Fluffy Mill
You’re a fluffy mare. You’re just old enough to eat solid food, and a hoomin took you away from your cage and your mummah. Your cage is the only home you’ve ever known. Why did he take you away from your mummah? You don’t understand.
He puts you in a new cage by yourself. You cry and beg to have your mummah back, but he just yells and hits your cage with a sorry stick. You whimper, but you try to stay quiet so he doesn’t hurt you. You’ve seen mummah get the sorry stick when she makes the hoomins angry.
You never leave the cage again for the rest of your life. And you never see your mummah again.
You’re bigger now, almost full-grown. You wish your mummah could see how big and strong you are!
The hoomin who feeds you opens your cage, lifts you up, and puts something under you. You can’t move! Your legs are stuck in holes in the bottom of the thing you’re on, and your hoofsies can’t touch the ground. It hurts a little. You cry and ask the hoomin, as politely as you can, to let you move again. He hits you on your nosie with the sorry stick and you cry even more. He tells you to shut up and raises the sorry stick again. You stifle your cries, but you still sob and sniffle.
Then he puts something in the cage with you. It moves, scaring you a little. Maybe it’s a munsta! You look over your shoulder and see another fluffy. It doesn’t look like your mummah. Maybe it’s a new friend, so you don’t have to be all alone anymore?
Wait, what’s it doing? Ow! Ow! Owies! Your special place hurts! It hurts so much!
“ENF ENF ENF ENF ENF!”
The meanie hoomin bops your nosie when you start to cry and beg for the other fluffy to stop hurting you, and you cry as quietly as you can while the meanie fluffy keeps hurting your special place. Finally, the other fluffy finishes whatever it’s doing and is taken away. The hoomin lifts you out of the thing that kept you from moving and drops you on your face. Your weggies hurt from being in that thing, your nosie hurts from landing on it, and your special place REALLY hurts. You don’t know what just happened, but you curl up in the corner and cry miserably.
You have babbehs in your tummeh, you can feel them. You’re gonna be a mummah soon! This is the happiest you’ve been since they took you away from mummah!
You sing to the babbehs in your tummeh, so glad you’re gonna be a mummah soon! You can’t wait for them to come!
“Hnnnngrrrrgggghh! Bigges poopies!”
You grunt, strain, and groan. It takes you a moment to realize that you’re not making big poopies, your babbehs are coming! You’re so happy- but it hurts too! Your tummeh and your special place HURT! You cry and beg for someone to come help you, but no one comes. It hurts so much!
Finally, you strain and you feel something plop out onto the floor of your cage. Is… is it a babbeh? You push and squeeze your tummy again and feel another plop. Then another. And another. Finally, you’re done. Exhausted and in pain, you turn yourself around and see four babbehs squirming and wiggling on the floor of your cage. They’re all slimy and gross! You quickly lick them clean, gagging at the taste, but finally your babbehs are all clean and smell pretty! They start chirping and feebly searching for, for something. You instinctively know they need miwkies.
“Hewe babbehs! Mummah hewe! Haf miwkies and huggies and wuv!”
You can only feed two at a time, so your other babbehs will just have to wait. But you’re sure you have enough miwkies for all of them. You’re a good mummah.
Your babbehs are big enough they’re starting to eat solid food now. It won’t be long before they’re big and strong fluffies, like their mummah! You’re proud; you were such a good mummah, and your babbehs have given you the only joy you’ve ever had in your life. You curl up in a fluff pile with your babbehs, feeling their warmth, breathing their scent, and sigh.
Then a hoomin opens your cage and grabs one of your babbehs.
“Nu! Nu huwt babbeh!”
“I’m not hurting it, you dumb shit. Here, this filly will be a good breeder. The other three foals have good coloration; ship them to the store front first thing in the morning.”
“Nu! Nu take babbehs! Babbehs nee mummah! Babbehs-”
You see stars and are lying on your back. You blink and it takes you a second to realize the hoomin hit you with his not-hoofsie. You taste boo-boo juice. You sit up and the cage is closed. The hoomin is gone. So are your babbehs.
“Nuuuuu! Babbehs! Mummah nee babbehs! Whewe babbehs?! Babbehs! Huuhuuhuu! Baaa-haaa-beeehs!”
You’re finally getting over the chest-hurties losing your babbehs has given you. You’re even starting to forget what they looked like. You feel like a terrible mummah for not remembering your babbehs.
Then the hoomin who usually puts food and water in your cage opens the cage and sets something in there. You recognize it; it’s the thing that didn’t let you move while that bad fluffy hurt you.
“Nuuuu! Nuuu! Nuuu! Pwease, nu huwt fwuffy! OWIES! Huuhuu, fwuffy sowwy! Fwuffy be gud fwuffy! Pwease no huwt- Owies!”
He roughly picks you and hits you with the sorry stick again, then drops you into the no-move thing. You land wrong and one of your leggies is hurt. The hoomin grabs it and sticks it in the hole like the others while you cry.
Did- did the hoomin leave? You don’t see him anymore. It hurts being in the no-move thing, and you can’t go anywhere, but it’s so bad if the hoomin isn’t there to hurt you- oh no. The hoomin is back, and he just dropped another fluffy into the cage with you. You remember this.
“Pwease nu huwt fwuffy! Pwease?”
He hurts you.
“Nuuuu! Huuhuuhuu, pweeeeaaaaase!”
“ENF ENF ENF ENF ENF!”
“Huuuu, huuuu, why huwt fwuffy, whyyyyy?”
“ENF ENF ENF!”
After what seems like forever, the meanie fluffy stops hurting you and the hoomin takes him away again. You’re removed from the no-move thing and left to lay on the floor of your cage and cry.
You have the babbeh feeling in your tummeh again. Every day is sheer misery, but you have a bright spot of hope again. You can be a good mummah. You know you’re a good mummah.
But what if they take away your babbehs again?
You only have two babbehs this time. They grow up big and strong, and you’re proud of what a good mummah you were for helping them get big and strong. You’re proud of what good babbehs they are.
Then the hoomin comes again, and it’s just like last one.
“Take the colt to the breeding pens. The filly goes to the store front.”
You plead with them not to take your babbehs and the hoomins ignore you. Out of desperation, you bite the hoomin’s hand when he tries to pull your babbehs away from you. He yells and then beats you with the sorry stick so badly that you can’t move. You never see your babbehs again, and the hurties in your chest are even worse than the owies the hoomin gave you.
You lay in your cage and cry for hours.
The hoomin that feeds you opens the cage and puts the no-move thing inside.
“Pwease, nu huwt fwuffy! Fwuffy am gud fwuffy! Fwuffy… fwuffy du whut hoomin wan, jus pwease nu put fwuffy in nu-move ting!”
He puts you in the no-move thing. You cry because you know what’s coming. He puts a meanie fluffy in the cage with you and the meanie fluffy hurts your special place.
“ENF ENF ENF ENF!”
The sound is almost as horrible as the pain.
When he’s finished, the meanie fluffy is taken away along with the no-move thing. You lay in your cage and cry. You know what happens next.
You have the babbeh feeling in your tummeh, but it doesn’t make you happy this time. You know your babbehs will be taken away from you again. You don’t sing to your tummeh babbehs this time, you cry because you know they’ll be taken away by the horrible hoomins and be hurt, hurt like you.
Why does it have to be like this?
You exhaustedly turn yourself around and clean your six babbehs. That’s a lot of babbehs, so much more than last time! You have a little trouble feeding them all, but you make sure all your babbehs get miwkies. You’re a good mummah.
When the hoomin comes to feed you again, he sees your babbehs and makes angry noises.
“Dammit! These ones are all ugly too!”
Ugly? Your babbehs are ugly? You look at them, sleeping in your fluff. You don’t think they’re ugly; they’re good babbehs.
“That’s the fourth batch of ugly foals that stallion’s given us! Cut his balls off and send him to the store to be sold, he’s not breeding any more ugly damn foals.”
“What do you want to do with the foals then? I don’t think we can sell them, those have got to be the least popular colors on the market.”
“Ship 'em to the pet store downtown; they need snake food.”
The other hoomin reaches in and starts taking away your babbehs! But- but they’re not big enough to leave their mummah! They were just born!"
“Nuu! Nu take babbehs! Babbehs tuu wittle, nee mummah! Nee miwkies! Nuuuu! Pwease, nu take babbehs!”
“Shut the fuck up, you shit rat!”
He hits you with the sorry stick again. You curl up around your last babbeh, trying to hide it in your belly fluff. You hear your other babbehs chirping, scared, wanting their mummah.
“Pwease, nu huwt fwuffy! Fwuffy am gud fwuffy! Pwease nu take babbehs…”
He hits you with the sorry stick again, pries you open, and takes your last babbeh away from you. You hear it cheeping in panic as he drops it in the box with the others and takes them away.
You curl up in pain and cry. Why? Why does this keep happening? Why do they keep hurting you? Why do they keep giving you babbehs, only to take them away?
What’s the sense of it all? It’s so unfair.
You cry and cry and cry.
The next day, they put the no-move thing in your cage again.
You try not to get attached to your babbehs. You try not to love them like you loved your babbehs before. You know the hoomins will just take them away from you, and you don’t want the chest-hurties again.
But you can’t. You can’t not love your babbehs. They’re your babbehs. Good babbehs. You give all three of them lov, and huggies, and miwkies, and watch them grow into big, strong, pretty babbehs. They’ve started eating solid food when the hoomins come again.
“Take the purple colt to the breeding pens, the other colt and the filly go to the store.”
You cry, and plead with them to let you keep just one babbeh. Just one. Maybe they’ll let you keep one, even if they take the others away?
They ignore you and take all your babbehs away.
You have the chest-hurties again. You promised yourself you wouldn’t, but you do.
Then the hoomin puts the no-move thing in your cage.
This time you have eight babbehs. They’re all so little, but they’re good babbehs. You try not to, but you love them all. You clean them up and give them all their first miwkies; it’s hard, with so many babbehs, but you just manage to do it.
The hoomins come and look at your babbehs again.
“Ugh. Maybe that stallion’s just having an off batch. All but one in here has terrible coloration, and they’re all so tiny. Maybe they’re all runts?”
“Babbehs am gud babbehs! Pwease nu huwt babbehs!”
“What do you want to do with them, sir?”
“Snake food.”
“And the one with good colors?”
“Fuck it, it might catch up and become normal size, but I’m not going to risk it. Snake food.”
You cry and offer no resistance as the hoomin steals your babbehs and tosses them, chirping, into a box. You don’t even beg. You know it doesn’t do any good.
Your chest-hurties are only just setting in when the hoomin puts the no-move thing in your cage.
Four babbehs. Good babbehs. The hoomins like these ones, keep checking on them and saying they’re pretty babbehs. You’ve never seen them pay so much attention to you or the babbehs before. Maybe… maybe they’ll let you keep them this time?
You give your babbehs lots of love, huggies, and miwkies and they grow up big and strong. And, just as you knew would happen, as soon as they start eating solid food the hoomins take them away.
You hurt too much to even cry at the unfairness of it all.
The hoomin puts the no-move thing in your cage.
This continues until you’re physically incapable of producing any more babbehs. They tried. They put you in the no-move thing and let meanie fluffies hurt your special place over and over again, but you didn’t get any tummeh babbehs. You have no concept of numbers beyond counting how many babbehs are in one litter, but you have birthed hundreds of children. Most were taken away and sold; some to loving families, where they knew happiness and love, others to terrible owners who tortured them and made them die in agony and pain, without knowing any happiness or compassion but their mother’s. Some who were taken away, over a dozen, were put into cages just like yours and made to churn out litter after litter of babies for the rest of their lives, just like you. Five litters were deemed not good enough to be sold or bred, and immediately taken away to be eaten alive by people’s pets. You don’t know or understand any of this; the fate of your many children is complete mystery to you.
“This old nag’s no good anymore; she’s too old. Get rid of her.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
You’re taken out of your cage for the first time since you were put there. Where is he taking you? You don’t care. You’re too tired to care. The pain you feel has long ago subsided to a dull ache and you just don’t care anymore. The hoomin roughly carries you by the scruff of the neck and throws you inside a big box. There are several other fluffies, none of them moving, in there with you. What is this place?
When the gas-powered incinerator ignites and burns you alive, you almost welcome the pain. You certainly welcome the end of all your suffering when it finally comes.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face. Forever.” - George Orwell, 1984