Neighborhood Fluffs #4 by Chikahiro

<---- Part 3

“Ho, brah, sometin’ stinks!”

Your neighbor Kimo is looking over his side of the property line, grinning. Shovel in one hand, wireless headphones in the other, hat and sunglasses on. You’ve known each other since you were high school age. Not from school, though. More from the arcade.

“Hey man, sorry…” you groan. “The folks got me collecting manure for them.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured,” he laughs. “My pops and uncle are still farming, so I know the smell of fluffy shit pretty good now.”

“Not as rank as I thought it was going to be.”

“Smells like money to me,” he says as you both laugh a little. “But seriously, you need help with that?”

“Please!”

The next three hours are spent talking, driving between stores getting stuff, grabbing plate lunches and eating. Kimo’s family has plenty of farmers, folks who worked for the sugar cane companies, and more so he’s absorbed a lot over the years. He might make his living as an illustrator, but its clear he’s got a pretty good backup for whenever work dries up. And as you stand in your compost pit, wearing new rubber boots, you realize you owe him a lot more than lunch and gas money for all the help.

“I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate all this.”

“Eh, no worries. Besides, once you start getting all that,” he points to the pit. “Aerated and drying? No smell for me!”

“Sure I can’t do anything for you?” gets asked again. Each time has been “no,” but sometimes you got to wear through that. “You just lost your afternoon with all this.”

You watch an idea pass through Kimo’s head as he pauses, bringing out his phone, thumbs dancing across the screen. “Hmm… try wait…” He reads. Thumbs dance. He reads again. “Let me get back to you on that.”

“Deal.”

The busy Sunday is about at an end. A long shower, light dinner, and with the fluffy’s food dishes filled? Its time to rest a little, enjoying the dimming evening sky. No games, no books, no surfing online, its just you, a big bottle of water, and a folding lawn chair while the phone plays music.

Its no wonder when sleep takes over. Night looks back from overhead, stars and a few clouds hiding strips of the moon. Aching from the day’s work plus the chair not being the most comfortable, you stretch, stifling a yawn, still tired.

Its then you realize you’re not alone.

The silhouette of a fluffy peers at you from around the mango tree trunk. Its not moving, not sitting. Behind it, past the darkness under the tree you see four other fluffies going back and forth between eating from the bowls and playing with the toys you left out at the beginning of the week.

The lighting isn’t great, only being half moon, so figuring out the coloration of the lot is still kind of hard. But three of them look like regular fluffies, whereas one of them has a pair of comically small wings. They’re small, not much bigger than the neighborhood cats you grew up with. A little stockier, but not fat like the couch potato fluffs you’ve seen people with.

While you keep quiet, the fluff behind the trunk quietly steps forward, head tilted, looking at you. A nod of the head acknowledges it, keeping the air silent. Staying seated seems prudent; the little fluff probably wouldn’t come near you if you were more mobile and its friends probably think you’re asleep still.

“…wai…?”

It watches you tilt your head this time. “Why what?”

“…wai gib fwuffy nummies and nesties?”

You look at it as its only a few feet away now. The bad lighting doesn’t help, but its not a light color. Not white or yellow or some weak, desaturated color. Sadly, the light switch for the back walk-way is actually inside the house. Curiosity is denied.

“My mom wants your poop.”

It pauses, considering this. “Mummah wan’ poopies?”

“Yeah.”

“Wai hoomin mama wan’ fwuffy poopies?” It ponders. “Mama no num poopies!”

“No, no she doesn’t,” you laugh softly, wondering if its smiling or not. “But her plants do.”

“Pwants?”

“The green, leafy things.”

“Weafy nummies num poopies?”

“Yeah. You put it on the ground by them and it helps them grow big and strong.”

The little gears in the fluff’s head turn with this revelation. “Fwowaw nummies tu?”

“Yep.”

“Su yu gib fwuffy nummies fow make poopie nummies fow weafy nummies an’ fwowaw nummies?”

“And I made fluffies the nest with warm blankets so maybe you’d stay here at night and sleep and make poopies here instead of somewhere else.”

It nods its little head. “Fwuffies foun’ wittew box.”

“Good fluffy.”

Maybe a trick of the ears, but was that a coo from it?

Part 5 ---->

22 Likes

Yey, a simbiotic relationship. Fluffies do good poopies, get nummies and love. Fluffies get nummies and love, do good poopies and flowers get nummies. Flowers get nummies, hoomin gives love and nummies to fluffies.

9 Likes

Interesting ,its more of curiosity for the little fellers seems they get the idea now, they get shelter and food, you get their poopie for plants. :thinking::+1:

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I feel like a broken record here for asking but… can I have more of this please? :heart_eyes:

1 Like

More a relaxing little thing to read?

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These are some cautious and careful ferals. The only one who came to talk to him never asked for the guy to be his daddeh. He seems to be just the lookout, but may be this herd’s smarty friend.

2 Likes

The stories I’ve read and liked with successful ferals show them to be cautious and a bit smarter. I think actually having to use their brains helps versus it being doomed to rot via Fluff TV.

Yeah. I think the fluff has a healthy suspicion of things being too good to be true. The answer makes some sense to it: it’s not for free, the human is getting something they want.

2 Likes

This makes me wonder if some feral herds with more savvy smarty friends might make this trade offer, rather than it coming from the humans. As I recall, the story about fluffies offering lawn service were also giving away their waste as fertilizer, but they were taught to do this by the hobo guy in the story.

1 Like

I’ve not seen any grasp that their poop is good fertilizer on their own. But they haven’t added agriculture to their tech tree of skills yet either.

Such polite good fluffies :')