Cochrane’s Farm
Chapter Nine
Steve had trouble sleeping that night. The day’s images had been jarring–the hawk tugging at the foal’s innards…the foal putting out its feeble front hooves for “daddeh’s” all-curing hugs…Candy sobbing and singing to her red “wingie babbeh” as he bled out in her arms. The foal had been the first to be born on the farm. The first to chirp with life. The first to open its eyes.
The first to call him “daddeh”.
Much has been said of fluffy pony “programming”. Their innate responses to the world around them made fluffies highly desirable as a children’s toy. Fluffies could talk, respond to their human owners, interact with other fluffies and household pets, and even learn and develop to some extent. Hasbio realized that their ability to interact on such a high level with humans and their ability to learn could have some major drawbacks.
Take, for example, if a child’s fluffy interacted with the whole family, and then dad walked out–no child could handle the stress of a toy that asked her daily, “how time tiww daddeh come home?” And no child could deal with a fluffy that got injured while playing in the backyard, and then was afraid to ever leave her bed for the rest of her life.
The best solution, it seemed, was for Hasbio to ensure that fluffies had a short memory. They couldn’t eliminate long-term memory entirely, of course, without compromising their product’s quality, but they managed to keep long-term memory to a minimum. Fluffies would remember their names, the things they liked, and–unfortunately–sustained abuse. But Steve wasn’t entirely surprised to find the barn lively and chipper when he showed up the next morning. Even Candy was happily nursing her four remaining foals and singing them a mummah song. The mangled red pegasus lay in the corner of the outside pen, with the “poopies”. Steve took a couple of minutes and buried him near the treeline next to the barn.
To prevent further instances of “death from above”, Steve decided to build a frame over the outside area of each of the fluffy pens. He had found a basic template online that involved chicken wire and minimal lumber, so he figured he could have the project done by the time Katie showed up that afternoon. She had never been to the farm before, and promised to come by with a late afternoon picnic to “cheer him up”. The writer-turned-fluffy-breeder hadn’t been in a serious relationship for a while, and while his book tours provided the occasional desperate single mom, he was happy to [really] have a chance for something more.
The hardware store opened early that morning, so he pulled out of the driveway as soon as the fluffs were fed. The foals were getting big now, and it was time for them to start the transition to soft kibble. Candy was doing a good job with litter training, but the red filly was struggling. He had tried everything: the sorry stick, the sorry box, making her eat it, making her wear a diaper…she still wouldn’t shit in the litterbox. The topic dominated his thoughts all the way to the hardware store.
Fortunately the store was empty, so it was a quick in-and-out trip. Steve started his project with Candy’s pen. The pink dam was thoroughly suspicious of the “gwassies-pwace”, until her “daddeh” demonstrated how secure it was. Her foals, eager to play in the sun, scurried past their mother for a game of “huggie-tag”.
The chicken wire frames were done shortly after noon. Knowing that Katie would be over a little after 3, Steve took extra care to clean up, shave, and dress in some decent clothes. The next couple of hours weren’t overly productive, but he managed to get some shading done on the last few pages of his latest book.
A silver Corolla pulled into the driveway at around 4:00. The petite, raven-haired driver picked a box up out of the passenger seat, walked up the front porch steps to the door, and rang the doorbell. She was the first to ring that doorbell in weeks.
“Oh, hi, Katie! I’m glad you could come.” Steve quickly took the box from her hands and set it down inside the door. By the time he stood back up, his–was she his girlfriend?–had wrapped her arms around him and squeezed.
“Hey! I’m so sorry I’m late. It took me longer to get here than I thought it would. Oh, Steve. I’m sosorry about Candy’s foal. How is she doing? Did she handle it ok?”
“Yeah, she’s fine–you know, short memory. Besides, she’s got her other foals to manage.”
“That’s true. But how are you doing? I mean, we see foals die more often than we want to admit at the store, but it’s not like we hand raise them. You ok?”
“Better now,” Steve said, with a smile. Katie beamed back at him. God, I wish I could save this one moment in time, he thought.
Katie started, “Oh! There’s a bottle of Prosecco in that box. We’ll want to get that cold, and then stick some of the food in the 'fridge, too.”
Steve moved the box to the kitchen table and started storing the cold items. Prosciutto-wrapped mozzarella? Fresh raspberries? Yep, it’s love.
Steve and Katie walked out to the barn, hand in hand. On the way, Steve pointed out his garden and greenhouse, which this summer and fall would be full of fresh fruit and vegetables. He also showed her the crude spaghetti trap he had made, which had thus far been an epic failure. Katie suggested maybe putting up an mp3 player with a ‘sketti song’ on a continuous loop, and Steve couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of that before. When they reached the barn, her eyes lit up.
“Oh my God, it’s huge. You could really keep a lot of fluffies in there.”
“Well, hopefully we’ll be overrun with them in a couple of weeks. Four pregnant dams means anywhere from 8 to 32 foals, if all goes well.”
Katie nodded, and then turned back to the barn. Steve reached to open the door, and then quickly shut it again.
“Ah, shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re all singing again. I know that all fluffies can’t sing, but tell me: are mine the only ones that sing the same song at the same time in three different wrong keys?”
“Dunno. I’ve never heard that many fluffies try to sing at the same time. They do all suck at it, though.” She shrugged. “First time for everything, I guess. Let’s check it out.”
The opening of the barn door brought a collective gasp from the herd, and then a unified shout of “DADDEH!” Katie "aww"ed, and then the fluffies noticed that there was someone with their owner. The cacaphony began again.
“Nyu fwend? Pway wif fwuffies?”
“Wizawd, who dewe? Nu can see!”
“Wook, babbehs! Dat am hooman mawe! Babbehs neva see hooman mawe befowe!”
Katie laughed at being identified as a “human mare”. Most of the fluffies at the shop called her a “human filly”, much to her dismay. She walked over to Candy’s pen. “Hi! You must be Candy!”
The bright pink pegasus gasped. “Yu kno Candee name? Nyu fwend?”
“That’s right, Candy! I’m your new friend. My name is Katie.”
“Nyu fwend am Kaytee! Babbehs, say ‘hewwo’ tu Kaytee!”
All of the babies said “hello”, except for the white earthie, who said “hello to Katie” and giggled.
“Speshuw fwend, whodat wif daddeh? Pineappuw nu can wawkies. Dummeh weggies nu move. Nu can see!”
“Cawm down, speshuw fwend. Nu get angwies. Angwies am bad fo tummeh babbehs.”
Katie practically dragged Steve over to the next pen. “Aww, you’re Wizard, aren’t you? And you’re Pineapple–wow, you look so big!”
Wizard opened his mouth to answer, but Pineapple spoke first. “Yus, nice wady! Pineappuw am big, ‘cos Pineappuw am mummah-soon! Pineappuw am fuww o’ babbehs! Speshuw fwend gif Pineappuw speshuw huggies, an’ daddeh teww speshuw fwend an Pineappuw dat babbehs comin’!”
Katie had seen countless fluffies in her year at FluffMart, but their endless joy and excitement at everything around them never got old. She "ooh"ed in faux amazement at everything Pineapple said, and opened the door to walk into the pen. Before she could reach the pregnant unicorn, her “special friend” stepped in the way.
“Who am yu? Nyu fwend? Nu wet stwangew tuch speshuw fwend.”
Steve spoke up. “Wizard, it’s ok. She’s here with me. She’s a new friend.”
The blue unicorn cocked his head. “Nyu fwend? Daddeh am gud daddeh. If yu am daddeh’s fwend, den yu am gud too.”
She reached down to scratch his head. “That’s right wizard. But I’m not just daddy’s friend.” She cupped her hand to her cheek and whispered, “I’m daddy’s special friend.”
The stallion’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “Yu am daddeh’s speshuw fwend? Why yu nu teww Wizawd? Wizawd gif daddeh-speshuw-fwend biggest huggies!”
Steve’s face had never been redder. But when Katie–who was still getting “biggest huggies” from Wizard–turned to him and smiled, he reddened even more.
The couple–um, apparently they were a couple–walked over and met Cherry, Orchid, and Grapefruit next. All three mares were practically immobile, which made Steve think that first couple of weeks of nutrition must have made a HUGE difference. This is how far along Candy was when she first came to the farm.
“It’s good that you’ve started trying to wean the foals. They’ll need their own pens pretty soon, or else the little colt might start trying to give ‘special huggies’ to his sisters.”
“No worry about that. I neutered him when I gave all of the foals their shots.”
“Hmm…well, you did it at the right time. What are you going to do with them? Sell them?”
“Not that litter. I think I’m going to need to at least get down to the third generation before I can sell. No breeder apart from a mill is going to buy a fluffy without knowing its ancestry back to its grandparents. Too much chance of bad colors or behaviors coming to a head. And being able to sell to reputable breeders increases your earnings potential tenfold.”
“Yeah, that’s all nice and good for the three with good colors–but what about the brown one?”
“Dunno. With those colors, he’s no good to the breeders. And most people want bright colors in fluffies. Maybe I’ll try to train him.”
“Train him? Really?”
Well, yeah. If I can practice my training methods on him, then maybe I can have them perfected by the time I need to train the foals for selling. Besides, maybe he can help around the farm."
Katie was about to respond when a high-pitched shouting match began on the other side of the barn.
“Wook, babbehs! Dat am hooman mawe! Babbehs neva see hooman mawe befowe!”
“Nu WAN num poopie kibbwe! Wan miwkies! Gif babbeh miwkies, ow ewse!”
Candy hoofed the disobedient red earthie on the nose. “NU! Dat am daddeh’s wuwe. Big babbehs nu dwink miwkies tiww dey num kibbwe!”
“Dummeh mummah! Smawty babbeh dwink miwkies wheneva smawty wan! Gif mummah sowwy poo–EEEEEEEH!”
At the first mention of the word “smarty”, the humans had both started for Candy’s pen. By the time the rebellious little shit had turned away from her mother to shit on her, Katie had reached her hand down and grabbed the “smarty”.
“Dummeh hoomin, wet gu babbeh’s taiw! Babbeh gif sowwy poopies!” The filly used her only weapon, but soon realized that was a mistake. You see, shitting while upside down tends to cover the shitter, rather than the shittee, in shit. “Dummeh hoomin mawe! Wet smawty GU!”
Katie shrugged her shoulders. “Ok.” The smarty landed flat on its face, and then sat up rubbing her nose with her hooves and huu huuing. To make sure it wouldn’t try to shuffle away, Katie stepped on its tail.
Steve was impressed by his gi–yeah, his girlfriend’s speed in dealing with the situation. He rubbed his temple, wondering what he should do.
“Is this the one that has been giving you litterbox trouble?” Katie asked, pointing at the red earthie.
“Yeah, she is.”
“Well, now I think we know why.” Katie picked the smarty back up by her tail and handed her to Steve. “This happens occasionally at the pet shop. Probably more frequently than you’ll see it here, since FluffMart gets all of its foals from mills. She’s not a herd leader, so this ‘smarty’ deal isn’t going away. And I think you know that you can’t cure the smarty syndrome.”
With a nod, the herd’s “daddeh” took the foal. He held her up high enough to look her in the eyes, remembering a time before those eyes were open. A happier time for Candy, no doubt.
“Daddeh, pwease wet gu of fiwwy’s pwetty taiw. Dummeh hoomin mawe teww WIES!”
“So, you’re saying that you haven’t been ‘making poopies’ everywhere on purpose. That you didn’t threaten to give your mummah ‘sorry poopies’. That you didn’t call the ‘human mare’ bad names.”
Now, it was Katie’s turn to blush.
The filly sputtered and spat. “Bu-bu-bu…dummeh daddeh, wet smawty gu NAO!”
Steve sighed. He stepped over to the utility closet, smarty in hand, and grabbed the sorry stick.
“Dummeh daddeh, nu gif smawty da sowwy stick an sowwy bawks, ow smawty gif wowsest owwies!”
Steve whacked the smarty in the face with the sorry stick.
WHACK
WHACK
WHACK WHACK WHACK
The smarty started to choke back sobs. Steve turned to face the herd. “Fluffy friends, you are my herd. Who is the only smarty in the herd?”
The herd all shouted in unison. “Daddeh am da onwy smawty!”
“That’s right, herd. Because smarty fluffies are bad. Smarties take your food. Smarties take your special friends. Smarties make humans so angry that humans give the herd ‘hurties’. So what do we do with smarties?”
The herd all went silent. Not because they didn’t know the answer, but because they did.
“Daddeh.”
Steve’s rage subsided. He knew that Candy must be hurting on the inside, pained that she now only had three foals.
“Daddeh…gif aww smawties wowsest huwties an FOWEVA SWEEPIES!!!”
What?
Candy had not spoken with a tremor in her voice. She knew what her “daddeh” planned to do.
And she gave her full consent.
Steve looked at his girlfriend. She nodded her head.
“That’s right, everyone. All smarty fluffies get worsest owwies…and forever sleepies.”
He looked at the smarty one more time. The red filly made no noise whatsoever. She was frozen with fear.
Steve took hold of the foal in both of his arms. He gave her a hug.
Then, he placed her in his right hand, wound up, and heaved her as hard as he could against the barn door.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
The fluffies stood silently for a moment while the foal–its back obviously broken–struggled for life. Thirty seconds later, they turned away and resumed their routines.
Katie squeezed his arm. “Don’t feel bad. You did the only thing you could do. How 'bout we go ahead and start our picnic? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
She turned towards the barn door and threw it open. Stepping on the dying smarty once (and obviously shifting her heel as she did so), she skipped out of the barn into the open field.
Steve was stunned, but not for long. You don’t have to tell me twice.