I was twenty-five minutes late for work by the time I pulled into the parking lot at the Towhee building. What really irked me is that I would’ve been on time today if the driver in the lane next to me hadn’t suddenly swerved to avoid a herd of feral fluffies. I don’t know if he was some hugboxer or just didn’t want to have to wash shitrat guts off his bumper, but regardless of the reason, I had to swerve off the road to dodge him and punctured one of my tires in the process.
And to top it all off, those stupid little fuckers went right back to waddling across the road. Eighteen-wheeler creamed the lot of 'em a few minutes later.
Still silently fuming, I walk through the front lobby, flashing my ID badge to the receptionist as I went past. After punching in my time card and grabbing my lab coat, I stop by a computer terminal to check what my first assignment for the day will be.
[DEWITT, ALICE & BACHMAN, ROBERT: DRAIZE OCULAR IRRITANCY TEST, LAB B17]
Great. That meant dealing with more fluffies.
I should probably explain what my job entails. My employer, Towhee Laboratories, is what’s referred to as a contract research organization or CRO. Our main business is centered around product safety assessment: Companies that make everything from cosmetics and household cleaners to pesticides and pharmaceuticals outsource the testing of their products to us, in order to get the stamp of approval needed to sell them on the market. I joined this place about six months ago after getting my master’s degree in toxicology. So far it hadn’t been too bad, so long as you didn’t mind the tight deadlines, the hectic conditions, and of course, the test subjects.
Testing Room B17 is completely deserted when I get there, with the workstations unoccupied and the rows upon rows of acrylic restraint boxes all empty. As I begin collecting the supplies that I’ll need, I hear the door open, followed by the noise of a squeaky old cart being pushed inside.
“Morning, Alice”
It’s Carlos, one of the lab assistants. The utility cart he’s pushing has trays of chemical vials on the top shelf, and two metal crates below.
“Good morning, Carlos. Hey, have you seen Rob?” I ask. “He’s supposed to be working with me on this test, at least according to the roster.”
“Yeah, he’s in the biochem labs upstairs. The HPLC machine screwed up some of his samples, so he’s having to run them again.” he replies. “Do you want me to get him?”
“Nah, I can handle this for now. Thanks, Carlos”
As he leaves the room, I grab a clipboard off the top of the cart. Reading it confirms that I’ll be performing a Draize test, the standard industry procedure for determining if a chemical is an eye irritant. The product I’ll be testing today, it informs me, is called “HyperKleen Industrial Strength Degreaser & Descaler”. Sounds pretty nasty.
I pull a crate off the cart and set it down on the floor. Opening the door on top, I’m greeted by the usual cacophony of noise:
“Hewwo! Be nyu mummah?”
“Nice wady pway wif fwuffy?”
“Fwuffy hungy! Wan nummies!”
“Pweeze gib upsies!”
“Hewwo nyu fwend! Fwuffy wub 'ou!”
Five fluffies are staring up at me from inside the cage, all smiling cheerfully. A label on the side informs me that this group is about 20 weeks old. They used to do this test on rabbits, but nowadays a research-grade fluffy costs a third of the price. Plus, unlike rabbits, there are no animal welfare regulations in place for fluffies.
I pick up the first fluffy, a brown pegasus stallion with a puke-green mane. He continues to babble happily as I carry him, still under the delusion that I’m his “nyu mummah”. Once he gets a look at the restraint boxes, however, a freakout suddenly ensues:
“NUUUUUUU! PWEEZE NYU MUMMAH, NU WAN BE WITTAH-PAW! NU WAN NUM POOPIES! HUUU HUUU HUUUUUUUUU…”
One could possibly forgive the stallion for his confusion. The restraints did admittedly look similar to the packages they sold litter-pals in: an enclosed box with a hole that the fluffy’s head would stick out of. The breeders that supply us also sell fluffies for various other purposes, so it’s likely this guy had witnessed the fate that befell many of his brown-colored brethren, and believed the same thing was now happening to him.
I freeze for a second. Normally we weren’t supposed to talk to the test subjects, but if the other fluffies heard the stallion, there could be a panic - and the last thing I wanted to do was spend my morning wiping shit off the countertops. Thinking quickly, I told him “No no, you won’t have to eat any ‘poopies’. You can eat kibble just like all of the other fluffies, I promise. Now calm down and be a good fluffy”. To seal the deal, I give him the briefest of hugs, squeezing him against my midsection.
“Otay, nyu mummah” it says, still sniffling. “Fwuffy wiww be gud. Tank 'ou fow huggies.”
Fucking disgusting. I made a mental note to wash this shirt with bleach when I got home.
I walk over to the far end of a row of restraint boxes, unlatch the lid of one, and secure the stallion inside. The floor of the box is made of wire mesh, so that any excreta will fall through into a collection tray below for easy cleaning. On the outside, there’s a food tray and water bottle in reach of the fluffy’s head. I repeat this process nine more times until all the fluffies have been restrained. As a last bit of preparation, I don a pair of nitrile gloves and safety goggles to protect myself against the chemicals, as well as foam ear plugs to protect my hearing from the…well, you’ll see.
Starting at the first box in the row, I take a couple of rubber-tipped clamps and latch them onto the fluffy’s eyelids, holding them open so that it can’t blink out the chemicals. The fluffy squirms with discomfort and whines something about their “see-pwaces”, but my ears are muffled to its complaints. The first test subject is always a control, so this fluffy just gets a few drops of sterile water in its eyes. The next one, however, will be getting the real deal.
After clamping the second fluffy’s eyelids open, I grab a vial from the cart, pop it open, and draw up four milliliters of the purple fluid into a pipette. Then, with a couple swift motions, I deposit half of the fluid onto the fluffy’s right eyeball, then the other half onto the left.
For a fraction of a second, the fluffy goes silent. Then:
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! WOWSTEST SEE-PWACE OWWIES!!”
Yep. There we go.
The fluffy shrieks in agony as the caustic purple liquid burns its corneas. Twin rivers of tears stream down its snout, soaking into its face fluff. Through the clear acrylic walls of the box, I can see their stubby legs flailing about while they shit themselves, but thankfully the mess is contained inside. The happy chattering among the other fluffs has ceased completely. Now they’re all staring at me in utter shock and horror at what I’ve done to their friend. I do my best to ignore them by keeping my eyes on the clock.
After five minutes, it’s time to record my first observation. I lean in to get a closer look at the fluffy’s swollen, bloodshot eyes, filling out a form on my clipboard.
Draize Ocular Irritancy Scale - Product #53418
Tearing: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8
Redness: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 [8]
Edema: 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 7 8
Opacity: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 8
Remarks: Immediate, severe pain noted in test subject upon introduction of substance to eyes. Chemical burns on conjunctiva observed. Slight increase to corneal opacity after 5 mins.
I move on to the third fluffy. It starts crying as I loom overhead and squeezes its eyelids shut, but I pry them open all the same. The other fluffies begin panicking as it dawns on them that they’ll be next. One my one I repeat the procedure, applying the chemical to their eyes and recording the effects, until at last I reach the tenth and final box.
The shit-colored pegasus - the one I gave “huggies” to earlier - is quivering with terror as I approach. He’s scrabbling at the walls of the box with his hooves, and his little vestigial wings are frantically flapping, as if he thinks he might be able to fly away from this fate. He stares at me with wide eyes and manages to blubber something out.
“P-p-pweeze, nyu mummah! Pweeze nu huwt see-pwaces!”
I decline this request.
Rob Bachman finally appears in the doorway just as I finish my 5-minute observation of the brown stallion. He’s a tall guy in his early thirties with a shiny bald head and wire-framed glasses. I wave to him, then motion to meet back outside so that we can talk away from all the screaming.
“Hey Alice” he says in the hallway after I pull my earplugs out. “I’m real sorry that I wasn’t here to help you with this test. The fluffies didn’t give you too much trouble, did they?”
“Well, not any more than usual” I chuckle. “Anyway, I’ve already gone ahead and applied the test substance to all of them. Would you mind sticking behind to perform the 1-hour and 3-hour observations so that I can move ahead to my next assignment?”
“Sure, no problem. It’s the least I could do for you. Do you want me to feed them as well?”
“Nah. The lab assistants can take care of that. I’ll reassess their eyes during the evenings this week, and you can check on them in the mornings.”
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: A standard Draize test lasts for 14 days. These fluffies have another two weeks of torment to look forward to. Sucks to be them, I guess.
“Alright, sounds good” Rob replies. “Oh, and speaking of food: wanna go grab lunch together again?”
“Sure!” I say.
“Great, see you there!”
He turns and opens the door to the lab, and I get one last glimpse at the results of my work on the fluffies’ pained faces before it closes behind him.