Big Mac Doesn't Talk Much

Big Mac Doesn’t Talk Much

Big McIntosh doesn’t talk much.
Sometimes ponies ask him why he doesn’t talk too much.  He’ll respond with a joke.  He’ll tell them about an old proverb about the two types of ponies who don’t talk too much.  There are the good ponies who don’t talk because the let their actions speak for themselves.  And then there are the bad ponies who don’t talk because they have something to hide.
So the ponies who listen to the joke naturally ask which kind of pony Big Mac is, good or bad.  Big Mac never answers this question.  So the ponies laugh at the joke, and go about their business.  The truth is, Big Mac doesn’t talk too much for both those reasons.
He also doesn’t talk too much because there isn’t much to say.  Ponies will ask him things like “how’s the weather up there?” And “is it hot enough for you?”  But there isn’t any good way to respond to those kind of rhetorical questions.  So Big McIntosh doesn’t say anything at all.  Other ponies feel awkward because of it.  They think Big McIntosh is slow.  Dim-witted.  Or even retarded.  Nevermind that it was them making the stupid comments in the first place.  Big Mac doesn’t mind.  If he did, he doesn’t saying anything.
Big McIntosh is a bit of a loner.  Ponies figure he should be with all the fillies, given how strapping and handsome he is.  He’s really not that much of a success with the fillies.  He never talks to them.  That said, Big Mac is a hopeless romantic.  He’d never be the type of stallion who just plays the field.  He falls head over heels in love with a filly; but he never tells her about it.  He spends all his work hours daydreaming about their life they’ll never have.  He wants her to fall in love with him, and they’ll spend the rest of their days together in their love.  Then the crush passes, like a dream.  And the next week Big Mac is in love with somebody else, all over again, never saying a word.
Nope.
Big McIntosh doesn’t talk much.
But he’s full of words.
Every night, after his long hours of hard farm labor, Big Mac eats a dinner with his family.  Then he retreats to his private room, where he gets to work on his old typewriter.  It’s slow business, typing with hooves.  But Big Mac has worked out an efficient system.  He’s actually really very fast.
He’ll write love letters to the fillies he never actually speaks to.  He’ll write adventure stories filled with colorful characters in exciting locales that he’ll never visit.  He’ll invent far off worlds in futures that will never be, or lands of long ago that never existed.  He’ll create horrible monsters that threaten the villagers, or turn those kind, innocent villagers into thrilling monsters that you’d never suspect.  He writes mysteries, and westerns, and romances.  Big Mac can write about anything.  And that’s just the stories.
Big McIntosh is even better at non-fiction.  He’ll write letters to the editor of the local paper.  He writes political tracts on a number of issues.  He has even occasionally published literary criticism under a nom de plume.  His personal diary is millions of words long.  At least it would be, if he still kept it.
One time his little sister found one of those love letters.  She teased him about it.  It was only playful teasing, typical sibling rivalry.  She had no idea how much she had hurt him.  Big McIntosh was crushed.  Not because of the subject of the letter.  Or because of the teasing.  But because the letter had been private.
Big McIntosh didn’t keep anything anymore.  In fact, that very day Big McIntosh had taken his typewriter, marched out into the woods, and thrown it into a ravine.  The feeling didn’t last long.  The next day Big Mac took his savings, went into town, and bought a brand new used typewriter.
Big McIntosh still writes.  He writes for hours.  Ten thousand words a night, at least.  It keeps him up until the small hours of night, his eyes straining under a low wattage bulb.  Then, when he’s had enough, he take all his papers out back behind the house and burns them in a fire pit.  He goes back to bed and gets a few hours of fitful sleep before getting up bright and early for the farm work.  He does it all over again the next day.
Big McIntosh doesn’t mind.  He enjoys the life he’s worked out for himself.
But if you asked, he wouldn’t tell you.