Inventory Liquidation (BeattieBellman) (Art by InfraredTurbine)

Author’s note: Inspired by this prompt from @infraredturbine. Full credit goes to them for the artwork. My “smol story” ended up becoming a bit larger than I intended, so I’ve split it off into a separate post.



Standing on its back hooves, the brown earthie colt watched as a FluffMart employee pushed a platform cart, stacked high with cages, down the aisle. He trembled with fright as he watched other fluffies be pulled from their display boxes - some kicking and screaming, others quietly sobbing - and stuffed into the cages. Dread slowly built up within the foal as he knew that he would soon be next.

That morning, another employee had told the colt that today was his last chance to find his new owner. They hadn’t elaborated on what would happen if he failed at this task, but even a dimwitted foal could tell that it wouldn’t be good. Every fluffy at FluffMart knew what happened to “unsold merchandise” : they were taken away to an unknown fate, never to be heard from again.

Oh, the colt had tried so very, very hard to find a owner! He had spent the whole day pleading with each customer who walked past his box to become his new “mummah” or “daddeh”. He had tried to show them all how loveable and well-behaved he was, how he could use the litterbox like a good fluffy, how much he could play and dance and hug. But in the end, it was all in vain. Very few people wanted a shit-colored fluffy, not even for five dollars. Hell, most wouldn’t take one for free.

When closing time came and the last customer left, the foal broke down in tears at the unfairness of it all. Other fluffies with better colors had gotten owners, even the bratty ones that threw tantrums when they didn’t get what they wanted. He had never thrown a tantrum once in his short life, yet nobody wanted him. He hadn’t asked to be born with brown fluff! Why couldn’t he have a loving home like the rest of them?

As the cart edged closer, the colt began panicking. He desperately attempted to escape by climbing out of the display box, but his legs were too weak to lift him over the edge or jump more than a few centimeters. Distracted by his struggles, he didn’t even notice the tall, dark-haired employee looming over his box until two gloved hands clamped around his midsection, lifting him upwards.

The foal stared wide-eyed at the man as he was taken out of the box, his body frozen with fear. After a few seconds, he began pleading impotently to the employee:

“Pweeze, nice mistah! Pweeze gib fwuffy one mowe chance! Fwuffy am gud fwuffy! Wan nyu daddeh an’ huggies an’ wub! Pweeze nu take fwuffy away!”

The employee didn’t even look down at the foal as he placed them inside a cramped wire cage. “Sorry buddy, I can’t do that. This is the end of the line for you”.


Charles ticked off an entry on his chartboard after loading the cage back on his cart. The brown foal was number #18 of the 76 fluffies marked for liquidation today, and the last one for this aisle. He pushed his cart to the next aisle over and began the collection process again.

Corporate policy at FluffMart was to destroy any unsellable flufflies on the last Friday of each month, in order to free up space in the showroom. Those with bad or unpopular colors were always high up on the list for liquidation, especially if they had been unsold for several weeks. Runts, fluffies with physical deformities or antisocial behavior, and breeding mares with a history of shit-colored litters were also prime candidates. As a FluffMart employee for three years, Charles had become desensitized to the whole process, learning to tune out the cries and pleas of the fluffies as he collected them.

The final destination for these unwanted fluffs laid in an employees-only area at the very back of the store. It was a stainless-steel chamber, about three feet wide, four feet tall, and four feet deep in size. Reggie, a young employee-in-training at FluffMart, was standing next to it when Charles arrived with his cart.

“Hey man” he said, causing Reggie to look up from his phone. "Mind helping me unload these things?’

The young trainee nodded, and soon enough the two men has stacked twenty-five caged fluffies inside the chamber. “Alright, I’m gonna pick up some more cages, then go collect the shit-factory mares and their foals. You know how to use this thing?” Charles asked, tapping the top of the chamber.

“Uh, well, Carol had to leave before she could finish explaining it to me, but she did leave some notes on the operating procedures” he replied.

“Well, you should be fine. Just holler if you need any help” Charles said, before leaving with the empty cart. Reggie glanced at his notes again - Carol’s instructions were pretty vague, but the machine didn’t seem like it was that hard to use. With a heave, he pushed the heavy door of the chamber closed and locked it, sealing the fluffies inside.


“Scawwy! Nu wike dawk!”

The brown colt was surrounded by absolute darkness as he softly huu-huu’ed to himself. He was located near the bottom of the chamber, with other fluffies stacked high above him. The cage was too small for him to stand up fully or even turn around, so he resorted to lying on his belly fluff while sucking on his hoof for comfort.

Suddenly, a hissing noise could be heard inside the chamber. The fluffies murmured among themselves in fear at this new sound, unable to locate its source. The brown foal began trembling again. He though back to when he was a little babbeh, when his mummah would give him huggies whenever he was frightened, and wished he could go back to those idyllic times.

His thoughts were interrupted by a cough, then a wheeze, then more wheezes. The foal suddenly realized that he felt short of breath, like he did after lots of running around & playing , only now he found it impossible to catch his breath. The other fluffies were starting to hyperventilate as well. He tried desperately to gulp down more air as the tightness in his chest increased, but this only seemed to make things worse.

The fluffy above him began to panic. “HEWP! HEWP! FWUFFY CAN’T BWEAVE! WET FWUFFY OWT!” it cried in between wheezes, then released a torrent of shit & piss from its rear. It fell through the wire floor of the cage and dripped down onto the brown foal below, much to his horror.

What was going on? Why couldn’t any of them breathe? The colt’s head began spinning as the earsplitting screams of twenty-five fluffies bounced off the soundproofed walls of the chamber and echoed inward. He squirmed helplessly as more excrement fell on him from above. Eventually, his exhausted mind regressed back into an infantile state as he laid dying.

“…peep…mummah…nee’ huggies…nee’ mummah…chirp chirp…”


“NUUUU! PWEEZE NU TAKE BABBEHS! BABBEHS TU WIDDEW FOW UPSIES!”

Charles ignored the mare’s protests as he threw her litter of five foals (all terrible colors) into the cage. The week-old foals chirped helplessly for their mother as they shivered against the cold wire floor. He took care of the mare next, shoving her inside a different cage. He pushed the cart down the row of breeder habitats and repeated the process on the next mare marked for liquidation - all of the chirpies went into a single collective cage, while the mother was separated and placed in her own cage.

After filling his cart again, Charles began pushing it back towards the stainless-steel chamber. “Are you done yet, Reggie?” he called out as he approached.

“Almost. Just need to finish venting out the chamber,” he hollered back. A few minutes later, the machine beeped, indicating that the cycle was over. “Okay, just need to get the dead ones out of here…oh, Jesus!”

The ripe, concentrated stench of “scardey poopies” hit Reggie in the face as soon as he cracked the chamber door open. Once he managed to open it fully, the two employees could see that walls of the chamber were splattered with feces. The fluffies near the bottom of the machine were almost drowning in the stuff.

“Reggie! What the hell did you do?”

“I don’t know!”

“Out of the way, lemme see this” Charles said as he pushed the young trainee aside, checking the controls at the top of the chamber. “Dammit, you’ve got the flow regulator set way too high!”

As Carol had explained to Reggie ealier that day, the machine worked by pumping carbon dioxide into the chamber, displacing the oxygen inside and asphyxiating the fluffies. Done correctly, this was a perfectly humane method of euthanasia. What Carol had neglected to address in her notes, however, was the importance of increasing the flow rate gradually. If the concentration of CO2 rose too quickly, it would cause a hypercapnic “alarm response” in the fluffies, causing them to panic and stay conscious for longer as they suffocated.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know!” Reggie offered, but Charles only rolled his eyes in response.

“Whatever. I’ll handle the machine for the rest of the night - but first, YOU’RE going to clean out the inside of that thing.”


It would be another hour before the shit-covered corpse of the shit-colored foal was finally extracted from its disgusting cage. The dead colt was sealed inside a red biohazard bag and unceremoniously tossed down a chute to a collection bin outside, which FluffMart’s waste disposal contractor would pick up the next day for incineration.

One of the pregnant dams who survived last night’s purge went into labor the next morning. Charles watched her squeeze out seven tiny foals, dutifully licking each of them clean before setting them aside her to nurse. She was blissfully unaware of the fact that only one or two of her offspring were likely to find new owners - the rest were ugly shades of brown, green, or grey. Charles shook his head and sighed as he recorded their colors, knowing that this would only be the latest generation of “unsold merchandise”.

66 Likes

Sad and typical life of unfavored colors.

Carol should be scolded for not completely telling the newbie what to do.

12 Likes

Love it, wish we got to see more of what happened with the bad breeding mares and the chirpies but it’s probably beyond the focus of the story.

3 Likes

Correct on both counts. Maybe he would have sold as a $0.25 stress ball as a starting price point. Also thank you for including regressive, pathetic hoof-sucking.

2 Likes

Yep. A LOT of preventable accidents happen when workers try to operate equipment they’re not properly trained for. They were lucky that only fluffies that were hurt this time, instead of people.

Oh, they met the same fate as all the other fluffies liquidated that night - but only after waiting several hours, watching Reggie pull dead, poop-coated fluffies out of the chamber in front of them.

6 Likes

Beautifully written

1 Like

Love it

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Oh man I know that feeling. I once tried to open a clamshell hanger by myself (it’s usually a two man event) and ended up causing the solid metal opening struts on one side to snap like a fucking twig. I got lucky that everyone blamed it on the fact that it was like -20 outside and the clamshell doors were 20+ years old and badly maintained

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Five dollars in this economy for a talking turd is pretty extreme.

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They should really sell them for like $1 on the last day. They would all sell. It would be a fun, romantic date idea, after a movie or something during the summer when the days are long, get a box of 20 poopie colored foals and drive up to an overlook and just throw them one by one off a cliff. Eventually birds of prey would gather in the area and they could even catch some of them.

Sounds like such a nice relaxing time :slight_smile:

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I’ve always been partial to turning them into snake food. The last moments of their pitiful lives can be spent in utmost terror that way.

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If only there was art of what was happening as the fluffies panicked

Id draw it but i do good to male a decent stick figure some days