My name is Barry Fawkes, a 29 year old man of muscular build, messy hair, and patchy beard. Right now I’m sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of a rather large and shockingly clandestine Fluffmart, you had parents bringing their children in to browse at the various Fluffies on display, or small friend groups of teenagers finding the cheapest Fluffy possible to repaint the closest alleyway wall with. The idle shopping music often drowned out by the loud baby babbling and chirping of Fluffies and foals desperate to be bought by a possible new mummah or daddeh.
Walking around rather aimlessly I crossed the vision of multiple glass enclosures filled with Fluffies of all kinds of shapes, colours, and ages. I’d spent well over two years now since last owning a Fluffy, a beautiful Pegasus mare named Periwinkle, whom I lost in the Fall of Cleveland incident. Her death was what got me into becoming an exterminator in the first place, her death the reason why I’ve now killed far, far more Fluffies than I’ve ever cared for.
So why? Why the fuck was I wandering around a Fluffmart like a lost child as if I had any desire to own and care for a Fluffy again? I was hardly the abuser type, not like Peter, surprising I know given my profession of choice but that’s all business; I don’t feel anything when I crush a Fluffy’s frail skeleton beneath my boots, not a bit of dopamine hits my brain when I hear a foal squeal for its fleeing parent before its insides become outsides.
“Uuuuh, you 'right mate?” I’m swiftly knocked out of my self-aggrandizing thoughts by a pretty looking girl with black hair tied into a ponytail and heavy black eyeliner beneath her hazelnut eyes. She was wearing a bright blue Fluffmart uniform and on her chest was a nametag that read “Tessa Harsel” and just below it was her position “Assistant Manager” next to a cartoonish depiction of a Unicorn Fluffy wearing a flashy pair of executive sunglasses and a clip-on tie.
“I’m fine, thanks. Just started daydreaming I guess.”
“Right… well you might want to skitter away from this spot before those foals wake up and start a fuss thinking you’re gonna adopt them.” Tessa points out an enclosure I was leaning against, inside were three Fluffpiles filled with multicoloured Foals, all deeply snoozing though a few at the top of the piles seemed to be waking up a bit.
Deciding to take Tessa’s advice to avoid having my ears violated by the incessant begging of foals, I step away and follow Tessa away from the enclosure to a more quiet part of the Fluffmart with shelves lined with various flavours of kibble and different kinds of feeding bowls and troughs. All Hasbio branded of course.
I try to find a good place to lean on the shelves, though seeing no sign of a suitable spot I opt to shift my weight between either leg. “So is there a reason you singled me out or are you just sick of customers causing foal enclosures to go full pandemonium mode?” I ask, Tessa looking back at me and smiling. “Well mate you don’t exactly blend in with the middle class families and troubled teens that usually frequent this side of the bush.” What stood out most about Tessa was her voice, her accent was very distinctly not American and sounded British but a bit higher pitched and nasally… Australian maybe?
“Right. I imagine you don’t get many late-20’s exterminators coming through, huh?” This clearly tickles Tessa who giggles sweetly before continuing to lead me out of the kibble aisle and to some nearby Microfluff enclosures, large glass terrariums filled with Hasbio nutrient gel that have been dug out by the Microfluffies into winding tunnel networks like an ants nest. “Don’t get many new customers period more like. Oh and I had to come here anyway to restock some things for the Microfluff enclosures and clean out their shit pits.”
As Tessa leads me to one of the Microfluff enclosures she pops the lid off, various air holes dotted into the lid itself as she puts it aside and a bright orange Microfluff playing by himself on the surface of the gel looks up at her with a beaming grin. For their size, Microfluffs could be just as noisy as a normal sized Fluffy if they wanted to be and this little fella was sure to show it. “Hewwo nicie bigges mummah!” The Microfluff calls up, his tiny tail wagging rapidly at the sight of Tessa.
Tessa smiles down at the Microfluff as she fiddles with her belt for a moment with a gloved hand before producing a fine powder from one of her satchels and sprinkles it across the nutrient gel’s surface, the dust quickly soaking in, some of it getting on the Microfluff’s face causing him to sneeze, but he just laughs it off. “The powder is a form of dried, flavoured soap. Soaks into the gel and cleans any debris caught in it and renews its flavour to keep it appealing to the Microfluffies, and is of course completely harmless to the little fluffballs.”
The orange Microfluff giggles coyly at the compliment before Tessa puts the lid back on and the Microfluff returns to his very important task of rolling loose nutrient gel into a ball and riding atop it. Tessa then moves down the enclosure, guiding my eyes along to a large brown spot in the otherwise navy blue nutrient gel environment of the enclosure. “This right 'ere is the shit pit, or the ‘poopeh howe’ as the Microfluffs call it, basically the communal dunny for piss and shit. Since Microfluffs are designed with the intention of being micromanaged, hehe, all enclosures are equipped with a funnel attached to the lower left corner of the enclosure that drains the collected sewerage into a container for proper disposal.”
Tessa’s hand glides down to a small valve attached to the left side of the enclosure, turning it with a practiced hand, the shit pit quickly funnels out of the enclosure and into a small plastic bag attached to the end of the funnel.
“So what if the Microfluffs put their shit pit somewhere other than where the funnel is?” It seemed like an obvious question but fortunately Tessa seemed happy enough to humour my ignorance in regards to Microfluffies, when inside the intended environment at least. “Simple answer: they don’t. Microfluff nests can be all kinds of shapes but the dunny is always in the same corner. Complicated answer: If it isn’t then you can just threaten them to build it there, they’re really not that hard to order around.” Tessa replies as she pulls the shit pit disposal bag off the funnel, tying the top and dropping it into a conveniently close biohazard disposal bin.
As I get ready to follow Tessa to her next station, an almost inaudible tapping sound grabs our attention as we both look to see the orange Microfluff tapping his miniature hoofs against the glass, Tessa giving him a confused look as she removes the top off the enclosure. “What’s botherin’ ya little guy?” Tessa asks, the orange Microfluff panting slightly as if out of breath and his right eye was swollen with what looked like a barely visible nosebleed as if he had just gotten into a fight.
“Bigges mummah! Smawty twy to put poop- uhm… otha bwuthas an sistas into da poopie howe! Fwuffy stawp Smawty wike yu say tu bu’ Smawty get angwiest and gib Fwuffy wowstest sowwy hoofies!” At this report Tessa sighs, rubbing her brow before smiling down at the orange Microfluff. “You did the right thing tellin’ me. Go an’ get the Smarty, I wanna talk to him.” With that the orange Microfluff gives Tessa a big smile, wiping some blood from his snout before sprinting down the main entrance to the Microfluff nest and within moments returns with the Smarty of the nest in tow.
The Smarty was a little bit larger of a Unicorn Microfluffy than the orange Earth Microfluffy and had bright red fluff with a velvet purple mane and tail, though his size, by Microfluffy standards that put him at about six inches tall. The Smarty’s fluff had clearly been torn off in a few spots and his horn was slightly cracked, likely from his ‘sowwy hoofies’ tussle with the orange Microfluffy. The Smarty grits his teeth and glares daggers at the orange Microfluffy, likely for ratting him out to Tessa.
“Dummeh Fwuffy! Wen dummeh hoomin mummah dun wit Smawty, Smawty gunna gib yu wowstest sowwy hoofies!” The Smarty’s threats to the orange Microfluffy do him little good as Tessa reaches into the nest and cups the Smarty into her palm, glaring down at the Smarty. “Right. Well this is the fourth time now you’ve tried to throw ya siblings into the dunny hole, despite me making it clear as crystal that ya not supposed to do that ya dafty.” Tessa’s accent was much more clearly Australian as she grew frustrated with the Smarty Microfluffy, who was certainly not helping himself as he scowled up at Tessa, puffing his cheeks while a soft toot is followed by the most miniscule of turds falling onto Tessa’s fortunately glove covered palm.
“Right well, you’re clearly a bad Smarty so it seems I’m now gonna have to spend overtime findin’ a good Smarty for the nest.” Tessa replies, I could hear a yawn building in her throat at the mere thought of working overtime for the sake of Microfluffies of all creatures but what stuck out to me was that there was apparently a distinction between types of Smart Fluffies? Maybe it was only a Microfluffy thing and that’s why I’d never heard of it but I’d have to ask her about it later.
“Dummeh hoomin! Smawty am bestest Smawty! Nut Smawty’s fauwt dat dummeh hoomin nu un’stan’ dat poopeh fwuffies bewong in poopeh howe!” Seems the Smarty has tried, on more than one ocassion, to banish his more poop coloured brethren to the depths of the shit pit, and that he’s been unsuccessful seemingly due to the rest of the nest prioritizing Tessa’s orders over his.
The Smarty continued its tirade of endless insults before Tessa, with the most non-chalant sigh I could imagine, squeezes her hand into a fist as tight as she could, the Smarty only letting out a gasping squeak as he’s instantly crushed in Tessa’s shockingly powerful grip. Blood begins to leak between Tessa’s gloved fingers as she releases her grip and I’m treated to the unintentionally hilarious sight of the Smarty’s mangled corpse, its left eye bulging out of its socket while its mouth was stuck in a look of permanently screaming like he was a cartoon character stubbing his toe. Several broken bones poked out of the Smarty’s skin and it wasn’t until the Smarty let out a weak, rattling cough that I realized it was somehow still alive, if only barely and likely in a truly biblical amount of pain in its wretched state.
“Welp that’s another bad Smarty down. Only good thing about this one was he’s a Microfluffy and management says we can just kill em on the spot with no paperwork.” Tessa explains as she walks over to the biohazard waste bin and tosses the lightly twitches body of the Smarty inside and slams the lid shut. As Tessa walks back over to me she sighs, rubbing her brow, taking a deep breath, and then brightly smiling at me. “Don’t worry about em mate, finding a good Smarty for the Microfluffy nest should be easy enough. Plus I think I’ve wasted enough o’ your time just showin’ ya around so let’s get to business.” Tessa leads me away from the Microfluffy area of the Fluffmart and as we walk I decide to ask her about what she said about Smarty’s.
“So what’s the difference?”
“Difference between what?”
“A good Smarty and a bad Smarty. I thought there were just Smarty’s and that’s it.”
Tessa stops suddenly, turning around as instead of just smiling, she grins showing the surprisingly large gap between her front teeth, seems I had just asked about the topic she’s most interested in. “Course when Fluffies first started appearing after PETA royally fucked up we, including Hasbio themselves, assumed Smarty Syndrome was a single sympton condition, but just like everything relating to psychology it goes a lot deeper than that. It’s not just a form of egotism, it’s actually closer to the Fluffy equivalent of Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID.”
“…I never took psychology in high school, remind me what DID means exactly?”
“Basically the brain creates a secondary or more alternate personalities, or identities, as a way to protect the primary identity from intense psychological trauma such as physical or sexual abuse. What’s interesting is that Smarty Syndrome seems to develop naturally but we still haven’t a bloody clue why.”
As our walk and talk continues we walk by a few Fluffy enclosures, the occupants quickly babbling at us, to which Tessa tosses them a few Sketti Snacks to quiet them down.
“Simpliest way to put it is that what makes a Smarty good or bad is entirely dependant on the Fluffy’s personality. Egotistical Fluffies will usually create a bad, megalomaniacal Smarty while more humble and loving Fluffies become good, pragmatic Smarty’s. And despite what you might think, good Smarty’s are actually much more common than bad Smarty’s due to Fluffies naturally being kind and affectionate to anything human or Fluffy shaped and only tend to develop negative traits as a result of poor parenting or traumatic experiences.”
Not quite sure how to respond without sounding ignorant, I decide to just nod as we finally arrive at an area marked “Special Products” and just below it was a phrase in bold red letters proclaiming “Great for kids and novice owners alike!” Inside were half a dozen enclosures with high padded walls and hay floors covered in woolly padding.
Inside each enclosure resided a plethora of abnormal Fluffies, SBS Fluffies chirping on the floor while either sucking on their hooves or sucking from a wall mounted row of teats. An entire pen was dedicated to housing Alicorns which if not eating or shitting were tightly hugging and nuzzling each other or gently playing by passing a ball between themselves. Finally the last two pens held Fluffies with various physical disabilities, broken or missing limbs and eyes, one particularly wretched looking mud brown Fluffy had even gotten the full nugget treatment, its legs, tongue, and eyes all gone as two other crippled Fluffies attempted to comfort it with hugs and words of encouragement while a third, clueless Fluffy with no ears tries to clumsily dance for the nugget Fluffy, seemingly oblivious to the fact the nugget can’t see the dance anyway.
“Didn’t know Fluffmarts had a spot for defective, wounded, and undesirable Fluffies.” I muse, pretty used to the idea of Fluffmarts throwing out anyfluff that fails to meet the standard of sale but it seems Tessa’s happy to explain as she usually is. “Used to be that way yeah, till the clowns up top realized people’ll still pay bucks for damaged goods, even if it’s a bit less than usual it’s still a source of income.” As Tessa and I walk through the section, several Fluffies inside seem to perk up at Tessa’s presence, especially the Alicorns, who compared to the rest of the pens which had prices ranging from $1 at the lowest to $20 at most were priced at an average of $50 given they’re a valuable sub-species.
“You remember I’m not new to owning a Fluffy, right?”
“I know. But you’ve spent years without one and now you’ve gotten used to working as an exterminator instead of a caretaker so I reckon you could use something easy to resharpen your skills. How about taking one of our SBS foals? Like Loaf over here.” Tessa points down, my gaze drawing down to ‘Loaf’ an SBS foal with a surprisingly pleasant brown coat of fluff that reminded me of freshly baked bread who seemed to live up to his name as he was loafing on the floor of the pen, legs tucked under his fluffy body as he gazed up at me with huge eyes that I seriously doubt actually identified my presence.
“Really?”
“What?”
“An SBS foal? I’m not a child.”
“He’s bloody adorable! And incredibly well behaved and quiet for an SBS foal. Look.” Tessa points out the many other SBS Fluffies in the pen with Loaf. If they weren’t sucking on a faux teat or defecating into the many easily accessible litterboxes scattered around the pen (or just shitting on the floor), they were chirping and peeping like baby chicks out of Hell, making me realize that the entire soundscape in this section was just the loud chirping of the SBS Fluffies. And then there was Loaf, just lying there, quiet as quiet could be as he continued to stare up at me in his loafing position, his left eye starting to slowly drift to the side the longer he stared, the sight of which caused me to chuckle at just how cartoonishly brain damaged he was.
Tessa immediately notices me chuckling and nudges me in the shoulder. “See? You’ve taken to him already. Since this is your first time shopping here, and cause I like ya, I’ll throw in a faux teat, small SBS enclosure, and a week’s worth of special SBS milk formula for free. But only if you buy Loaf.” This earns Tessa a rather bemused glare from me, irritatingly impressed by her saleswoman ability before sighing. “Fine. I’ll take Loaf but to be honest I doubt I’ll be interested in keeping him longer than a week.”
“We’ll see.”
Before I knew it I was walking out of the Fluffmart with Loaf contained in a cushioned carry cage, three cardboard boxes stacked on top as Tessa waves me out. “Hope ta see you around Mr. Exterminator!” She calls out, making me realize I’d never actually introduced myself as I look over my shoulder. “My name’s Barry Fawkes! Just don’t tell any Fluffies my last name and you can use my name however you’d like!”
“Well I hope ta see you around Barry.”
“Likewise, Tessa.”
The walk home was surprisingly peaceful, Loaf silently bobbing around the cushy floor of his cage as I soon arrive at my apartment block in the lower middle class area of the city. Heading up the lift I hurry inside in case my neighbour is near and set Loaf’s cage on the floor of the living space just in front of my couch. Crouching down, I put the supplies down and slowly open the cage door and get to work building Loaf’s enclosure around his cage, the enclosure including plastic walls capable of snapping together and a rather cute litterbox with a free packet of litter already in a plastic bag.
Setting up the walls and litterbox were simple and as I snap the walls together and pour the litter into the litterbox my nose twitched slightly as I could almost feel my mind swimming. Periwinkle… I snap back to awareness as I look over to see Loaf has somehow moved out of his cage and was now loafing on the floor. “Geez… don’t tell me you’re like a Weeping Angel and only move when I’m not looking…” I mumble more to myself, knowing Loaf likely wouldn’t answer as I look inside the carry cage and see a small pile of poop where Loaf was sitting.
A paper towel and a bit of soap spritzing later the cage was clean and Loaf had already made himself comfortable at the litterbox, a small grunt escaping him as he pushes out another poop into the litter. “Guess you’re already toilet trained huh? Not that I’m gonna complain, saves me time. Hey you don’t talk much huh?” I start setting up the feeding teat, having already set the formula to warm up in the kitchen as I pour the contents into the plastic loading tube for the teat and set it besides the litterbox, along with it gathering up a spare blanket and placing it down in front of the teat to serve as a bed.
The smell of warm, sweet milk seems to awaken something in the quiet Loaf as he soon begins chirping. “Cheep… cheep! Cheep!” He chirps and peeps as his legs slowly emerge from his fluffy belly and he clumsily crawls towards the faux teat, latching onto it as he starts greedily suckling on it. And I, with nothing better to do now, opt to sit and watch Loaf… exist. I don’t know why but Loaf’s zen nature along with his maneless head almost evoked the image of a Buddhist Fluffy monk, just sitting there in silence when not tending to his own biological needs.
Weird thoughts of a Fluffy wearing a kasaya aside, as Loaf finishes up his milk snack I recall a lesson I learned from when I first got Periwinkle, gently reaching down I cup Loaf in my hands, a small, confused cheep escaping him as I gently pat his back with my finger.
“Buuurp! …Chirp… cooo…”
After belching and avoiding stomach pain, Loaf curls up in my hands and swiftly falls asleep, his fluffy body rising and falling in time with his breaths. I stare down at the snoozing foal, just blankly gazing down at him as his bulging eyes flutter with each breath, about as aware of the world around him asleep as he ever is awake.
It isn’t until a small, warm teardrop lands on top of the snoozing Loaf that I realize my eyes had started to water. The teardrop rouses Loaf from his short sleep as he shakes his head in confusion and looks around for the source of the water with his large, round eyes. “Chirp? Peep? Chrrrrr…” The source of the water unfounded, Loaf decides continuing to search is nowhere near as interesting as sleeping as he returns to sleep. Not wanting to disturb Loaf again, I set him down on the blanket pile as I leave the room, wiping some tears from my eyes as, my hand tightly clenching around the door handle for the bathroom.
Walking in I plant my hands on the sink and glare up at the mirror, my vision still misty around the edges. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask myself, a scowl growing on my face. “She’s been dead for two years. She was just a Fluffy, they die constantly, Hell you’ve killed more Fluffies than you’ve ever loved since then and now you have the fucking gall to cry about it?” I could feel my hands balling into fists, a stinging pain as my nails dig into my palms pierces along my arms.
“Just. Move. On.” I whisper, my hands relaxing as I watch my face shift back to calm neutrality. “No more heart hurties. That’s what Periwinkle would’ve wanted.” I sigh, realizing I’m actually considering the last words of a Fluffy as I step away from the mirror and look over at the sleeping Loaf, looking outside to see the sun has long since set and I don’t feel particularly hungry. “Loaf’s got the right idea… I think I need to sleep, tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.” I turn off the lights except the living room light to avoid distressing Loaf as I head to bed, stripping down to my boxers as I flop down, my head sinking into the pillow as I stare up at the ceiling and all my thoughts mould into her voice.
“Nu mowe heawt huwties daddeh…”
