Part 5
The gravel parking lot was full this evening as family, couples, and fluffies wandered around the Family Fun Center. Kids and fluffies played together on a decommissioned tractor with the fluffy pretending to drive in the kid’s lap. Further up the hill, the steady ping of a driving range filtered through the warm June air while a fluffy themed miniature golf course lit up the dimming twilight sky. Everything was fluffy safe, with all the corners padded and rounded off. Litterboxes were everywhere and smiling teenagers helped customers with whatever they needed.
The camera crew took a few minutes getting footage of the happy scene, talking with happy patrons, and interviewing anyone who wanted to talk to them. It gave Mike Rowe and Mary a few minutes without the camera to talk.
“So do you actually like fluffies or is the happy fluffy farm thing just a cover?” asked Mike.
“Fluffy milk tastes better when the fluffies are happy,” said Mary. Mike raised an eyebrow at her use of the word “milk.’” She rolled her eyes in return. “Miwk is a stupid word and we both know it. But it genuinely does make a difference. I keep the mares happy because it makes the product good. Other miwk farms have milk bags warehoused on racks. The milk tastes terrible and it’s not just because they feed corn meal mush.”
“Why even bother then?” asked Mike.
“Some people don’t care about quality,” said Mary with a shrug. “They want the cheapest product out there, so they buy dry fluffy formula made from an industrially abusive manufacturer. There’s a lot of abandoned foals out there and a huge demand for formula. It has its place, I guess, but I grew up on a farm and I learned to respect the sanctity of an animal’s life.”
“But you eat fluffies,” said Mike. “Creatures that talk and are generally considered pets.”
“I actually don’t,” said Mary. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I just don’t like how they taste. People eat horses, and their arguably smarter than fluffies. I’ll eat Chi-kuns, sure, but ethically raising animals for harvest is something I really believe in. An animal raised for consumption should only have one bad day in their entire lives.”
“Does that apply to dairy animals?”
“Sure,” said Mary. “With cows, you can’t communicate with them except in the most general of ways. Fluffies understand right and wrong and can take directions in English. So if they have a rough day or two because they can’t follow the rules and processes, that’s on them. I feed, house, and provide medical care to them. They pay their rent with their milk and when they can’t pay, out they go.”
“Alright, we ready to get rolling again?” asked the director as he approached.
“We’ve got the nursery, vet, and zoo left,” said Mary. “They’re in the same barn, so let’s head there.”
They walked through the crowed of happy people and fluffies, each one enjoying the evening with happy smiles and babbles of gratitude. As they approached the last building, the crowd began to thin, vanishing completely as they came to the tall fence. A small herd of four bagger fluffies stampeded up to the fence and jumped up against it.
“Pway?” they asked. “No wan come pway wif fwuffies! Pwease pway! Gif cwunchie nummies? Be nu daddeh?”
“So, our least popular part of the Family Fun Center is the zoo,” said Mary. “Everyone who wants a fluffy already has one, so they mostly just ignore what they think is going to be a display of fluffies. I personally think they’re missing out.” She gestured to the fluffies begging for attention at the fence. “These gals are graduated miwk mares that failed out at being teachers. So they get to be part of the petting zoo. They’re also available for adoption.”
They walked into the air conditioned building to find a wide fenced walkway with pens of fluffies on either side. It looked like an idealized Americana version of a barn with painted wooden rafters and cross railed fencing covered in chicken wire. Signs discussing the fluffies hung on the pillars, illustrating the difference between the earthies, unicorns, and pegasi. Beyond the standard fluffies, a pair of alicorns pranced around a pen, playing a complicated looking game with their blocks and balls. They smiled and waved as the camera crew passed by before going back to their game. The next pen contained a few chi-kuns, happily clucking and babbling about “eggies.”
The wide aisle continued, leading to pens with yet more exotic fluffy variants. Fluffalo, a terrarium of micros, another of cotton fluffs, and a large cylindrical tank of sea fluffies all sat on display. Along the other side was a glassed enclosure containing a sleeping spider fluffy, a terrarium featuring a slow moving garden fluffy, and another pen with two puffy griffons that sat making fun of the garden fluffy. It was quite the collection.
Along the back wall was a glass window peering into what looked like a concrete classroom. Various piece of equipment, including a milking plate and a HugBox, lay scattered around the room. A tired looking four-bagger with a yellow mane and orange fluff sat in the room beyond trying desperately to explain to the gathered fillies about how things worked.
“When miwky pwaces stawt hurtie, you way down on miwkie takeh,” she explained, probably for the fourth time today. ”Miwkie takeh keep fwuffy deh fow wong time, but nu huwties! Watch tee-bee and just way down. No wowwy about make bad poopies, cause poopies go in poopie takeh.”
“Buh why wiwkie pwaces huwties?” asked a purple and grey filly.
“Cause have wots miwkies foh bebehs,” explained the mare. “Fawmeh mummah take miwkies fwom aww mummahs and gif to wots bebehs, nawt jus bebehs you haf.”
“We aww haf bebehs?” asked another green and orange filly. “Haf wots bebehs and take cawe of bebehs when big fwuffies?”
“Nu, jus gif miwkies and fwuffies wike Cwawabeww take cawe of bebehs,” said Clarabelle. “When haf bebehs, fawmeh mummah take bebehs away and gif to otheh fwuffies to waise.”
“Buh why nu waise bebehs?” asked another filly.
“Cause wots bebehs!” said Clarabell. “Nu take cawe aww bebehs, su fawmeh mummah hewp. Haf bebehs, gif miwkies, other fwuffies hewp waise bebehs.”
The fluffy fillies seemed to accept that answer at last, and waddled over to the various devices to inspect and play with them. One tried to lay down on the milking plate only to jump back up with a squeal.
“Miwkie takeh cowd!” she complained. “Nu wan play wif miwkie takeh!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Clarabelle ran over to the filly and bopped her on the nose. She began to cry and Clarabell bopped her again.
“Nu cwy!” she admonished. “Nu cwy evah! Nu compawin! Nu be saddehs! Fawmeh mummah nu wike cwy ow compwain! Nu wan we-edutate! Fwuffys sumtimes nu come back fwom we-edutate!”
“What’s funny is Clarabelle never had to go to be reeducated,” said Mary. “But she’s definitely seen mares come back from it.”
“Do we want to know what reeducation entails?” asked Mike.
“They get gently reminded of how they’re supposed to behave,” said Mary. “They get treated just like these fillies here. It’s embarrassing for them to get put to bed like they’re a weanling and talked down to like they’re children. And if that doesn’t work, they go off to a farm upstate for some more reeducation. Usually not. They’re good fluffies, but four bagegrs are a bit dimmer that other breeds. Easily living softens their brains, I guess.”
“Maybe I’m misunderstanding what they’re being taught,” said Mike, “but these fillies seem to be under the impression that all the miwk goes to babies?”
“It’s not a lie if you really believe it,” she replied. “As far as they know, all that miwk is going to the babies that show up on the TV in the miwk house. Most of them even swear that it’s their babies getting miwk. Really it’s just a feed from the foal room. Once they’re weanlings, they get put into their education classes to start their life as a miwk mare.”
They walked through another door and into another glimmering room filled with stainless steel. High sided plastic bins filled with peeping foals lined the tables, each and every one greedily suckling on a rubber nipple filled with miwk. A feces stained stuffy of a mare sat in each of the bins, and the ones that weren’t greedily suckling cuddled against it for warmth. Further down the table, the foals had detached from the nipples and were wandering around the bin, peeping and chirping. A few were cuddled and sleeping in the stuffy’s lap, while others played with their littermate’s ear tags. Some older foals that were no longer chirping wandered around a large plastic lined pen accompanied by an older pink on pink mare. She cuddled the babies, and cooed at them, licking clean their faces and hugging every one that came close enough for her stubby legs to hold on to.
“Wuv be mummah!” she said, hugging another foal. “Dasie bestests mummah fow bebehs. Aww bebehs bestest babehs! Wuv aww bebehs eben if nawt Daise bebehs.” Mike only nodded.
“Well she seems happy,” said Mike.
“She’s put in her four years of milking,” said Mary. “Ninety-five percent don’t make it this far, so the ones that do get a life that they could have only dreamed of. They get to take care of babies all day, every day. They get food, shelter, medical care, and all the love they could want. They wouldn’t trade this for all the spaghetti in the world.”
They left the foals and made their way into another stainless steel room this one with a wall covered in kennels. Fifteen fluffies of various type sat inside in various states of sadness, but one of the kennels also had a chi-kun in it who was sobbing uncontrollably about “weggie huwties.” Standing in the center of the room was a fireplug of a woman with arms like pythons.
“Good evening, Betty,” said Mary.
“Evening,” she grunted. “Just dropping off this chi-kun who tried to rescue an egg from the conveyer belt.”
“Hu hu hu, weggies huwty,” she sobbed. “Pwease make betteh! Huggies make betteh!”
Mary opened the cage. She picked up the sobbing chi-kun and turned her over a few times. She grimaced a bit, then picked up some supplies off the shelf. She carefully used tongue depressors and gauze to splint the chi-kuns legs. In another few minutes, she hung from the top of the cage in a sling. No longer openly sobbing about her hurt legs.
“Tank you fawmeh mummah,” she sniffled. Mary fluffed her head and turned back to the camera crew.
“Well, I guess that about wraps it up for Fwuffy Fawms Cweamawy.”
“Thanks for having us,” said the director. “Josh and I are going to get some more B-roll of the miniature golf course. We’ll meet you back at the hotel, Mike. Mary, thanks so much for hosting us.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied. “Betty, would you go with them and let them into anywhere they need?”
The director and cameraman left the vet’s office with Betty in tow, leaving Mike and Mary to walk back to the parking lot together. With the lights out, the full moon illuminated their walk through the crunching gravel. As they approached Mike’s car. Mary stopped suddenly, as if remembering something important.
“You haven’t had any miwk!” she said. Mike smiled a bit.
“I was hoping to get away without it,” he said. “Almost made it too.” She took him by the arm and dragged him back into the restaurant. He waited a moment as she raided the refrigerator, bringing back an armload of miwks, yogurts, and cheeses. She punched a thumb through the cardboard cap of the glass bottle and slid it over to Mike.
It was cold. The miwk had a pleasant chill to it that coated the tongue before melting away into a sweet, grassy vanilla taste. The clean taste and subtle blending of fats rolled off the tongue in a single swallow. Mike cocked an eyebrow in surprise. It was unbelievable.
“And that’s just the miwk,” said Mary with a smile. “Wait till you taste the ice cream.”
END
Total Word count: 9704
