“How come you know so much about fluffies? Considering what we do it’s kinda weird….just that we only need to kill them. That’s all…”
Louie had been driving along in peace, Carter had been arguing with a girl on his cellphone.
Quite an expensive looking gadget too.
Louie made do with an old Motorola flip phone. Hardly anyone called him.
Carter had been sulking after he hung up. He looked kind of like a brat.
It felt really tense in the car, Louie had heard every detail of the argument. He could even hear the girl on the phone.
It was Carter who eventually broke the ice with the question.
Louie then responded, “I have no children of my own but I raised my nephew and niece. They had been begging me for a fluffy to keep. Not just one. But one for each of them. I was against it immediately, it didn’t seem right keeping anything like that even as a pet considering what we do. Until my wife made me cave in. She wanted a few of the critters in the house too.”
“HahahaHahahaha I see”
“The fluffies they were after weren’t cheap….not back then… And you can’t say that about a fluffy anymore. This is around the time they came out. My very old man thought they were Martian in origin. I said no dad, they’re just toys that are alive. He grabbed the cross as soon as I told him. My kids, wanted one of these my little pony style fluffies, I remember both of them were bright pink”
“Like Pinkie Pie”
“Uhh yeah…. I think that’s what they were… They were foals at the time. Weaned and trained in everything by a human……Those sort of fluffies are the ones that cost a lot even now, thank god they weren’t those Alicorns types. Both fluffies I bought were $150 each.”
“Jesus you can get how many for that price now?! It’s a lot of snake food too!! What a rip……How come they were that much?”
“At the time they were pretty rare and they were meant to be exactly like that pie character from my little pony……they’d only just come out too. ……Fluffies that have been trained and raised by a human are more disciplined and well behaved too…… But the human costs money to do that. I’ll admit, I was pissed at that price. For a toy too. But they wanted them so bad. I used to work with a guy called Jim-Bob”
“The guy from TV? Serious?! I think I’ve heard this from one of the guys back at the office that he used to be an exterminator”
“One and the same……we worked with each from way back before fluffies were a thing. He taught me most of everything I know about fluffies. He just knew how to handle them and how to treat them……We came into the department together. We worked together for years. He weren’t bad to work with. I used to ask him how to raise a fluffy correctly and what to do…… If I’m paying $300 for 2 fluffies I want them to last for years.”
“And how long did they last?”
“Male one lasted 4, female lasted at least 6…… We had to put that one out of her misery. Thank god we got them neutered……looking back that was a sensible idea considering what they’re like now”
Louie and Carter were on their way to the job.
No extermination today.
This was a collection job, they weren’t in the recycling truck they’d normally use.
They were in a regular truck with a carriage. Louie had the training to drive these.
It was also a pretty big job.
A fluffy adoption centre had gone bust.
It happens more than you’d think, especially when there’s a lot in the area.
They don’t get much in the way of federal money, they rely on donations and fees a lot of the time.
They’re treated like charities but they’re anything but.
The centres that follow all the guidelines to the tee were always the ones that went bust first.
The ones that don’t bother or bend the rules tended to be the lucky ones.
All that money on electricity, water, rent and wages for the humans.
And then you’ve got the fluffies to think about.
Lots of money went on food, minor medical equipment, vaccinations, sand for litter boxes, everything you would need to keep a fluffy happy.
That’s a lot of outlay.
And then you have to follow sanitation rules for taking their crap away. It couldn’t just be dumped.
This is also why you get adoption centres that double as fluffy nurseries or even as Fluffy Vets and Retailers……money has to come in from anywhere just to keep afloat. The over-specialised tend not to last as long.
This is also a reason why adoption centres tend to have a high turnover in employees and tend to not have many who work there.
Louie hadn’t been happy the way the city had been run and the budget cuts caused a huge sanitation problem.
It wasn’t just fluffies that were kicked out onto the street after all.
But what could he do?
He worked for the bigwigs, he did his job, he’d do what he could to keep the city clean with what he had been given.
Carter’s phone had received the call.
They had previously contacted Louie but that Motorola was dead.
They knew exactly where to take these guys once they picked them up.
The fluffy meat processing plant would take them in and process them for mass consumption.
They needed the fluffies alive.
And Carter was no longer ignorant about what happened to unwanted fluffies.
No gassing today, that gas would affect the taste and ruin production.
The factory would do what they would with them to process them into a consumable product.
Fluffies can’t be kicked out onto the street after all. It was against city regulations, but still happened on individual cases of course.
Imagine 250+ fluffies abandoned onto the streets at once. A sanitation nightmare
Normally a notice to the fluffy industry would be given. Or even to people willing to take in last minute adoptions.
First come, first serve. And a nominal fee would be paid for the full load of fluffies. It would usually be cheaper than what you’d pay at a shelter…
This leads to a lot of cherry picking of course, the best fluffies that would be available, foals usually went first due to their sheer abundance and ability to make a quick buck out of them.
But what about those left behind?
Only the factory came forward to claim them all this time around. The order was specifically Fluffies and foals.
This would be a straight forward job.
Picking up and dropping off.
Carter was glad no gas would be used, it fucked up the smell of his cologne.
Louie had remembered this place, it was a pretty good and well run centre.
One of the first to be opened too. It had even won awards (for what they’re worth) in the industry and was written about and treated like the standard bearer for adoption centres.
He tried to recall the lady’s name. Wendy was it? She’d set the place up with her partner who died young.
The place struggled after that.
Louie was pretty sure something bad had happened to her. It was the only explanation he could think of.
That woman loved fluffies.
The place stunk of faeces. Fluffy faeces. Which is kind of what you’d expect. Most centres just clean up where they bring in the customers and that’s it.
It was messy but by no means at all the worst place that they’d entered.
Just like a badly kept, messy office and reception. It looked like Wendy eventually gave in.
Louie had remembered she was a pretty tidy person and liked order. It was pretty sad to see a dream end like this.
The rooms were inspected. Thankfully, the rooms had been divided into rooms with mares, stallions and pillowfluffs and dams. Foals would be kept with their mothers except when they were endangered by them.
There were very little unmanaged cages here and a lot of blankets. Looks like some of the cages had been sold as scrap metal.
Louie had checked the office over. Carter was certain there’d be a valuable fluffy in the building and went to check each room.
Louie decided to check the files to check if any of the fluffies would be a danger to pass over for consumption as a precautionary measure.
The file was mostly Polaroid photos with notes written on the back with details of the fluffies’ names and other details.
Considering the high turnover of fluffies this was a pretty cost effective way of filing them and keeping records. All of them had names, some more half-hearted than others and others details wrote down.
The office area looked lived in.
There was scraps of food in the fridge and some clothes were strewn across the floor. A blanket had covered the back of the chair.
A pile of outstanding bills and demands had piled up on the desk.
They looked pretty serious.
Carter had entered each room and the once crying fluffies began to stop crying and become cheery.
Cries of “nyu daddeh” and “nummies” and “huggies” began to echo through the building instead.
They all looked at Carter expectantly, nyu daddeh will save me from here.
From darkie place. The lights had long gone out and the heating had stopped working.
The light switch didn’t work. It was clear the electricity had been cut off. This was the first light the fluffies had seen in days.
Food had been knocked over, water spilled, some fluffies had died and bite marks shown across their carcasses.
There didn’t appear to be any foals in here; the litter boxes were all full and the contents of said boxes had begun to coat the fluffies in a foul brown colour.
Brown, sloppy crap that was hard to wash off, and harder to wash the stink off.
How could these be given to anyone to eat?
Carter had forced open the door to the pillowfluffs room. It had been locked.
Whereas all the fluffies had been happy to see him and stop crying, this was the one room the crying continued, wailing “wan die” and “no weggies or huggies.”
They looked like they’d been neglected a long while. Pillowfluffs are often thought of as far things and fluffy like pillows from the fact they’re no longer mobile and are there just to get fat.
These pillowfluffs’ bodies were very thin and drawn compared to the other fluffies with legs, crap was piled high behind each of their rears.
Their rears had started to show lice and maggots living off their sloppy rears. Eating away at their flesh.
There were a lot more pillowfluffs here than there were fluffies in the other room. A common fluffy that centres take in for adoption are pillowfluffs from people too shortsighted to think a fluffy without legs wouldn’t be difficult to keep.
They were all stacked on shelves, facing outwards, kind of like the way a book would be stacked at the library.
It was a very orderly way to keep them. And efficient. Most of the time they’re just put on a floor and that’s it.
This was a pretty big library of pillowfluffs stacked onto shelves such was their number.
It reminded Carter of his first job with Louie.
Except there was room for them to move in here, all the fluffies conveniently packaged onto the shelf unable to move.
That room had next to no room, Carter remembered how repulsive that room was.
He couldn’t tell if this was as bad or not. It stunk horribly, and it’s hard to judge how bad something smells in comparison with something that is actually as awful.
Maybe he was losing his sense of smell after all.
This wasn’t all that larger than that room back then.
There must have been 80+ fluffies in this room alone.
Louie decided to check the room.
The conditions the pillowfluffs were kept in and that the door was locked led him to believe it was deliberately locked.
They were meant to die in that room, they’d been purposely neglected and left to die.
That maggots had started to feast on their rears and the awful conditions, these fluffies were better off gassed than to be processed into food. Or whatever.
Above the order from the meat company, their main role is to protect the public from any hazardous fluffy.
Louie called it in, two other guys would come with the equipment and the bio-recycling truck after they cleared off out of here.
Wendy must have been unable to cope with the demands any longer.
The fluffies deemed “safe” to be delivered, all the fluffies with legs and the dams and the newborns and a tiny number of foals were loaded into the truck.
Louie had instructed Carter not to say anything to them or to react to them.
Responding would only make it worse for them.
They were better to remain oblivious to their fate.
Any emotional stimulus that frightened or excited them would frighten the rest and cause distress amongst them.
And he wasn’t ready to take noise complaints from the public.
Fluffies are known for their herd mentality and the majority of all fluffies expect the same thing.
Their eyes lit up when they were picked up by both men.
Good upsies. Huggies. Nyu daddeh.
They were going to a new home.
A nice home with new Daddehs.
All fluffies were saved and they could have huggies and nummies and Sketties.
If only they knew.
Carter flicked the switch on to turn on the lullaby music.
This would make their journey easier, the lullaby would calm them in the dimly lit truck and calm them despite being restrained from moving.
It was the same lullaby that had been heard from a previous job. It was pretty popular to use. Music to calm and soothe fluffies is notoriously boring to the ear.
Louie wanted to call the police.
There was no sign of Wendy nor any notes from her except anything to do with the fluffies.
His phone was dead, he’d completely forgotten.
He went to turn to Carter but instead a woman and a young girl, her daughter maybe, stood in front of him.
The young girl looked pretty stiff, Louie wasn’t exactly the friendliest face you could look at.
The woman asked, “excuse me sir, I’m sorry for stopping you and taking your time. My daughter has lost her fluffy. We believe that she’s been handed into this centre. Do you know if it’s in there or been given……sleepies?”
The woman handed a photo to Louie.
A brown fluffy with wings, it’s name was Chocolate, the little girl had said.
She had looked up nervously and began to look down again to hide her face from Louie.
She had a pretty good idea of what he did as a job.
Louie looked closer at the photo.
He noticed the fluffy had burns on its rear leg, possible cigarette burns from their size and appearance. Discoloured the fur and made it a dirtyish white. Speckled kind of like a deer.
The fluffy also had a split in its right ear.
Possibly abused?
One of the wings was crooked compared to the other, it looked like it had taken a few knocks. It was pretty small but this must’ve been taken a while ago, the fluffy was closer to a foal.
Not exactly a valuable fluffy by any means….
He pulled out the file from the van, he had kept it from Wendy’s office.
He went through the photos and found the picture of the fluffy in question.
(In Wendy’s writing) Chocolate. filly. pegasi type. not-neutered. handed in for adoption. rear of fluffy shows signs of abuse. fluffy has low bowel control following injury. may require pillowing if bowel problem unresolved
(The woman had began to notice Louie looking at that photo intently. He read the back too. What could be on that? She hated that fluffy!! Filthy shit brown colour, who cared if it had little wings?! Her daughter did. She loved that fucking fluffy. Her ex partner had bought her the fluffy when it was a foal. A full $1 dollar bill was spent on my girl by that man, and he couldn’t even get her the exact thing she wanted!! Typical cheapass!! It was meant to be snake food. Snake food!! And a crap quality fluffy at that…How dare he?! How was it not dead yet?! And yet that girl loved it, she called it Chocolate and nurtured its wing. The crooked one. Why did she need to spend all that time fixing it?! And he expects that to be acceptable?! She had given the fluffy in, she would get her daughter something better herself. Fuck chump change shitrats. What she didn’t expect was the tantrum. That girl couldn’t sleep or eat. It had been weeks! She didn’t realise how much her girl had loved that thing. She had to get it back. But then the notice went up. Her girl wouldn’t happy with any other fluffy. Considering how much of a shitrat it looked it would still be there? She had to get it no matter what.)
“I recall seeing this one ma’am, I’ll have my partner get it from the back for you”
And Carter was called and the fluffy was given to the girl.
It took him some time to find it, he only recognised it from looking at its split ear and then looking at its rear to check if it was a girl and it’s wings.
It was bigger than what had been in the photo. Fully grown and fatter. The split in the ear and the crooked wing as well as it’s grey burn marks gave it a distinctive look.
It helped that it remembered its own name too.
The fluffy began to cry, “chocwat nu wan webe bad upsies Huhuhuhuhu”
But then Chocolate seen the little girl and began to cry out “wiw mummeh!! Yayyy!! wiw mummeh wub oo so much!!”
The girl hugged her fluffy and the woman began to tear up herself (privately she was relieved, she was glad her girl could get back to normal after this. And that the fluffy hadn’t been taken away)
Louie then lectured both the woman and the Girl about looking after the fluffy correctly and properly. He also said it would need shots and a simple, bland diet to take care of if from being neglected at the abandoned centre.
The little girl promised Louie she would take care of Chocolate and she wouldn’t go missing again.
The woman felt very tense during the whole thing.
Louie and Carter both drove off to take the fluffies to the processing plant.
They waited until the other exterminator crew came by and cordoned off the building.
Today was an easier shift than normal, no need to smell of bad chemicals but both men accepted that they would need to shower anyway.
Fluffies have a strong aroma of their own that easily masks all deodorants and aftershaves.
Carter was on his phone throughout the trip up to the plant, “I’m ordering you a new cell on eBay. Don’t worry, it’s exactly like what you’ve got. Except it works. Why don’t you upgrade?”
Louie replied, “I prefer to speak and it’s a simple enough thing to use. It’s got buttons and an off switch. I’ve lived here long enough to know where I’m going and I have a computer at home. Why would I need a google?”
Carter wanted to reply, but didn’t. Louie and his dad were roughly the same age.
Louie seemed a lot older though. Textbook boomer……or Gen X but that was a boomer psy-op
“It’s only $20 plus delivery. I’ll let you know when it comes.”
“Thank you Rich Kid. I appreciate that.”
“What do you think happened in there?”
“Nothing good from what I seen. That woman loved fluffies and to think she locked them pillowfluffs in there to die……I couldn’t imagine her doing that. She musta been in a bad place but who knows. I know she couldn’t do what she had been doing anymore. That’s why she had to run. Leave. Walk away. God knows where she is. She didn’t respond to our messages when the service contacted her about closing down.”
After they dropped off the fluffies, their shift was done. Carter would be going out for the night. He felt like a good job done needed to be toasted with a drink.
Louie visited the police station and filed a missing persons report. He knew Wendy had no family and had behaved out of character.
He hoped she would turn up one day. Turn up well and healthy.