"For Sale" Part 1 by Giant_Neckbeard (FB ID: 20430)

FOR SALE

>Be a Cat.
>Specifically, be a 22-pound desexed tom-cat with four-inch long tiger-striped black-and-grey hair, a white belly, four white ‘socks’ and a lightning bolt of white hair between your eyes. …
>Yet the Management calls you ‘Clog’.
>By the Sphinx’s nose…
>You’d protest, but the last time you did that by spraying the Management’s favourite shirt, he took you to the Vet and had that white-coated bastard take your balls away, so you’re understandably nervous about complaining …
>Still … it’s not all bad. Endless belly-rubs, you get the run of the back-yard (and sometimes the front-yard), all the food you can eat, ear-scratches and the occasional chin-rub.
>You get to go outside because you don’t hunt. Your mother, however, is a formerly feral cat, so she stays indoors because the Management likes to hear the birds.
>Why, you’ll never understand. Brainless feathered morons … you still have nightmares about that parrot he used to have.
>Damn thing screeching “POLLY WANNA FINGAAAAAAAAAA” as it tried to savage you, as you and the rest of your siblings hid under the couch, and your mother bolted out the door.
>’Mistook us for rats’ my hairy backside! You think and scowl, glaring out over the patchy grass of your domain from the lofty perch of the back-step. We were smarter, cuter and superior in every way, so it tried to get rid of us, that was all… what the?
>Yet your thoughts are interrupted by the sounds of voices … strange. The Management isn’t due home till sundown, and the Humans around you are all away as well…
>“There! THERE! Look to your left, hairball-brain!” Oh joy, you can hear Mother shrieking from her post on the windowsill above you, pounding on the glass window to get your attention. “By the Hibiscus bush! Get them! PROVE YOU’RE A PROUD DESCENDANT OF THE… ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME, RICHARD EDWARD SHINCLAWER THE SEVENTY-NINTH?
>Uuuugh. At least ‘Clog’ is an easy name. You’re the descendants of a stray of a stray of a house-cat who was abandoned, yet Mother still insists on this ridiculous notion you’re descended from some Human Empress’s favourite cat…
>Let’s see, to the left, the hibiscus bushes at the back of the yard … oh. Oh, that’s odd.
>You don’t remember eating any catnip today, yet there’s two giant cotton-wool balls inching out from under the bush, one a bright green, the other neon-pink.
>"See! Towd yuu, Speshaw Fwiend, dat Chip can kind guu’ nummies fo’ Speshaw Fwien!" The pink thing says, in a high-pitched voice that reminds you of the small, annoying, grabby Humans from next-door that always try to lure you over the fence again…
>Losing your testicles was nothing compared to the humiliation of being stuffed into a Doll’s frilly dress and
being made to play house with three little girls …
>“Gwassies nu pwetty … buh dey taste guud. Tank yuu, Speshaw Fwiend, dis hewp Mumma make wotsa miwkies-nummies fo’ baybehs!” The green thing replies, and then you spot more horridly bright-coloured things nestled on her back and hear the… chirping?
>Oh hell no! More birds?
>Slinking down off the porch step, you drop to your belly and creep as stealthily as a 22-pound giant fluffy cat can.
>The strange, brightly-coloured things don’t notice you, but your mother does.
>“Yes! YES! THAT’S MY BOY! Kill them! Prove you’re a man, prove the bloodline of our proud and noble fami~
>Dammit, mother, not now!
>You’re perhaps twelve feet from the things when you decide you’re close enough and crouch down as low as you can behind a particularly lumpy patch of grass and hope that these things are as dumb as they look.
>Grazing as they shuffle out from under the hibiscus bush in a meandering, agonizingly slow fashion, you get a good look at these new creatures.
>Short, chubby limbs and awkward, rotund bodies, with long fluffy hair all over their bodies except small, pale- pink hooves, large, expressive faces and short tails with impressively long hairs.
>Other than their broad muzzles filled with little blunt teeth, they don’t look like they have any natural weapons… and they’re only half your size, probably about as big as that Corgi that used to live down the street.
>You can hear your mother shouting at you to finish them, to prove… by the First Scratching Post, she wants you to… Mother! That’s vile!
>Curiously, the Male thing has a pair of tiny, stubby little wings, but the Female thing has … a horn?
>They are obviously not birds … but what the hell are they?
>Cheep cheep peep cheep
>The little things on horn-bearing Fluffy-thing’s back look like smaller versions of the bigger ones. Those must be their kittens.
>Two of them have wings, one grey, one yellow, one has a horn and is orange … and their parents are idiots.
>Their meandering path has led them right in front of you, yet they are so focused on grazing they literally walk around you.
>And you thought that Saint Bernard two houses down was an idiot…
>You get up to turn around and keep watching the two Fluffy things, when you hear the cheeping take on a more frantic tone.
>One of the little things has tumbled off the back of the mother, flailing as it tries to grab hold of the fluff and stop its fall, but without any success, so it tumbles down the mother’s tail and rolls across the grass before coming to rest on its back.
>And the mother just keeps on grazing …
>Whatever these things are, it’s obvious they’re not very bright at all.
>But this might be your chance. Your chance to take a closer look. Surely a baby fluffy-thing isn’t a threat to you.
>Creeping over, you inspect the baby as you advance.
>Much like it’s parents in shape, but it has a pale grey colouration, much like parts of your own coat, and a pair of tiny little wings…
>You’re at the baby’s side in a few moments more, the fluffy-thing parents completely oblivious to their missing offspring, when you decide to risk it and sniff the baby.
>Hmmm. Smells of sunshine, sweat, poop, grass and extremely-sweet milk.
>Then the damn thing stops cheeping desperately as your shadow falls over it, but then it starts to sniff you back.
>Then its little hooves reach up and start ruffling your chin-hair! Huh, it must be trying to right itself and follow after its parents.
>Strange, ugly, wretched little creature that it is, still you can’t help but feel sympathy for it.
>So you gently roll it over onto its hooves, and gently grip the baby fluffy-thing by the scruff of its neck and pad after the parents.

19 Likes

I am loving this.

3 Likes

If Giant Neckbeard was just the alter ego of some published author I’d be like “Oh that makes sense”

2 Likes

@anon86703525 Agreed, an exceptionally written piece.

1 Like

I’m more referring to their very long stories… can’t remember which ones ended up finished, this was like 10 years ago after all. There was the hugbox one with the dog, that one’s long and I think on this site. Unfortunately my favorite one with the apple orchard overrun by ferals never got done, and there was I think a pretty cool one about fluffies who lived in a sewer or junkyard? Pretty sure that was Neckbeard also.

All of the prose is top quality and all of it worth a read.

That last story I think they fell into rewriting heavily instead of releasing more, I don’t remember if it had a conclusion or it was bringing in more complications like cannibal tribes and changeling fluffies that made it meander and led to frustration for the author.

On the off chance this is ever spotted by said contributor: thanks for all the good stuff! Glad we’re still able to access it when so much has been lost.

4 Likes

My Giant and Me, one of Giant_Neckbeard’s finished long stories

Apple Acres. It was unfinished.

On the Rocks, probably his most popular story and the one that inspired many feral fluffy stories.

What finished of the story (“Haven Arc”) is basically the Season One of the story and the Season Two equivalent (“Labrynith [sic] Arc”) suffered a constant rewrite because apparently the plot was getting a bit too similar with Fall of Cleveland among other things

@Pushka
Cats !

1 Like

All very interesting. I wish people would worry less about rehashing each other. There’s more than one way to skin a fluffy.