Byron turned off the lights in the shop for the last time. His boss, an old man practically bent double, pats him on the back. He says he tried to hold on for as long as he could, and he wished he could have kept Byron around longer.
Byron solemnly nods, and embraces the old man. Byron knew that he was not a rich man, but he wasn’t poor either. Of course, he lost his job in the middle of a recession, and it looked like he wouldn’t find another anytime soon. Byron lets his boss know if he needs his car worked on or something done in his house–he mentions in passing the cleaning charge the fluffies brought upon him.
“Say, uhh, what would you know about fluffies?” the old man said tentatively.
“Not enough, apparently” Byron said gruffly.
“Well its my granddaughter’s birthday next week. She’s been asking for one for the last couple of months seems like.”
He trailed off. “If your free soon I’d appreciate if you’d help me find a good fluffy for her. I’ll pay you for it too of course.”
“Yeah, sure. Uhh how about Thursday midday?” replied Byron.
“Yeah that works” responded the old man.
Byron drove home, depressed. He really liked his job and hated the thought of retail or warehouse work. He really would miss being able to swear at the machinery and the tools, and the gruff camaraderie of his coworkers helped lift even the darkest of spirits.
Speaking of spirits, Byron was at home, already onto his fourth Vodka and Cranberry. His head was beginning to spin. He made a mad dash to the bathroom. He was in the middle of his ritualistic prayer to the goddess of porcelain, when he was interrupted by faint huuhuu’ing coming from the tub. Byron instinctively turned towards the sound of the noise and in doing so, managed to spray Tangerine with projectile vomit containing most of his semi-digested lunch and a good portion of cheap liquor and juice. Tangerine lost it. Her crying and pleading got even louder. Byron was in no mood for this as he was already beginning to feel the effects of over consumption. He callously backhands Tangerine and crassly yells at her to shut the fuck up. Blood was streaming from her eyes, which mixed with tears and despair. She was in such pain, she neglected to save her three foals, including the adopted poopie babbeh. They all drowned in Byrons vomit. Cries of “buwny wawa – nu wike” and “babbeh haf owwies, nee huggies” fadded into the distance, as Byron passed out and the foals drowned to death.
Byron awoke several hours later to the incessant whining of Tangerine. He was in no mood to deal with her in his current condition. He picked her up scruffly by her maine, eliciting cries of “Bad upsies”. Byron carried her to the laundry room sink, and dropped her in. As he was cleaning the shower, he spotted the bloated bodies of the foals. He groaned out loud. Tangerine would likely never recover from such an experience. He sighed and threw the dead foals into the trash. As much as he would love to rehabilitate Tangerine, he had bigger issues now, such as his upcoming credit card bills. He roughly washed Tangerine with some dish soap and lukewarm water. He had to pause a few times to gag, but throughout the whole experience Tangerine did not move nor react. She was essentially devolved into a rag doll, occasionally crying, lamenting her lost babbehs and begging for forever sleepies.
Byron went to the garage and voided the smarty and took him inside. He dropped the red smarty into the laundry room tub and went to go throw up again in the bathroom. He was gone longer than expected, and by the time he came back, Tangerine was good and thorough enfed. Byron returned to hear her huu huu in between singing to her tummeh babbeh’s. Byron returned the smarty to his workbench and repeated the procedure with the two mares in the breeding pens. Byron was planning to sell the foals from the breeding pens when they were talkeh babbehs, but he was hoping he might try to sell Tangerine’s foals as pets. In the meantime, he was still broke, and the fluffies around his house had grown more numerous as the summer wore on.
Byron grabbed some old duffel bags and a few cans of expired canned spaghetti and headed out of the house after returning Tangerine to the safe room closet and making sure the room was shit proof.
Almost immediately, he found some feral herds munching gwassy nummies on a vacant lot nearby. He walked over casually, alerting the smarty to his presence.
“Dummy hoomin gib skeeti and wand an nummies an an special fwiends NAO” the smarty demanded, stomping his hoofsies. Byron wordlessly dumped the contents of the canned spaghetti into the duffel bag, and the entire heard shuffled inside. He quickly zipped the duffel bag shut and headed home. He took the heard into his laundry room and wordlessly dumped them into the laundry sink. He dumped a bunch of dish soap into the sink and turned on the hot water. Some soap got into the fluffies delicate eyes, to which they shouted “SCREEEEE burnie huwties in see pwaces. NU WIKE”. Byron wordlessly voided and cleaned each fluffy. He counted a total of 15 fluffies and 5 foals. Some of the mares were ready to pop, and so Byron would spare them–for now. He took 12 fluffies, properly prepared, and went to meet Bill the butcher again. This time, he left with fifty dollars. Not bad for a day’s (untaxed) work.