“Oh, hello.” I murmur to myself. It’s my lucky day.
My name is James. James Oldman, twenty-two years old. Pleased to meet you. Don’t call me Young Oldman. And whatever joke you’re about to make about my name, kindly zip it, because I’ve probably heard it a hundred times already. And if you call me James the Turd, well, I hope you’re not particularly fond of your teeth.
So, you’re probably wondering why I’m feeling so fortuitous. (I may have flunked English in high school, but that was because I didn’t get along with the teacher, not because of any deficiencies in my vocabulary. Take that, Mr. Rosenberg!)
Let me get you up to speed. Bear with me, it’s a long story.
I go to college on the other side of the country. My classes are hard, and it’s stressful, but my college is trying something new. It’s in a pretty pro-abuse part of the country, by the way. Starting to become a political hot-button issue, pro-abuse vs. pro-hugbox. Hey, I watch the news.
Anyhoo, the college decided that what us students needed was some good old-fashioned stress relief.
Hence, the shiny new Hasbio Foal-In-A-Can™ vending machines adorning the campus. They even polled the students to determine the best places to put the things, to achieve maximum stress relief, and maximum profit.
I’m one of the biggest customers. I go through the damn things like toilet paper. My dormmate Kyle, cliche hippie stoner conspiracy nut, says they deliberately choose the most fragile foals for the cans for this exact reason. But he also says that the CEO of FauCorp is a cyborg, Xavier Laine is an extraterrestrial in disguise (“Look at his surname, maaaaaan! It’s totally an anagram of alien!”), and Professor Rex Sycamore, our Philosophy teacher, is a werewolf, and he’s always high as a goddamn space station, so, y’know, grain of salt.
Yeah, I’m an abuser, and I’ve grown proud of it. They’re just shitrats. I don’t see why everyone’s so damn hugboxy about them. They’re not even legally considered animals, but the fucking hugboxers are lobbying hard to change that. Killjoys.
Like so many other vices, it was an older student who turned me on to shitrat abuse. I got started in my first year. His name was Gary. He graduated last year, ended up working at Fluffywood, I think. I totally thought he was going to join his dad’s shitrat extermination firm. It’s like the job was made for an abuser! But then I heard his dad is a total hugboxer and kills the stray shitrats humanely with poison treats. They eat it, they fall asleep, they don’t wake up. Honestly, if you’re gonna pussy out and kill them quickly, a hammer to the skull is funnier, and a hammer is reusable.
Anyway, school’s out for the summer, so I thought I’d spend a couple of weeks on my parents’ farm, then go see Gary, catch up, and go shitrat hunting together. The morning I’m set to catch my plane, my dad calls.
Turns out my dipshit uncle is a big ol’ hypocrite. He got kicked out of his house for killing a bunch of shitrats in his back garden, and leaving their bodies impaled on sticks. I heard at least five children, and seven shitrats (but why care about them?) were traumatized by the sight. And smell. And sounds, for a while. It even made the local news. I got a copy of the article thanks to my buddy Dave (who was expelled during his first term for selling weed on campus, weed still being illegal in my school’s state), and laminated and framed it, as proof of my uncle’s hypocrisy. He knew about my little hobby, and had given me shit about it before.
So now my uncle’s a laughingstock back in the city, and had to move here. Him and his purple shitrat, Lavender. Oh, real creative name, Uncle Chris! What, did it take you a whole thirty seconds to come up with it?
When my uncle first introduced me to Lavender (and I had to suppress the urge to vomit when the shitrat hugged me), I thought he was kind of a pussy for doting on a shitrat like he does. She’s got some medical condition, I don’t care, I say bash the fucker’s brain in and get one that didn’t leave the factory broken. Then bash that one’s brain in too, for good measure.
Then I found out about my uncle’s handiwork in his back garden.
So, the hugboxing faggot who spoils a retarded shitrat (I don’t give two tugs of a dead shitrat’s cock about that PC shit) is also the asshole who impaled a bunch of shitrats and traumatized a bunch of kids. And shitrats. I guess.
And thus we see the duality of man. (Up yours, Mr. Rosenberg!)
I’d love to find out what sound Lavender will make when I put a screwdriver in her chest (I’m guessing “SCREEEEEEE!”), or which way her organs will come out if I squeeze her really hard (I’m betting mouth, but I’m hoping…) but the looks my uncle and parents give me when I go anywhere near the shitrat make it clear I’m not gonna get a chance. So instead, I was hoping I could make an excuse to dodge the chores I just know they’re going to pile on me, and see if there aren’t any shitrats around here that nobody cares about. My mom says there aren’t a lot of shitrats in these parts, but that means there are shitrats in these parts. I have a backup plan if I can’t find any, mind.
Even if I was willing to risk incurring my uncle’s wrath when he gets back, his precious shitrat is under lock and key right now, for reasons I don’t know and can’t be bothered to find out, and my dad has the key. He and my mom are looking after the shitrat because my uncle is on his way to Amsterdam for a few days. And the pervert is probably gonna spend the whole time in the Red Light District again. He’s totally gonna end up on the sex offender registry some day. I see the hard-on he gets whenever my mom is around! That’s my mom, you sicko!
Just as I’m preparing to head out for what will likely be a futile endeavour, Abuser Jesus performs a miracle.
I don’t have to go looking for shitrats, because a shitrat just found me. Or ran into me while looking for something else. Food, probably.
Judging by the look of it, it’s a stray. A unicorn stallion, with, and I can’t help but notice this, rather big balls for a shitrat. I’m gonna have fun popping those bad boys like grapes. Filthy purple fluff, red mane and tail. Tear-streaks on his face, he’s been crying recently, guessing he just lost his special friend (Ugh, why the baby talk? Whyyyyyyy?), and his eyes look a bit unfocused. Probably been drinking from a beer bottle someone threw out. Come on, people, that’s good beer you’re wasting!
But I’ve figured out all I need to know. Absolutely nobody is going to miss this shitrat.
Thank you, Abuser Jesus!
The shitrat is too distracted by something to notice me, so it’s all too easy to snatch him up and spirit him off to an old barn, a good distance from the house, that nobody but me uses. My dad has been wanting to renovate it for years, but never got around to it. Stupid old man.
I open the door and go inside, taking in the musty air, and unfortunately also the smell of the shitrat I’m holding, who is only now noticing the situation he’s gotten himself into, my eyes raking the shelves of tools, and errant shitrat bones.
On my first trip back home after I began abusing shitrats, I converted it into a shitrat torture chamber, so I don’t have to be bored the whole time I’m here. Imagine that, right under my idiot father’s nose!
I’ve gotten into the habit of buying a few canned foals in the mornings before I fly out here. I put them here as soon as I could after I arrived, before anyone noticed the chirping and peeping coming from my suitcase, not being sure I could pass it off as the wheels squeaking. They’re on a table, still in their cans. I was gonna start on them first, but Doofus here unwittingly bought them some time. At his own expense.
Swiftly plopping a ball gag in his mouth so nobody can hear him, gladly sacrificing the joy of listening to his symphony of screams if it means I can keep doing this undisturbed, I then stuff him in a cage, ignoring his muffled complaints. I take another breath of the musty air, let out a sigh of contentment, and begin picking out a tool.
Home sweet home.