You wake up. Saturday morning. Your day off. No plans. Your day will be defined by routine and routine alone. Maybe you can find comfort in that.
You take a shower, get dressed, brush your teeth. Check your phone. Check your mail. Check the time. You worry, sometimes, that you unconsciously take longer than you need to in the morning just to put off heading into the kitchen.
You’re just overthinking things, you tell yourself. Shake it off. It’s time for breakfast.
As always, your fluffy is waiting for you in the kitchen. You smile at her.
“Good morning, Peaches.”
You cross the room to the other side of the table. Peaches, as always, is seated in her high chair by the window. You can tell she’s sleeping by her slow, deep breathing. One could charitably call it snoring. You reach behind her ear and give her a gentle scratch. Her breathing slowly quickens. Her eyes open, just barely. It’s as close as she gets to being awake.
Breakfast dosen’t take long. A buttered English muffin and a few strips of bacon for you. A cup of jello for Peaches. Grape flavored. Her favorite. You wait until you’re done eating to feed her. More sanitary that way.
Gently, you push her mouth open with your fingers, tilting her head up until her muzzle’s pointed at the ceiling. You take the plastic funnel and carefully slide the end of the hose down her esophagus. A straight shot to her stomach.
And the whole time, Peaches is staring blankly at the ceiling. Her eyes are out of alignment, like a child glued a pair of cherry-red rhinestones on her favorite doll. Lazy and vacuous.
Breakfast this morning, as always, is a puree of grape jello, water, and mashed up vitamins. Steadily, you pour the goop down her throat. It swirls down the tube and vanishes into her stomach. Once you’re done, you lift the tube out, gently lower her head, and wipe the drool from her face.
“Good girl.” You smile and brush her mane away from her eyes. On the way out, you take a moment to switch on the Bluetooth speaker on the counter, putting on her usual playlist. Kids music. Tambourines, xylophones, maracas. You hope she likes it.
After that is chores. Vacuuming the carpets, dusting the shelves. It’s not like you have people over anymore, but it’s good to keep the place clean.
By the time you’re done you’ve cleaned up most of the house. Everywhere except for the saferoom, really. Not much point going in there.
Now you’re on the couch, killing time. YouTube and Reddit. You try and settle in. Lunch is a few hours off. You look outside. It’s nice out. Summer. Nice weather for a walk.
You sigh, and go back to scrolling on your phone. Soon enough you’ve gone from sitting up to laying down.
Lazy Saturday. Gotta love it.
“Good morning, Peaches!”
“Gud mownin’ daddeh!”
Peaches rises from her bed, shaking the sleep out of her head like a dog shaking off water. She settles down, her big ruby eyes looking confused for a moment before she remembers you’re there, and then she’s all smiles again. It’s her own morning ritual, and it always makes you smile too.
“Daddeh an’ Peaches go tu pawk?”
“We sure are! Later though. First, it’s time for breakfast.”
Peaches climbs out of bed, her mint green tail wagging behind her. She’s always been zero to fifty. Brimming with excitement, always ready to play.
“Wub pawk! Wub bweakfass!” she giggles, shuffling her hooves in anticipation. You kneel down to pet her mane, and she rises up to hug your leg.
“Wub daddeh tu! Peaches wub daddeh!”
“I love you too Peaches.”
Your phone chimes, waking you from your internet-induced fugue. You grimace.
Potty time.
You’re off the couch and back in the kitchen. Peaches is still in her chair, chest slowly rising and falling, head lolled off to the side. You try to fix her back upright against the headrest. You hope she’s comfortable.
When you got this high chair, your friend helped you cut a small hole in the center of the seat, right above the litterbox you place between the chair’s leg. It’s gross, sure, but it’s easier than holding her over the toilet.
Lightly grabbing hold of Peach’s abdomen, you work your thumbs into her midsection. Once you find her bladder, you gently push down. A thin trickle of urine comes out of her bottom and into the litterbox below. You move on to her colon, lightly massaging it until you start to hear the sound of pellets hitting the litter. You try not to look. You’ve never been squeamish about this sort of thing, but looking seems wrong somehow. It just seems wrong.
When it’s done, you take a minute to clean her up with a wet wipe. It’s not like baths are convenient like this, after all. You finish up. Peaches is still staring into the void. You stroke her mane.
“Good girl…”
“Tankyu daddeh! Peeches make bestes good poopies fo’ daddeh!”
“I can tell! You’re such a good fluffy, Peaches!”
You lay on the enthusiasm a bit thick, but she loves it. She’s shuffling next to her litterbox, proud of her handy work, tail swishing wildly as she giggles.
“Peaches wub daddeh!”
“I love you too Peaches. Now go and play while daddy cleans up.”
“Otay! Peaches pway baww!”
You crouch down and begin scooping up Peaches’ droppings. All the while, she’s chasing her rubber ball around the room, knocking it away with her snout every time she gets close.
“Hehe! Baww! Gunna get’chu!”
As you finish up, you feel it collide against your heel. Turning, you see it roll by your foot, Peaches scrambling to catch up. With a smirk, you lightly kick it away just as she gets close.
She looks up at you, indignant at your betrayal, and blows a raspberry. You stick out your tongue. Any hard feelings are promptly dropped though as she notices the ball rolling away.
“Ahaha! Baww nebba wun’way! Peaches fastest!”
You wrap up the baggie of crap. It wouldn’t do to have her spend her energy before going out.
“Okay Peaches. How about you give mister ball a break so we can get ready for the park, alright?”
Peaches stops in her tracks, whipping her head around.
“Peaches an’ daddeh go pawk? Yaay! Wub pawk!”
Seems all of this excitement made her forget. Saturday is ‘park day’ after all. You’ve never been able to afford daycare, so Peaches’ only chance to socialize has been meeting up with your friend’s fluffies at the park. The highlight of her week.
“Wan’ pway baww wiff Teddy, an’ Custawd, an’ Petuwnia, an’ Petuwnia babbehs, an’- an’- an’-”
You grinned. Only one way to calm her now.
“Alright Peaches. Daddy’s gonna call his friend’s now. Can you be a good girl and lay down in the meantime?”
Peaches stopped herself, freezing in anticipation as she realized what comes next.
“Peaches get tweatie?”
“Sure Peaches.” You grab the bag of Skettie Treats from atop your cabinet of pet scare supplies. “You can have a treat if you promise to be a good fluffy.”
She nods frantically, drooling.
“Peaches be good! Peaches be good!”
You take off the clip holding the bag of treats closed, wincing as you’re hit by the powerful smell of tomato and garlic. You wonder why fluffies eat this stuff up. Peaches is sitting up on her haunches, eying the treat in your hand hungrily, when your phone goes off.
“Oh. That’s probably them now.”
You absently toss the treat at Peaches’ feet, and she dives forward to swallow it whole. Placing the bag of treats back on the cabinet, you mantle over the fluffy gate and step out into the living room.
Sure enough, it’s your friend. Custard and Petunia’s owner. He tells you that he probably won’t be making it. One of the foals got lost earlier (he found him “spwowin’” under the radiator) and his fluffies freaked out thinking he was gone forever. They’re good now, he said, but the whole experience was such an episode he thinks it’d be best if they sat this one out. Shame. Peaches loved playing with the babies, since you said she couldn’t get any of her own until she was older. Guess it’ll just be Peaches and Teddy today.
You hang up and start back to the saferoom.
“Peaches? We ready to go?”
No response. Normally she’d be leaping up against her fluffy gate, raring to go.
“Peaches?”
You freeze in the doorway.
She’s on the ground. On her side. Her head has vanished inside of the bag of treats. You see the plastic tight around her muzzle. She isn’t moving.
“Oh shit-”
You trip over the gate, nearly snapping your wrist as you fall to the floor. Cursing, you scramble over to her and yank the bag off of her.
The clip. You forgot to clip the bag closed. How the fuck did she get it down? Did it fall? How-
You shake it off. Need a clear head. Peaches’ eyes are closed, but her mouth is splayed open, tongue hanging limp beside a pile of spit-covered treats.
“Oh no. Oh no no no!”
You lift her up, causing a few more treats to spill out of her throat. She isn’t moving. You try to feel for a heartbeat, or even just a breath, but your hands won’t stop shaking. She isn’t moving. She isn’t moving.
“Oh fuck- I don’t- What do I- Peaches please!”
Panicking. Panicking is the worst thing you can do in this situation. But you’re doing it. You can’t tell if she choked or suffocated or what. Your phone. You need to call someone. No. No time. Keys. The vet. Have to get her to the vet.
You run out of the room with Peaches in your arms, nearly knocking down the gate on your way out, and sprint outside.
“C’mon… C’mon Peaches… Please… Please don’t…”
The kid has five different fluffies, all on leashes, all running around him like the flailing heads of a hydra. A babbling fluffy hydra. They’re singing and talking to each other. One of them is telling the kid about how much he loves this, that, and the other thing. The kid has airpods in. Whatever these guys are paying him, it isn’t enough to make small talk with a fluffy.
A pair of strangers sit on a park bench, watching their fluffies play huggy-tag on a patch of grass. Yeah, there are only two of them, but that’s evidently enough to play tag apparently. Really, it’s more like they’re taking turns hugging each other after running around. When it’s time to go, the stallion waddles over to his owner. “Daddeh! Wawwy wub nyu fwend! Can Wawwy an’ nyu fwend be 'pechow fwend? Wiff babbehs?” The owner look at each other awkwardly, but agree to exchange phone numbers.
A guy the size of a linebacker sits on a picnic blanket next to a nursing mare, who’s singing her tuneless mummah song to a half-dozen wriggling chirpies between her legs. One of the foals worms its way out of the pile and towards the linebacker. He smiles, letting it hug his finger.
You sigh. You don’t know why you come here. To reminisce? To relax? To cope? You don’t feel like you’re doing much of either. Occasionally you whip out your phone, trying to shut out the park around you. It’s no use.
You see your friend enter. Trailing behind him on leashes are Custard and Petunia, along with their quartet of colts and fillies. Shit. Too late to get up and leave. He’s already seen you.
Your conversation is nice, if awkward. He avoids bringing up the elephant in the room, focusing on crap like work and shows. You tell him the foals are looking nice. He tells you they’re all weaned. They had a cake to celebrate.
“Can Peaches come an’ see big babbehs?”
It seems Petunia wants to discuss the elephant. Custard chimes in.
“Peaches stiww sickies? How time 'tiww bettah 'gain? Custawd wan pway wif Peaches!”
Your friend nudges his fluffies with a tug of the leash, but you tell him it’s fine. Things get uncomfortable. You excuse yourself and start heading towards the exit, trying to ignore the chorus of tiny voices bidding you farewell.
You wait until you’re a block away, the park out of sight, to exhale.
“I’m afraid it isn’t looking good.”
You look up from your hands. You didn’t notice the veterinarian come out into the waiting room until she was right in front of you.
“S-So how bad is it?”
You ask but you don’t think you want to hear it. Guilt has been eating at your guts for hours now. The last thing you want to hear is how badly you’ve fucked up your fluffy, but you need to know.
“The bag must have snagged on her collar when she stuck her head inside. She panicked, inhaling a mouthful of treats that blocked her airway as the plastic blocked her nostrils. She suffered a hypoxic injury… Not enough oxygen was getting to her brain, so it began to shut down. It was only for a minute or two, but it was long enough to do lasting damage.”
“Is she…”
“Peaches is… She is alive, but there’s no brain activity. I’m sorry.”
You sit there for a minute, staring at your hands again.
“Can… Can I see her?”
“Of course.”
The vet brings you into a room. Peaches is laying flat on her belly, a hose running from her nose to a machine on a hook behind her. A patch of fluff on her side has been shaved, a diode on her bare skin connected to some sort of monitor. She isn’t moving. Your mouth, your throat, feels dry and numb. The vet breaks the silence.
“Only some of Peaches autonomic functions are still working. Barely. She can breathe, but not much else.”
“Will she… Is she going to live?”
The vet pauses, looking down at the floor.
“It’s possible to keep her fed with the proper diet and equipment, yes, but…”
“So… There’s a chance?”
“Of recovery? No. I’m sorry.”
The room is silent, save for the rhythm of the machines, thrumming and beeping. Peaches always loved music.
“But I can take care of her still, right?”
Another silence. You can hear the veterinarian trying to puzzle out what to say next. Medicine is easy. This is the hard part of the job.
“I… My professional opinion is that it would be- There are a lot of different factors you would need to accommodate for. Feeding, waste-”
“But it’s not like she would be hooked up on life support or anything, right?”
“No, but-”
“So I could do it?”
She purses her lips, but her expression is inscrutable. You’re too busy looking at Peaches. Poor, poor Peaches.
“In theory, yes.”
You step through the front door and flick on the light. Everything is quiet. No pitter-patter of hooves. No joyful greetings. No giggles or raspberries or anything. Just silence.
You step into the kitchen. Peaches is just as you left her. For a moment you think she’s watching the sun set through the window. But she isn’t watching anything at all.
A moment later you head in, iPad tucked under your arm. You move one of the chairs next to hers, sit down, and turn it on.
“Look Peaches. You remember this?”
You point at the picture on the screen. The two of you on the beach. She was scared of the tide coming in, but once you blew up the beach ball she was on cloud nine the whole day…
“…or at least until we got home and had to wash the sand out of your fluff, heh.”
You swipe over to a picture of her as a foal. You just got her. She cried for an hour straight when you left her alone in her safe room that first night, only letting up when you let her sleep next to you in bed…
“…but you left a present on the bedsheets when I woke up, didn’t you? Heh. It’s okay. My fault for letting you on the bed to begin with. Besides, you took to potty training well enough. Right?”
You swipe over. It’s her and all of her friends, playing for the first time in your friend’s backyard. Peaches, Teddy, Custard, and Petunia. No babies yet. Those were on the way though…
“…you were always so good with babies. Always so gentle but so playful. They loved you, didn’t they? You were like a second mom to them… I- I never told you, but my- daddy’s friend and I were talking about letting you have your own babies with Teddy. You two always got along so well.”
You felt a lump swell up in your throat.
“It’s fucked up is what it is, man!”
Your friend explodes at you. Teddy’s at daycare, so he can afford to be loud in his own backyard. You sit there on the patio, hands on your knees. You don’t meet his gaze.
“Yeah. I know. This whole situation is fucked up.”
“That’s not what I mean dude. I’m talking about Peaches.”
He always had a temper, your friend. One minute it was jokes, but when his fire got stoked…
“She’s a vegetable, man. She isn’t… she’s not there anymore!”
“She’s my fluffy, okay? If this were Teddy-”
“If this were Teddy, I wouldn’t be letting him suffer! Jesus!”
He throws up his arms. You lean forward and sink your face into your hands.
“…I know.”
“You know. I know you know. I know it sucks and it’s hard and it’s the worst shit you could ever be going through as a fluffy owner, okay? I know. But she’s-”
“She’s my fluffy.”
His hands drop to his side. It’s your turn to raise your voice.
“She’s my fluffy and I fucking did this, alright? I was careless. I fucked up! I fucked up and now she’s-”
“It was an accident dude, you can’t just-”
“I know! But it’s my fucking accident, okay? My mistake. I could’ve put the clip on the bag, but I didn’t. I could’ve made sure it was away from the edge of the cabinet, but I didn’t. I could’ve stayed in the room and kept an eye on her like a good owner, but I didn’t. Okay? I didn’t. Instead… Instead I did this. It’s my fault. It dosen’t matter if it’s an accident. It’s my fault.”
You don’t notice you’re crying until your friend puts his hand on your shoulder.
“Okay. I’m sorry. I know. I’m sorry. But Peaches… She’s not…”
You look up at him, eyes stinging.
“I don’t want to kill my fluffy, man. I can’t do it. I just can’t.”
You look up from the iPad.
Peaches is staring off at the wall. Her bright gemstone eyes are dull and unfocused. Empty.
You don’t know how long you sit there and just stare at her.
You guide your hand to her neck, cupping it against your palm. You can feel her spine, her arteries, her trachea, all functioning. Barely.
You sit there, holding her.
You lightly stroke her fluff with your fingers. Your breathing is heavy. A sob sneaks up on you, springing out of your throat.
“Peaches… I’m sorry… Daddy’s so sorry…”
Peaches is on your knee. You’re watching FluffTV together. It’s inane, mindless garbage, but it’s not like you can’t say the same about the crap you watch online. She loves it though. You glance at the time.
“Okay Peaches. Time for bed.”
“Nuuu… Peaches wan’ stay wiff’ daddeh…”
You stroke her mane. She’s so cute when she’s tired. You wonder if she knows this, using it to her advantage.
“I know, sweetheart. But you know what tomorrow is, right?”
She cranes her neck to look up at you. Her tail starts to spin up, slapping against your belly.
“Ah! Is pawk day?”
“Yep! We’re gonna go to the park and see all of your friends! So you need to get lots of sleep, alright?”
Peaches squeezes out the last of today’s energy, just enough to rear up on her legs and give you the biggest hug she can manage.
“Yaay! Otay daddeh! Peaches make good sweepies fow’ pawk day!”
“Good girl.”
You carry her, cradled in your arms, into her saferoom. You nearly trip over the gate, damn thing, and go to lower her into her bed by the nightlight.
You ruffle her mane. She nuzzles your hand as she finally starts to settle down.
“Peaches wub daddeh…”
“I love you too, Peaches.”
You watch her until she’s out like a light.
“I love you too…”
So. First post on here, first time writing a story like this. It feels kind of weird. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but couldn’t settle on what to write about. That was until I saw this old greentext posted last night. For some reason, I felt the need to try my hand at writing a story based on it.
Anyways, who knows if I’ll keep posting in the future. We’ll see. Either way, I enjoy the content on this site and am happy to finally dip my toe into the community.
Thanks for reading.
Never seen Pulp Fiction? It’s called a non-linear timeline.