A bright-yellow foal lived with her mummah and four siblings in a clean, bright saferoom. It was a peaceful, happy life, with lots of toys, a night light, and even a TV so they could watch FluffTV, but most importantly a loving mummah who cared for all her foals, even the ones with less-pretty colors. The foals had never been outside the saferoom, but since everything they needed or wanted was here, they never wanted to.
Sometimes, their human-mummah, Mara, would come see them, and would give them baths if they got messy, or would clean the litterbox, or would even sometimes bring them new toys to play with. Mara always wore a pretty white coat, although sometimes there were splotches on it, and strange glasses that covered her eyes entirely. The fluffies, of course, loved her, and were always happy when she came to visit.
There was only one thing that made the little yellow foal’s life less than ideal. Even though she’d been a talkie-babbeh for days now, she still didn’t have namesies. Her mummah had namesies, but none of her siblings had been given a name. Every time Mara came to visit, they’d ask for namesies, and every time Mara said they would have them when they were ready.
One day, though, when the yellow foal’s teeth had finally stopped hurting, Mara came and said it was time for the babbehs to have namesies! She took them out of the saferoom, one at a time, and when the yellow foal’s turn came she was taken to another, smaller room, but just as bright and pretty as the saferoom. Her siblings weren’t there, which she didn’t understand, but as soon as the door opened she noticed a wonderful smell.
Sketties! She’d smelled it before, when her mummah had it on sketti-days, and it’d always smelled so tasty, but since she’d been a small babbeh she hadn’t been able to have any. She wondered why there were sketties here, if her mummah wasn’t here to eat it. Maybe…maybe it was for her?
“Can babbeh hab sketties?” she asked, voice trembling with excitement.
“You’re not a babbeh anymore. You have toothies like a big fluffy now, so it’s time for you to have namesies. Since you’ve been such a good fluffy, you can have sketties too, to celebrate.” Mara told her, and her heart soared.
“But first, it’s time for you to have namesies.”
“Babbeh…fwuffy wan’ namesies!” the foal cried, overwhelmed with happiness.
“Your name will be…Brenda.” Mara told her, and Brenda couldn’t help but to shout.
“Bwenda wubs nyu namesies!”
“Alright then, Brenda, are you ready to have some sketties?”
Brenda, too happy to even respond, just bounced around, a ball of fluff and energy.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
The sketties were the best thing Brenda had ever tasted, even better than milkies! She wolfed down the entire bowlful, and to her shock and delight, Mara gave her another entire bowl! After eating that, too, she began to feel sleepy. Her tummeh was so full, and she’d worn herself out bouncing around the room, so she settled down and dozed off.
…
Brenda awoke suddenly, in complete darkness. Maybe she’d slept longer than she’d expected, because it was completely dark in the room. She couldn’t feel her siblings or mummah, so she wasn’t in the fluffpile, but she wasn’t afraid. She’d never had anything to be afraid of, after all.
She felt a gentle shaking in her right back leg, as if someone was gently pulling it back and forth. She kicked out, trying to be left alone so she could go back to sleep, when she was suddenly awoken fully by a shriek of horror, so loud it was as if it’d been right in her ears!
“WAI HOWWY WEGGIES NU WOWK?” the voice wailed. Brenda didn’t recognize the voice, but it was enough to drive terror into her was well.
She began to flail, but to her horror realized that she couldn’t move!. She tried to cry out, tried to ask mummah or Mara or her siblings to save her, but she couldn’t even do that! What was going on? Where was she?
“Shhh…Holly,” Mara’s soothing voice calmed her down a little, and the unknown voice stopped shrieking. “Everything’s okay. You’re a very special fluffy, with very special leggies.”
“Wai weggies nu wowk?” Holly asked, calmer but with an edge of terror in her voice.
“Your leggies are special,” Mara repeated. “You need to ask them to work.”
“Pwease wowk, weggies!” Holly said, in a slightly more reassured tone.
“No, not like that. You leggies have namesies, like you do, and you need to ask them to move with their namesies.”
Brenda thought that was a very silly thing to say, and would have laughed if she’d been able to. Leggies didn’t have namesies! They weren’t fluffies, they were leggies!
“This leggie is Flower, and this leggie is Franky, and this leggie its Blake…” Mara’s voice continued.
Brenda’s amusement, which had almost calmed her, suddenly turned into abject horror and despair, as a hand gently wiggled the leg she could feel, and Mara’s voice said “and this leggie is Brenda.”
Brenda renewed her attempts to scream, to flail, to do anything! She couldn’t be a leggie! She was a fluffy! How could she be a leggie? A leggie couldn’t run, or play, or eat sketties, or watch FluffTV! It was a mistake, it had to be a mistake.
“Uh oh,” Mara’s voice continued. “It looks like your leggies are tired and don’t want to move. Maybe if you go to sleep they’ll want to move tomorrow.”
“Nu! Wan weggies tu move nao! Wan…” Holly’s voice abruptly cut off as a wave of sleep enveloped Brenda.
…
Mara mused over how miserable of a failure the experiment had been, as she made her way back to the observation room from the testing chamber. It’d been a few days since the operation, and so far there weren’t any real signs of cooperation from the conjoined fluffy psyches. Even the offering of spaghetti wasn’t enough to get them to make it to the bowl before feeding time ended, most of the time, and painful electric shocks to the legs weren’t enough to get them to cooperate enough to make it to the litterbox without making a mess.
As she walked through the convoluted way to the observation room, something tickled at the back of her mind. She felt like she’d forgotten something. Oh well, it probably wasn’t important.
She entered the observation room and sat down in her uncomfortable office chair. Time to watch a functionally paralyzed fluffy do nothing for another six hours. Oh, the joys of psychological research. With a sigh, she reached for her thermos and took and long drink of hot, burnt coffee.
It was then she noticed on one of the displays what she’d forgotten. The bowl of spaghetti she’d been supposed to remove from the testing chamber after feeding time was up. It probably didn’t matter that much. Consider it throwing them a bone for a change. Heavens knew they could use at least some happiness in their lives right about now.
Something was different, this time, though. While usually the legs didn’t respond to commands at all, this time the fluffy was walking…almost normally. Well, almost normally for a newborn foal with a fractured spine, maybe, but still much better than any other time. Was the prospect of having spaghetti without a time limit that appealing?
…
A few minutes earlier, Brenda was throwing her usual “tantrum” if such a term can be said to apply with no voice and control over only one leg, when Holly said something unusual. “Pwease, weggies,” the first time not calling them “dummeh” or “meanie” in what seemed like forever. “Pwease, wet Howwy gu tu bowl. Wet Howwy gu fowebah-sweepies.”
That caught Brenda’s attention. She didn’t want to die, not at all, but at this point she’d settle for literally anything to escape this hell. After all, forever-sleepies couldn’t possibly be worse than this. All she had to do was cooperate, for a little while, and this nightmare could end.
…
“Pwease mobe, Fwowew. Pwease mobe, Fwanky. Pwease mobe, Bwake. Pwease mobe, Bwenda.”
The fluffy’s voice looped, abnormally more rhythmically than usually and consistently getting the correct response from the legs. Mara reconsidered, maybe this wasn’t a complete failure after all. Maybe they just needed motivation they knew they could achieve. Maybe the strict feeding times had been sabotaging progress, rather than encouraging it.
As she watched, the fluffy reached the bowl. Mara paused in anticipation, preparing to see how the taste of spaghetti re-motivated the gestalt fluffy, how it would learn to live, possibly thrive, as it was. However, her optimism was dashed when the fluffy spoke again. “Tank 'ou, weggies. Nao Howwy can gu foweba-sweepies.”
With that, the fluffy drove its neck down onto the rim of the bowl, it’s fragile windpipe immediately collapsing. With a harsh, croaking gurgle, the fluffy lay there, absent-mindedly licking at the spaghetti in the bowl as it suffocated. Mara sprinted to the testing chamber, but she knew it would be too late.
Well, that was that for the experiment. It wouldn’t be too hard to restart it, but that result had given her more than enough data. Better to let it end now, instead of causing unnecessary suffering.
After confirming that the fluffy was, indeed, expired, Mara made her way to the life-support room. She’d have to disconnect the neural interfaces. The experiment was over, after all, and leaving them connected would be a waste.
…
Brenda awoke suddenly, and fully, from utter darkness, with a shriek of horror and misery. Instinctively, she rose to her feet and tried to run around the brightly-lit room. Wait…the brightly-lit room? Rose to her feet? Was she…a fluffy again? Had she somehow escaped that hell?
“What’s wrong, Brenda?” Mara’s voice caused her to look around. While doing so, she saw a mirror she somehow hadn’t noticed when she was in this room, getting her namesies and the sketties. Seeing herself reflected in it, she began to sob. She couldn’t have imagined how beautiful seeing herself could be.
“Bwenda am fwuffy? Nu am weggie? Nu mowe huwties, ow dawkies?”
“What are you talking about? You fell asleep after eating your sketties…I think you had a nightmare. Are you okay?”
“Pwease, can Bwenda see famiwy again?”
“Of course you can. Are you alright? I’m getting worried.”
Brenda didn’t respond, merely savored the feeling of being carried, or feeling anything besides just one leg, as she was brought back to the saferoom. Before they entered, though, Mara whispered something in her ear. “Don’t tell your siblings or mummah about your nightmare. They don’t need to be frightened over nothing.”
Brenda agreed with that, and vowed to herself to never mention it. Although the nightmare had felt like eternity, when she asked her mummah and siblings, she was told it’d only been less than a day. She cried a little, mostly from relief, and settled down in her mummah’s loving embrace.
She never noticed the tiny port in the base of her skull, concealed as it was under her mane.
Research Proposal 837-C-A: Fluffy Recovery from Existential Trauma.
26 Likes
I question the usefulness of this experiment.
6 Likes
If it involves fluffies suffering then it’s useful more often than not.
3 Likes
That’s really high concept, though.
I’d just poke them with a fork.
3 Likes
I wonder if Brenda is actually returned to her family, or just in a simulation
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