thought of her, it didn't matter more. "She should be more like my son, Dusk Shine," Dusk Shine showed no reaction at the mention of his name, choosing to continue eat his food. "He is doing three electives at the school."
Ditzy's father said, as he held a fork with several leaves of lettuce that had been pierced from his plate of salad, near his mouth, "Son, your parents must be proud to have a son like you."
"Thank you, sir," Dusk Shine thanked his parent's friend for his kind words just as he was taught by his parents, "I aimed to be the best of the best, maybe even be better than my brother."
"Speaking of your brother. Where your brother, Dusk Shine I thought he would be coming with you for dinner with us." Ditzy's father asked, ever so curious as what his friends' children were doing.
"Nah, he is out with his girlfriend, Cadence hanging out with their friends." Dusk replied.
"So Ditzy, how life going for you," Dusk asked Ditzy Doo sitting on the couch in the living room watching holographic movie on the TV, after dinner had concluded, " I heard about your parents complaining your laziness to my parents in your studies."
"I wished, that my parents could tell the difference between been lazy and uninterested, " As Ditzy looked at the bubble floating just above her hand, she see could a faint reflection of herself on the shiny surface of the bubble. " There is nothing that I can do that is enough for my parents, my parents won't stop telling me ' you can do better.' Or 'Why don't you do something else'."
Leaning her side of the face on the palm of her right hand, "I have learnt long ago that even if I did exceed my parents' or people's expectation that they would start pushing me to excel even more, their expectation of me would grow even bigger."
"I can understand your pain," Dusk could sympathies with his friend's plight as he sat down on the couch with her, "My parent never stopped comparing to my brother, he was the apple of not just my parents' eyes but as well as the public's eyes.
Ponies were such fickle creatures with high expectation, as Dusk Shine has long learnt as the years passed by. "They were all under the impression, that I would just like him, but living up to the expectation of other and my parent is exhausting me."
Ditzy gave a slight self- desecrating smile to herself.
Dusk gave her a puzzled, wondering what she had found so funny.
"Don't give that look, I wasn't smiling at you, I was smiling at myself." Said Ditzy who stopped smiling, "At least you are doing extra work like your brother. But look at me," putting her hands on her chest, "What do people think of me when they seen my sister doing more hard work than I do, like doing electives. What do people think when people look at me, doing less work than her.
Today, the university was slight busier and noisier than what it normally was other than the days when the student council had organized special occasion or celebration.
Visitors had been invited to visit the university's campus, those who came, were separated into different groups that led by students who were selected to be tour guides, to led groups of these people around parts of the university.
Sitting there minding her own business and reading articles from the tablet, an unicorn came up from one of the nearby groups being led by the students after being nudged by his presumed friends who was in the group, she saw over there.
Scanning like a machine, she could tell that he was just old as her, but not smart enough to be a genius like her.
The stallion bit his lips, out of nervousness, as he asked an obvious question, "So do you go this university?"
"Yes, I do." She simply said. "I am one of the student that goes to this campus."
He tried peering into the tablet, she held in her hands. He tried to find a subject to start a conversation about an interesting topic with her, "So do you study the history of Equestria as subject, at university."
"I did that in high school, it wasn't that fun but it was interesting to see from the eyes' of the past how the world functioned in the past." Ditzy recalled her past at high school, she patted the down the area on the bench, gesturing for the stallion to sit down, "Would you like to sit down?"
"Thank you," The stallion took her invitation to sit beside her on the bench, "I agree, but you said that ' you did that in high school' May I ask was that with enhanced learning since you look like you're almost the same age like me?" The level of genetic modification that was done to anyone's DNA had its advantage.
"I am, and no I didn't do any enhance learning to speed my study, I did it all myself, I finished high school when I was very young, younger than you." She felt happy to brag about her achievement despite it being viewed as average among her family and their friends.
The stallion hastily asked a question, as he noticed his group was about to move on, without him. "So what kind of subjects, do you do at university, I bet they're very hard."
"Of course they are! I'm doing subjects in physics that require a lot of math to be done, and I still need to write pages of theses to hand in to my tutors." Ditzy said as the swamps of the students has passed by them.
"So are you, doing any electives?" The stallion asked in hurried tone as he keep his eye on the group that he was suppose to be in, the tour guide hadn't finished talking about the campus and letting the people in the group have a good look around parts of the campus.
"No, I'm not."
The stallion had raised his eyebrows at her, this was very unusual and normally, the parents of ponies like her would normally do persuade their children to do more than the normal limit of subjects that normal students would study at, "Why not Many people I have talked to university who go there, have chosen to do electives in their studies along with their main subject."
"I have a lot of subjects to do, and it is very time consume as you know." She coated her lie with such sweetness that stallion had no doubt but to believe what she said.
Ditzy had clashed with her mother, just like she did with her father. Her parents were concerned at how Ditzy studied her subjects at university, in her. In her parent's eyes, their ideal version of an excellent student was a student who automatically found out other work to do, after they completing their previous work.
She used to be so eager to study to win her parents' approval but yet now the sole reason why she had bothered to continue to study at the university was that if she wanted/needed to find a job. Getting a high position in job had high demand these days; it required experiences and at least a degree from university.
As she came home, putting her bag in her room. She went into the kitchen to look about for food that her mother would place on the kitchen bench for her to eat when she came home.
"Why can't you choose to do extra subjects or elective," Ditzy's mother pleaded at her out of concern when Ditzy had just opened the door, coming back from university, "Just like all of your other friends." By other 'friends.' Ditzy's mother meant the people that Ditzy was friend with as well the other ones her mother counted as friends mainly the children of her friends.
"Because I don't want to." She replied frustrated with the constant asking and plodding from her mother and father, as she sat down on one of the chairs in the kitchen, glumly looking at her mother.
Her mother moved up and down the kitchen, trying to prepare for the whole family at dinner.
"Why can't you be like your sister who automatically find other work to do without me telling her what she need to do," Her mother was disappointed in her as she pulled out food from the refrigerator, "I have been talking to my friends, they have been saying and asking me 'Why isn't Ditzy doing any more hard work.' How am I supposes to answer them?"
"Mom, who care what they say, I will still success at my own pace." She retorted to her mother's constant verbal plodding at her. Still looking at her mother, Ditzy continued to munch on the sandwich that her mother had placed on table for her before she came home, trying not get cranky at her mother's words.
"Yes I know, wishing for success to come to you while studying at that pace, won't work. Wishing for something to come to you won't come true if you don't work for it. Nothing will ever to you, if you're not proactive or try to reach out for it." Ditzy turned to look at her mother as she looked back at her.
"Why can't you ever listen to our advice?" Her mother asked her, to consider.
Author's note:
I would like to have constructive criticism to improve my writing skills, as they are not good. I would like to know how I could improve this chapter. This fanfic is supposed to be a series of one shots taking place in the same universe, affecting each other to some degree. This fanfic is a prototype, as I haven't decided on how it should flow.
In the original concept, Ditzy Doo was supposed to have mismatched eyes and her wish to the incubator was for her to be normal like everyone else. One of the consequences of her wish for this change on herself was that she was transformed to her version of her 'ideal' self both mentally and physically, that family and friends couldn't recognize.
The other one was that she had her eyes fixed, in town being more like the Amish, with the town being either afraid / ignorant of magic. Amish are people that are suspicious technology, making them isolated from the rest of the world that uses technology, believing them to be the ultimate devil's temptation to mankind.
The reasons for town's fear of magic range from are the type of magic used to fix Ditzy Doo's eye is banned e.g. blood magic/ it is illegal to get done by anyone else but certified person/ that type of advance of magic didn't exist at time to magic don't exist. Either way, a witch-hunt was on the way.
But these plots couldn't be used in the futuristic and magic realism setting due to very obvious reasons.
The bubbles in the story are motif that represents the psyche of people in the story's setting.
The theme is the pressure that parent and society place on people.
In this chapter, it is made ambiguous as to whether Ditzy made her wish to the incubator before or after her problems with her parents in this story as well as what she wished for. It is bit like the problem show faces if they don't call her by her fans' nickname for her / if they do call her that, offending someone in the audience.
It is a catch-22 of line of thought, if she wished after having problems with her parents, it would have meant her parents had driven her to wish for something to solve her problems. If she had wished before, the problems with her parents would have been caused by wish, that she hadn't though properly through.