Hobby Horse Chapter 8.3: Cutting the Asparagus, written by:skettiswipuh (Virgil)

Bob gathered up a large amount of tools and dropped them on the workbench where they clanged and settled into a menacing pile.
Asparagus was crestfallen. His world was beginning to crumble around him. He shouted for his mummah, even though he knew his mummah was taking fowebah sweepies up on the hill.
She couldn’t come to his aid.
'Gus ran to the edge of the workbench, barely managing to come to a halt before falling into the yawning chasm that was the farmer’s work shop.
Nuu! Dis no be weawies. ‘Spawagus dweamin! Spawagus gunna wakies un him gon’ get sketties, un ebuhfing gun be okie dokies!

“Hey” Farmer Bob whispered before stroking Asparagus’ head
“Calm down. You’re going to be okay. You’re just… starting a new stage in your life. This doesn’t have to be as bad as you’re making it out to be.”
The farmer picked up a propane torch, and tested it by turning the valve and lighting it’s flame.
The fire twinkled in Gus’ eyes for half a moment before Bob extinguished it.

The fire in Gus’ heart wouldn’t burn out, though.
The little fluff planted his feet firmly on the metal countertop, and he shouted at the top of his little lungs
“GUS NOT GON BE ENFIE BEBBEH! GUS FINK MEAN DADDIE NEED GO 'WAY! GUS HAETCHU! FWUFFEH HAETCHU!!”

Bob put down the tools in his hands, and reached out, scooping up Asparagus, knowing that the fluff would shit all over him, and of course he was right.
He held the angry fluffy up to his eyes
“Hey. Listen to me.”
the fluff turned it’s head away so he could see Bob from one eye.
“You can be mad. That’s okay. I don’t blame you at all.
I’d be mad if I were in your hooves, too.”
He leaned a little closer
“But I’ll be goddamned if you’re going to be mad at me. I found a place for you to fit into this farm. I’ll grant you that it isn’t a pleasant place. It’s not the ‘bestest’ of anything,…
but it’ll keep you alive.”

Gus turned away from Bob’s glare, and a tear rolled down the fluffy’s cheek
“Ffff” Gus started to speak, haltingly “Fawmuh Bawb” ….after a moment Gus corrected himself
“MISSUH Fawmuh Bawb” huuuuu
the old man tried to look at Gus as gently as he could.
“Missuh Fawmuh Bawb…cootun sum uvvah fwuffy git dem weggies take aways un git poot in duh enfie babie bawks?”

Slowly, the old man nodded
“Yes. We could find some other fluffy to put in the box instead of you.”
The dull green fluff jumped to it’s feet. He’d found a loophole! He was going to be okay!

“Weww, weww den, cud dem uvveh bebbeh be enfie bebbeh un 'Spawqagus jus be weguwah fwuffie?”
Gus punctuated this thought with his happily waggling tail.

“No, 'Gus. I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. If some other fluffy goes in the box, then you’re going to get forever sleepies.”

The little fluff seemed to crumple under his own weight, rolling into a ball that whimpered 'huuuu huuuuuu!” constantly.

Bob sat back and lit a cigarette, letting the fluff muddle through this problem on it’s own.
In time the fluff began to whisper to itself.
“Spawagus gon’…gon’ be…enfie bebbeh…fow aww dem cowts un stawwions?”

Bob blew out a plume of smoke
“Yes.”

“Un-un-un…Spawagus nawy gon’ hab no weggies ta go wun pway wif da uvvah fwuffies?”

The farmer nodded sadly
“That’s right”

“Buh…” the confused fluff began “buh…'Spawagus…gon git sketties?”

“Every night, and every day.”

“Pwomis!?!”

“You have my word that you’ll get your sketties. I promise.”

It was hard for Gus to do more than whimper and huuuu, but he stood up one last time and looked at the farmer with his tear-streaked eyes

“Cun…cun fwuffy git… wastest… huggies…pwease?”

Bob opened his hands to the fluff.
To Gus those fingers seemed to span aeons.
Bob picked up the sack of sadness and layed it on his chest, quietly stroking it’s back and letting it cry onto his shirt.
With his free hand he reached over to his laptop and pulled up a song to play
As the light guitar lines played he closed his eyes and skritched Gus’ back.

This song is for the rats
who hurled themselves in-to the ocean
when they saw that explosives in the cargo hold
were just about to blow.

This song is for the soil.
It’s toxic clear down to the bedrock,
where no thing of consequence can grow.
Drop your seeds there,
Let them go.

Let them all go!

Let 'em all go…♪

When the song was done, Gus didn’t put up any fight as Farmer Bob laid him down on the workbench and stroked his fluff.

“Gus, I want you to know that I’ve done a lot of research into this procedure. There are a lot of ways it can be done, but I’m going to do it the Right way.”
Gus didn’t even look up at the farmer. He just halfheartedly nodded.

Bob continued to speak as he plugged his shears into the wall outlet.
“First of all, we take off all of your fluff. You’re not going to need it anymore, because it would just make you too hot inside your box.”

The clippers made a loud CLONK when they were activated, but afterward their hum was rather…pleasant. Bob slid the clippers under Gus’ belly and sheared away it’s fluff in quick, gentle strokes. Gus didn’t protest when he was rolled over to shear his other side. All-in-all, this wasn’t so bad. The shears tickled a little bit, and the breeze was unusually cool on his skin when the fluff was gone.
When all of Gus’ body-fluff was gone, Bob began clipping off it’s white mane. He stopped short when it came time to shave Gus’ tail.

“Gus, you need a little bit of a tail to brush away poopies. So I’m going to leave a little of it to help you keep yourself clean.”

“kay” came the broken-hearted reply

a few seconds later he heard
“fank ou missuh fawmuh bawb”

When Bob was finished he was left with a little whimpering potato that had a white scruffy tail, and four legs that it now refused to use.

The farmer looked up at the clock, before stroking his hand back and forth across the fluff’s newly shorn skin.

“It’s dinner time. I need to go put out kibble for the other fluffs, Gus.”
Gus didn’t respond.
“I’ll be back shortly.”
Bob grabbed one of his greasy shop towels and popped the dust off of it with a quick whip. The sound startled the fluff and a line of greasy poop dribbled down it’s new bare skin, making the fluff whimper even more. Bob laid the towel over the top of Gus, patting it down onto him, and smoothing out the wrinkles. Before he left the room he turned on the single electric stove eye he had in the break room.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Gus was left alone with only his own thoughts to keep him company.

He didn’t have Weon, or Awex, or Wex to keep him company. Not even Awbuwt was there for him to vent to.
Those boys were out dewe…
they were running. They were jumping.
They were enfing.

no…they…weren’t enfing.
They wanted to give enfies,
but they didn’t have anyfluff to give enfies to…

That’s what Gus was going to be for, now.
Enfies.
Bad enfies.
Wuwstes enfies.

Gus was sitting on top of the workbench. He was nearly a meter off of the floor.
It might be…it might be enough. He could land on his head, and have foweba sweepies.
He…
he still had a choice…
……but he felt so much warmer underneath the towel that he didn’t venture out.
He just…waited.
He hadn’t even moved when Farmer Bob returned.

Bob was in his “workie” mood and he strode in like a man on a mission. He was carrying a bucket that Gus would have recognized if he had cared enough to raise his head.
A metallic clank came from the break room, along with a pop, and some squicking.
The smell of Bob’s cigarette permeated the room.
Gus was nearly sweepies
……and a different smell started to flow into the barn
A smell that actually did open Gus’s eyes

Sketti.
Not just any sketti but warm sketti!
The kind of sketties that dreams awe made of.

By the time Bob brought the piping hot pot of spaghetti to the workbench, Gus was on his feet, wagging what little tail he had left. Other fluffs were pomfing at the door, hungrily whimpering, and demanding their fair share.
The mess was doled out onto a paper plate, and Bob warned Gus that it was hot.
The fluff didn’t seem to care, as it dove face-first into the greasy pile of reheated noodles and sauce made from who-knows-what-at-this-point.

Who would have thought that Gus’s lastest huggies
would be from a warm pile of sketti.


Bob didn’t cut through the thicker bones of the legs. Instead, he cut a crescent over each of the legs, and removed them all at the shoulders and hips. There would be no stumps for Gus to wiggle.
But if he was smart enough, Gus might actually be able to tumble to get around outside his box.
And all it took was a little bit of care.

Capillaries were cauterized with a branding iron. Skin was pulled over each wound and stitched together.
Bob had never done surgery before, so the stitches were uneven, and looked like four frowny-faces along the naked fluff’s side when Gus was right side up…
but Gus was still breathing.
Bob smiled, and started cleaning up the mess.


“Hey little fella.”
the shorn and stitched potato was starting to open his eyes.
“C’mon, gimme wakies, little guy.”
something started to gently roll Gus back and forth
like waves on the sea
Gus coughed and puked up a dribble of green bile, but that dribble quickly joined a vast ocean of vomit, from the fluff’s perspective.
From where Bob was standing…there was an equally large ocean behind the fluff. It was noticeably more brown.
Gus didn’t remember making coughie wawas.
He went sweepies again.


Gus was alone when he woke up from his spaghetti coma.
Gus was alone when he woke up
Gus was alone…

He was wrapped in white towels.
This wasn’t so bad. The morning was warm, so Gus streeeeeeetched out his weggies.

……
weggies.
He tested his front legs and found no purchase. The back legs reported the same.

….it was…it was all over…
Gus was an enfie baby now…

Bob came through the doorway just in time to see the existential horror crossing the fluffy’s face, and he quickly picked him up and tucked him into the enfie-box, packing padding around his body to hold him tightly.

The first time Bob tried to close the box, the insulation was too tight, and Gus gave a long moan like a howl.
But on the second try the box lid closed over Gus’s skin like a cocoon. Only his rump was exposed to the night air.
This was…a literal hugbox.
And it did seem to soothe the fluffy’s panicked mind.

Bob kept Gus away from the herd for a day and a half.
He talked to the new little enfie pal often.
Gus didn’t want to speak at first…but what more could he do?
Walk away?

Gus didn’t want to trust the first pile of warm sketties Farmer Bob put in front of him.
But the sketti just smelled soooo good.
So it ate, knowing the consequences would be dire…
…but nothing happened.

Gus lapped up the last remnants of sketti on his tray, and burped.
“Sowwy”
“That’s alright.” Bob chuckled

“So…Gus is gown get sketties ebwy day un nite…Fawmuh Bawb pwomised”
The was the fourth time Bob had to promise to give Gus sketties twice a day.
But despite these misgivings, Gus was quickly acclimating to this new life in a box.

No matter how the farmer turned the box over, it always felt like a warm hug, inside.

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22 Likes

I knew I missed a chapter

When Gus asked for those last huggies, I swear to god I let a few tears out. Justified punishment though!

6 Likes

Gus committed an awful crime and he paid an awful price for it.
He’s a good fluffy, again.

6 Likes

Disturbing that he keeps calling his new vocation enfie babbeh.