“You wanted to see me Professor Deckard?”
“Ah yes, Mr Mongola, please come in.”
Josef Mongola entered the professor’s office, he had been working alongside the famed educator for several months now in the hopes of using his expertise to help towards getting his doctorate. Josef had been working hard since high-school to enter the medical field, primarily as a surgeon but he’d dabbled in psychiatry, general health practises and even a little bit of medical chemistry. With his intelligence, his wealth and his name, surely any practise would be honoured to have him.
But as he sat down, he saw that Professor Deckard did not look like he was about to give good news, in fact he looked the opposite.
“Mr Mongola, it troubles me to say this but we’ve received some disturbing reports from a number of your patients, it seems that some of your surgery practise patients have had complaints about your work, but it’s for issues that have nothing to do with what they came in for.”
Deckard opened a file on his desk, Josef looked down and saw that there was quite a few of them.
“Like this one, guy comes in for knee surgery, and he’s complaining about pains in his liver. Or this one, elderly woman for keyhole bladder work, and she’s got back to us saying that her neck hasn’t been the same since you saw her. I hate to ask Josef, but are you performing unauthorised surgeries on these people?”
The young Josef looked up at the older professor, his face still, eerily so.
“And if I was?”
“Christ Mongola, have you never heard of body autonomy? We can’t just go around messing with people’s insides without their consent, we’re people of medicine, not Gods.”
Josef couldn’t help but smirk. “You’re just saying that cause you lack the ambition to be one.”
Deckard sighed, seeing there was no remorse in the young man’s eyes.
“In light of these events, I have no choice but to enforce punishment on you. Because of your potential and because of who you’re father is you will receive your doctorate at the graduation next week. But you will never work as one, every practise you apply to, be they top-tier or bottom ranked, they will see this black mark on your name and know to stay as far away from you as possible. You were and are a brilliant young man Mongola, you could’ve helped a lot of people, but now that potential is lost because of your superiority complex, I’ve seen it happen too many times to men like you.”
Josef scoffed and stood up. “There are no men like me.”
He turned and walked out the room, not wanting to risk snapping and slitting Deckard’s throat with his own pen.
“There’s only me.”
“That’s fucking bullshit babe.”
Josef’s girlfriend Katherine was irate at Deckard’s decision, she’d watched Josef struggle with sleepless nights and textbook cramming for his doctorate, and now it was worthless. She lit up a pot joint and took a drag.
“That fucking pencil pusher doesn’t know what he’s doing, you should tell your father about this.”
Josef chuckled sarcastically. “I don’t think that’ll work Kat, Deckard’s already told me I’m still getting the degree, if I tell dad why it’s basically shit now then I’ll have to tell him why Deckard’s strung me up by the balls. And that’s a whole mess of shit I don’t need right now. Besides you know dad, he’d probably blame ‘that bleeding heart hippy bitch’.”
Katherine giggled and handed the joint to Josef. “Please, your father’s such an old-money, right-wing dickhead that anyone who doesn’t wake up singing The Horst-Wessel Lied is a bleeding heart hippie to him.”
“Actually dad can’t speak any German, he blows a big game about his ‘heritage’ but he knows nothing about it. Schade, dass Vater ein Dummkopf ist.”
Josef took another drag of the joint and handed it back to Katherine. “Still, that doesn’t help me out right now, I’m still just a student with a shitty degree, I’m just like every other fucker in this country and that’s the LAST thing I want.”
Katherine threw her arms around Josef’s neck and gave a mock voice of concern. “Aww, does wittle Josef nu wike being wike evewywun else?”
“Ugh, stop it, you know I hate that baby voice.”
“You love it.” Katherine quickly kissed his cheek and jumped back onto the bed. “Look, this is still a fresh wound, and maybe it’s the wee talking but I’m fucking hungry dude, you wanna order something?”
“Call up the pizza joint and tell them I’m on my way.”
“Oh you fucking cheapskate, what’s a couple extra coins for delivery charge”
“For all his faults my father did have one thing right, you don’t get rich by throwing away ‘a couple extra coins’. Besides, it’s a warm night, I could use the fresh air, I’ll be back soon as I can.”
“Ok, just want the usual?”
“Pepperoni, extra meat, that’s the one.”
“I’ll phone it in.”
The couple shared a quick kiss before Josef got his coat and started left the apartment. It wasn’t a long walk to the pizza place which is why Josef was fine taking the trip, but for as much as he loved Katherine, he did need the space to clear his head, and weed smoke wasn’t doing much to help him.
Deckard might have thought he was doing Josef a favour by giving him his doctorate regardless, but in truth he’d fucked him even more. Josef knew his father was going to cut him off as soon as that degree was in his hands, and with nothing to fall back on, he was proper fucked.
He had enough saved away to carry him for a couple months, almost four if he budgeted right, so he didn’t need to worry just yet, but that was also four months to undo a decade of planning and research.
Josef considered stopping by the corner shop for some booze.
By the time he reached the pizza place his order was already to go, so Josef took the two boxed and started the journey home. He wasn’t too far from the pizza place when he passed an alley-way and heard a strange sound, almost like a child crying, Josef wasn’t one to involve himself but he was in a weird place in his head right now, maybe some good karma would help him.
“Hello, is anyone there?”
“Hewwo?” A tiny voice came from behind a row of bins, it had to be a child, a toddler judging by it’s odd pronounciation.
“Hey there, come on out, I won’t hurt you.”
There was a small patter of feet that slowly got louder, but no sign of any child, or anyone else for that matter. Then Josef heard it.
“Mistah be nyu daddeh?”
He looked down, and nearly jumped when he saw it. It was a Fluffy Pony, an honest to god Fluffy right in front of him. He’d heard about these creatures on the news and he was vaguely aware of what happened in Cleveland but he’d never seen one in the flesh before. It was an off-putting lime-green colour with an orange mane, not quite neon but bright enough to stand out and a small horn on the top of its head.
Josef shook himself out of his stupor and realised the Fluffy had asked something. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Mistah be nyu daddeh? Bwanka need huggies and nummies.”
“Are you… why are you talking like that?”
“Wike wha?”
“Like THAT? That goddamn baby talk, it’s… Fuck this, I’m not getting involved with a Fluffy, sorry for bothering you.”
“Pwease mistah, Bwanka so wonewy, nu hab homesie nu mowe, need nummies fow wowstesh tummie-huwties. Nu can find owd daddeh, can nyu daddeh gib Bwanka nummies?”
Josef took a second to translate the Fluff-Talk in his head, it was getting slightly easier with each sentence but he was still lost half the time. “Let me see if I got this right, you’re name is Blanka? Makes sense, I get the reference, you had another owner, but you’ve lost him. Well do you know where he is, I could help you find him.”
“Bwanka wun way fwom daddeh many bwite-times ago, daddeh nu wet Bwanka hab speciaw-fwiend, onwy wet hab enfie-toy. Bwanka wun fwom meanie daddeh, find speciaw-fwiend and hab gud-feews, but speciaw-fwiend git foweba sweepies fwom kitteh-munstah, nyo Bwanka hab nu-wun.”
From context clues Josef could guess what ‘special-friend’, ‘forever-sleepies’ and ‘kitteh-munstah’ mean, he’d no idea what enfies were but he had a suspicion and he didn’t want to be right on this one. He looked down at this sad little creature, a being so pathetic that it gave up a home just to get its dick wet, and he felt something deep inside him.
Something… sadistic.
“Ok Blanka, let’s take you home. But only for tonight, I’ll start looking for your owner in the morning.”
“YAY, fank yu nyu daddeh.”
“I’m not… fuck it, I’m still not getting into this. Just jump on.”
Josef lowered the pizza boxes to allow Blanka to lay on top, he cooed at the warm cardboard and curled up to go to sleep.
Now all Josef had to do was think of a good way to explain this to Katherine.
Josef opened the door to the flat slowly, trying not to wake Blanka up, Katherine however was too hungry to care about being quiet.
“Thank GOD! You took forever, was there a queue or something?”
“Not really.” Josef called through. “I got distracted.”
He carried the pizza boxed and Blanka through to the living room, catching her off-guard when she saw the little green guy on top of her dinner slowly waking up.
“What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a Fluffy.”
“I know it’s a fucking Fluffy Joe, I mean what’s it doing on my pizza?”
“I found him in an alley-way, I figured we could look after him while we look for his owner.”
“Look after… Joe can I speak to you for a moment.”
Blanka looked up at the angry voice. “Nyu mummah angwy?”
Katherine sneered at him. “Angry yes, mother no. I’m gonna have a little talk with ‘daddeh’ here, you just stay quiet.”
Katherine turned to leave, but quickly turned back, took Blanka off the pizza boxes, and placed him on an old magazine.
“Don’t move.”
Katherine pulled Josef into the other room and spoke in a hushed voice. “Joe, do have any idea what the fuck you’ve just brought into this flat? Do you even know what a Fluffy is?”
“It’s a small little toy thing, supposed to be living. I know that something happened with them in Cleveland but I didn’t see the harm in bringing one in.”
“Joe, one of these days you need to actually watch the news. That ‘something’ that happened in Cleveland was an explosions, the little fuckers blew the place up.”
“Explosion? How? They’re tiny little buggers.”
“Trust me, the truth is too strange to be a lie. And for the record, one is still bad, all these things do is eat, shit and fuck their way to an early grave, either by their own stupidity or someone wringing their fucking necks.”
“Jesus, how could anyone kill animals like that.”
“That’s the thing Joe, they aren’t animals, on a technicality they are classed as ‘Bio-Toys’, so they don’t get the same rights as animals when it comes to abuse.”
Josef looked back towards Blanka, still sitting on the magazine, patiently waiting for his new mummy and daddy to return. Those sadistic cogs in Josef’s head started turning again, and Katherine could hear them.
“I’m sorry I took away you’re fun of doing something illegal.”
“What? I’ve not idea what you’re talking about?”
“Come off it Joe, I know you and I know you didn’t pick that thing up cause of the kindness of your heart. You’re not the type of guy to give a shit about something.”
“Hey, I give a shit about you.”
“You like my company cause I put out and I like yours cause you’ve got good drugs, we know what we are Joe and taking care of an annoying little shit isn’t you. You wanted to hurt the little guy didn’t you?”
“Ok, so that thought might have entered my head, I’ll admit, I like the idea of having something around that’s even more pathetic than I am. But those weren’t the only reasons, come here.”
Josef took Katherine back through to see Blanka who started happily dancing on his hoofs when he saw them.
“Yaya, nyu mummah an daddeh wetuwn, Bwanka su happy.”
Katherine stopped in her tracks. “Wait, his name is… Blanka?”
Josef nodded. “Yep.”
“Like the…”
“The very same.”
“Huh, well he does look decent, must be a designed Fluffy for that custom fur-job. Someone paid good money for him.”
“And they’ll probably pay good money to have him returned.”
“Or they won’t want him at all, these things are selfish little fuckers Joe, chances are his owner doesn’t want the hassle.”
Josef knelt down and picked Blanka up by his front legs, making him dance on the table.
“Oh come on, who wouldn’t want this little guy. Look at him go.”
Blanka giggled as Josef shook him. “Am dancie Fwuffy nyo.”
“Hear that Kat, he’s a dancie Fluffy, let him dance for…”
There was a soft crack followed by a deafening scream and a gush of liquid shit as Josef accidentally bent one of Blank’s legs the wrong way.
“AAAHHHH, WEGGIE HUWTIES!”
“Fucking Christ.”
Josef managed to jump out of the way of the shit blast but that still left a very sore and very loud Fluffy on the table.
“Why daddeh gib wowstesh huwties?”
“Me? It was a goddamn accident, I barely moved you.”
“Aaaahhh, weggie SU sowe. Need weggie fow wun an pway.”
“Jesus, just calm down will you? Kat grab some tape from the kitchen.”
Katherine quickly grabbed some tape and handed it to Josef, working quickly to stop Blanka’s screaming he wrapped the busted limp in a piece of tissue and taped it into place, resetting the bone properly to allow it to heal.
When he finished, Blanka looked at his leg-brace, no longer crying in pain.
“How’d you feel?”
“Weggie stiww sowe, bu feew betta nyo. Fank yu daddeh.”
“I’m not… how abouts we get you some food.”
“Yes pwease, wub nummies, Bwanka am SU hungwy.”
“Well, wait there and we’ll whip something up.”
Josef and Katherine retreated to the kitchen, leaving Blanka to look quizzically at his new leg-brace. Katherine couldn’t help but talk shit at Josef.
“Now you see why I took him off the pizza.”
“What the hell was that? I barely touched him and a nearly break his arm off.”
“That’s Fluffies Joe, weak bodies to go with their weak minds, you’ll have noticed once you distracted him with food he forgot all about his broken limb.”
“Now that you mention it, kinda. I noticed it earlier when I picked him up, he told me he lost his mate and their unborn children, but since taking him in he’s not even mentioned her.”
“Ha, I would’ve put good money of his running away being cause of a girl. Look Joe, what I know about Fluffies is that they break easily, heal fast and are they’re all little idiots. If you work it out properly you could probably tear them pieces without them even knowing about you.
The sadistic cogs turned in Josef’s head again. “Yeah, I bet you could.”
Without saying a word, Josef grabbed a pen and paper from the fridge, wrote something on it and went looking to gather items. Confused, Katherine looked over at the paper, and written on the front in capital letters were the words;
‘EXPERIMENT NUMBER 1’
