Another morning, another eyefull of gunk, another half hour of staring at the too-high ceiling. Ilene Barkley blinked once, twice, and sat up. Reach left, get the fags, flick flick, sit in bed with the baccy. There wasn’t much noise, save the oscilating fan she had to keep herself grounded to reality. She was told once that the Chinese leave people in holes for years to rot, with only the irregular sound of dripping water to tether them to reality. It’s so a full punishment can be carried out; the prisoner won’t leave early by succumbing to insanity.
She wasn’t too certain she had turned on the water early enough.
TV on, eggs 'n baky onnaplate. What time was it? 5am. Ilene gnawed at her nails thinking on her sleep schedule, flipping through channels.
“From the capitol, CEO of Hasbio Lena Baker announced today that-”
“She’s got beefcurtains downstairs and sucks at rollerskating,” Ilene finished, switching to her music playlist. Soft rock, long ballads, forgotten loves, angry youths. How many of them got evicted from their life’s work by a good friend? Probably the chicks from Poison, she figured, munching on the last strip of bacon. A faint cry from beneath broke her tranquility.
“Biiiig poopies!”
It would appear as though the miracle of birth thought it had a higher priority this morning than her routine. Ilene sighed and swapped into some work clothes. Off-white tanktop, tucked into long khaki pants, tucked into large workboots. The girls were held up by some flesh tone thing she found on sale last week. Style didn’t matter anymore, Ilene figured, wrist-deep in fluffy placenta and afterbith. She’s a blood & guts, dirt & grit woman. No more clean spreadsheets, watercooler gossip, or exploitation of God’s image.
“chirp chirp chirp!”
“Babbehs? Mummah’s hewe!”
Okay maybe that last one was still relevant.
Ilene sat back and took off her large work gloves, watching the process at work. Beatrix the red pegasus mare had gone through a messy, messy birth. Would need to sanitize the station thoroughly afterwards. She may have comprehensive, grisly, plans for fluffies, but like hell would she stand for improper cleanliness. She was already breeding vermin, didn’t need rats in the house too.
“Chirp!” “Chirp!” “Chirp!”
Many babies, lots of sorting and licks needed by the dam. Ilene slumped lower into the wall. Her makeshift birthing room was a chamber, part of a larger subterranean bunker neath her house. She didn’t have much in the way of tiling, or lime-green paint, but some white drapery over the sickly-colored drywall made for the decent aesthetic of a hospital. By some miracle Ilene had even figured out plumbing for the bunker. She was proud of her little laboratory under the earth. It was no Hasbio R&D, but it was hers. A series of small huffs and puffs between Beatrix’s babbles indicated the dam was done with preliminary salutations to her litter.
“What’s the damage, goober?” Ilene sauntered over to the birthing table. 7 foals, big litter, variety of colors, most of them derivatives of Red, the mother, and Yellow, the father. As expected from a dual pegasus breeding procedure, all were sporting wings of a size or another.
“Beetwix hab wots uf babbehs! Su many gud babbehs!” her little wings flapped and she bobbed left and right, bouncing with joy. Ilene prodded at two of the foals who looked like they hadn’t gotten a good licking.
“No good?” she asked, turning one of them over with a finger, examining angles with long, calloused fingers. One was stillborn, the other had erratic breathing.
“Yes mummah, dummeh babbehs,” Beatrix sniffed, a quick moment of mourning for the little ones she could do nothing for. Her mood quickly turned as one of her healthy foals chirped, begetting a flurry of adoration and sweet nothings from the new mother. Ilene collected the two rejects in a biohazard bag before suddenly stopping. She sharply jabbed her index finger into the tip of Beatrix’s snout.
“Buh! Nuuu! Why mummah huwt Beatwix? Huu-huu…”
Ilene pressed harder, “Ilene. Not momma,” she leaned in close, nostrils flaring and lip cruelly curled into a sneer, “Say it.” Beatrix pulled back, trying to relieve the pressure on her schnozz. The redhead wasn’t having any of it and persisted.
“Pwease Iwene wady, nu huwt nu mummah,” she choked out, trying to keep from crying in front of her foals. Ilene’s finger retracted.
“Good girl. Come now, let’s get you skoogs to your new room,” Ilene scooped up the fluffs, Beatrix babbling on and on about “bestest howm fow babbehs” and “wawm bwankies”. Ilene’s stomach turned thinking on the sickening familial bliss. Through the hallway, down one, two doors, and on the left, the Nursury. Ilene deposited the new family in an empty pen, an open-top enclosure surrounded by three-foot high dividers, and turned to leave the room.
“Thank yu Iwene wady!” Beatrix called out.
Choke on it.
Climbing up the ladder out of her bunker and into her workshop, Ilene’s mind drifted to Beatrix’s last punishment.
A week after mating, the dam’s mate, Glowstick, had gotten adventurous in his quest to help his family secure a brighter future. He’d used his fat dam as a stepping stool to get over the walls of their pen and found his way to the kibble storage. One could only imagine the dextrous abilities of a fluffy trying to move small pieces of kibble between rooms and the disastrously irritating mess it left behind. Ilene had found him pawing at the pen walls, crying “Meanie waww, wet soon-daddeh feed bestest mummah! Hab bigges’ nummies!”
Terrence ate well that day. He preferred a pre-killed foal as it was quicker to consume, but vulture beaks were built to tear open cowhide; a fluffy with broken legs wasn’t about to put up a fight against such a massive, hungry bird.
Was it overkill? Ilene wondered as she paced through her living room, flicking a switch and waiting for her door to open. She glanced towards a framed lab report on her wall. One of the wordspaces had erratic, thick scribbling that read “Iris Barkley”.
Nah.
~
Ilene hucked the two foals into the center of the lot and popped a squat on a nearby lawn chair to wait for her aviary companion. Thank God for him, she thought as she stretched her 6-foot frame, she only had so much land to her name and a biohazard latrine would have seriously cut into her working space. A breeze picked up, cooling the beads of sweat on her brow. America was much warmer than her village back home, Ilene thought. She ran her hand through her hair, feeling out and removing bits of gore she had missed in the shower last night. Improper cleanliness, reprehensible old girl. Ilene’s eyes drifted along the treeline, before locking eyes with a dark shadow.
Roosting, Terrence? When your favorite food is sitting, right there? What’s gotten into that bird-
“Why babbehs nu movin’?”
Huh?
“Siwwy babbehs, nee’ wuv and hugs fwom fwuffy!”
Ilene’s head snapped down to the noise. A light blue earth pony mare with a darker toned mane had appeared in the middle of the clearing. She was hugging the two foals, unable to tell they were on their way out. After a few moments of no response, the mare looked down at the two foals, lower lip trembling.
“Why babbehs nu tawkie? Nu wuv fwuffy? Huu huu”
Ilene flipped a cover under her chair and pulled out a small toolbox. Some gummy candies that hardened quicky, a roman candle, toy alicorn on a stick, a mirror, none of this would do. She rifled a little faster and found what she was looking for, a small puppy beanie baby. Ilene sat up, depositing the box on the ground and watching the high-class drama unfurl in the lot. The feral mare was beside herself with grief, huu huu-ing on her knees and cradling the half-dead foals in her front legs. “Pwease wakie, babbehs, fwuffy wuv 'ou” she pleaded. Her head swiveled left and right, finally catching Ilene’s reclined body some 30 feet away.
“Nice wady, pwease hewp fwuffy!” it called out, scooting closer to Ilene. Ilene clicked her tongue once, twice, thrice, and sat up. She tilted her head and scratched at her scalp.
“Aw no! Those are some sad babies! We have to help them!” Four month-long training courses of Hasbio HR was a gross overqualification when considering the need to hide monstrous intentions to a fluffy, but if it works, it works, “Quick, leave them there and come stand next to me.”
The feral halted, not wanting to leave her little beloveds alone, but listened to the giant woman. Surely the nice red lady would help her! The fluffy scampered next to Ilene and teetered back and forth. Her gaze jumped erratically from Ilene to the two still foals.
“Alright little babe, I’m gonna need you to give it your all,” Ilene clenched her fists and brought them to her sides, elbows bent behind her back. Shoulders squared, back straight, bust pronounced, eyes unblinking. Hold, one, two, exhale, “We’re gonna cast a magic spell that’ll make the babies all better.” The feral began to bounce and pound her hooves on Ilene’s ankles.
“Weawwy?!? Tank yuu nice wady!”
“Up up up, eyes forward, focus, don’t even blink, I need to cast the spell,” Ilene commanded, watching the treeline for a hint of movement. Come on Terry, they’re all yours. “Bippity boppity, Alakabetty, foals wake up, by the power of sketti!”
Nothing.
The mare at Ilene’s side had her eyes boggled out and legs stretched, making small groaning noises. Ilene clapped her hands to her cheeks twice and shook her body.
“My fault, my fault, bad spell, one more time,” she lifted her hand up and pointed to the leering scavenger, “Hey, ho, whaddaya knows,” she drifted her hand to the still babies, “Come on down and lift dese foals!”
The blue mare held her breath, praying for a sign of movement or a tell-tale chirp. In an instant, Terrence swooped down and soared off, foals in his talons’ clutches. She began to scream in that most piercing of shrill tones.
“BIRDIE-MUNSTAH NU! NU TAKE PWETTY BABBEHS FWUM FWUFFY! PWEASE BIRDIE-MUNSTAH!” she scampered out a pace or two, eyes a torrent of tears and nose clogged with snot. She lost track of the mighty bird and plopped on her rump, sobbing. She turned to face Ilene, who had put on a look of horror, her mouth agape and covered with an open palm.
“That… wasn’t… oh my God,” Ilene doubled over, one hand on her knee, the other shakingly pointing at the mare, “the bird only comes to punish… to punish…”
The feral’s eyes filled with tears, predicting what would come next.
“…bad fluffies” the breaking point. The feral buried her head in her hooves and cried loudly, unable to say a coherent thought. Ilene straightened herself, staring at the shameful, disgusting display. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the puppy beanie baby, “I had… this toy [sob], this pretty toy to give your babies but,” Ilene choked on her words, pretending to catch herself before she, too, gave in to despair. Her victim looked up from her front legs, shaking her head.
“…nu bad fwuffy… pwease wed wady, pwease,” it was begging for some form of validation. It wanted to be told it was a good fluffy, that this horrid tragedy wasn’t her fault. It wanted release from the bird’s talons that clutched its poor heart, “fwuffy nu hab babbehs. Speshuw fwen’ weave fwuffy cus fwuffy nu can hab babbehs”.
Ilene’s eyes widened at the feral crawling towards her. Her left lower eyelid twitched.
“Fwuffy wus soon-mummah, hab biggest huwties,” the fluffy paused to lower her head and sob a moment, “agen an’ agen, babbehs take foweba-sweepies. Hab wowst heawt-huwties. Neba see speshuw fwend ageeeeeeen huu huu huuuuu”.
Ilene gritted her teeth, her breath becoming ragged. Somewhere deep beneath her stomach, a pain ached.
The charade was over.
She gripped the stuffed toy on either side and yanked hard. The tiny dog ripped in twain, spilling its cotton contents and bits of torn fabric all over the broken mare. The fluffy fell to its stomach, unable to carry the weight of its body and pain anymore and banged its legs on the ground. A shrill scream escaped its worn out, stinging throat. Ilene stooped down and jabbed a finger into the fluffy’s nose, her face contorted in anger and deep, deep sorrow.
“Bad. Fluffy.”
She turned to her house and stormed inside, leaving the mare to scream in agony.
“WAN’ DIE! WAN’ DIE! WAN’ DIE! WAN’ DIE!”
Ilene stomped inside and flicked the door switch. It began to slide closed, slowly. Too slowly. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. She grabbed the door and slammed it shut, the mechanism squealing under her force. Ilene’s eyelids could barely hold on. She sprinted to her bed and clawed for the photograph she kept on her nightstand. Her green eyes glazed over the picture, a scan of a slug-like creature’s outline in black and white. Tiny legs and arms protruded from its otherwise formless mass. Otherwise formless, save for a small dot, one of its eyes it should’ve been able to have, should’ve been able to see with some day. Ilene’s teeth clenched tighter and tighter, her abdomen beginning to flex as her sobs came through. She rubbed her hand along her lower stomach, finding the thin, long line indented beneath her belly button.
The sensation ripped her open. She was able to contain herself no longer.
Ilene screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed. She pounded her fist into the mattress and bit at her pillow in agony. Her jaw strained as it struggled to open wide enough to match the volume of her wailing. Her lungs begged for more air so she could continue her forlorn, laborious tirade.
On the very bottom of the photo, just beneath her gnawed thumb, scrawled in marker, the word “Iris”.