It’s a cold night in Tigard. Been like this all week. Np ice, but it hasn’t been above forty-five without the aid of sunlight since Wednesday. Tigard is asleep. It’s a suburb of a suburb. It’s a satellite of a moon. An island in a lake which is itself on an island. Such places have roads that don’t make sense. That appear to connect arbitrarily and often cut through block after block of untouched scrublands.
Well, untouched AFTER it had been bulldozed and leveled off for sale as vacant lots.
It is on one of these roads where our scene is set, dear reader. Lacking any obvious use or purpose, it is these very abandoned lots and half vacant industrial parks which serve both as dumping ground for refuse and stage for those impromptu horrors life sees fit to inflict upon those which suffer it.
A brown late model Lexus sedan hummed along through block after block of dimly lit strip mall and parking lot signage, seeking less trafficked ground. Once a sufficiently remote parking lot was found, one without any pesky buildings to burden it with people who give a shit what happens there, the car rolled smoothly to a stop.
The driver got out calmly and shut the door behind him. He looked around. Nobody in sight. There’s lights at regular intervals, as these are public roads. But nobody around to see with them aside from him. He lights his pipe and puffs a few times to get his weed burning like a hot coal. Warms his hands a tiny bit.
He leans back on the car and looks up at the sky. Cloudy, but not so much that the stars are covered up. No, the stars aren’t visible because Portland and the surrounding communities give off light pollution, so at almost midnight the sky is practically grey when your eyes have adjusted.
At least there’s no smoke this week.
He goes to the trunk and opens it. He retrieves a pet carrier. The pet carrier is crying, and when he picks it up the crying becomes more frantic and alarmed. “Huuuuuu mubstah steabing fwubby! Hewb! Dabbeh sabe fooby!” The man set the carrier down in a bare patch of dirt up past the curb, kneeling briefly to open it. Rather than dumping the contents, he merely steps back and waits for the inhabitant to leave on their own accord.
About thirty seconds pass and a shivering yellow unicorn stallion with a deep blue mane steps out. He is visibly damp from tears, urine, and a little bit of vomit. He’s cautious, eyes wide with fear. He’s looking around for a sign of the monster who took him from daddeh. He doesn’t want to be a nummie fluffy! The thought of being captured by such a monster terrifies him beyond the bounds of his imagination.
He’s a fluffy, so it’s well within the bounds of ours. He thinks about himself, a happy fluffy who gets the worstest headaches and can’t always remember his name (it’s Beauregard) and he gets scared because a monster doesn’t want him to exist anymore. The monster wants him for nummies, even though monsters don’t have to num fluffies! He’s pretty sure they don’t. His daddeh said something about it.
These thoughts disturb him to the point of panic, and he tries to think of what to do. Well the monster wants him for nummies, right? He should be gross! He starts pissing and rolling around to cover himself in piss. This is when he notices how cold it is. His fluff briefly insulated him, but that ended as soon as he soaked it with his own piss. Ironically, the shit may have trapped some heat. But his poopy place was being dummeh and not making poopies of any kind. Not even scaredy! He pushed really hard, but nothing came out! He got a headache and then he was really dizzy and fell over.
He felt a hand gently help him up. A familiar hand. Daddeh’s hand. He had so much trouble remembering things, but he’d never forget that hand. He’d been bottle raised from birth by daddeh, and the warm touch of daddeh’s hands was a constant source of comfort for the five year old stallion. This was especially important lately since he’d been having so much trouble remembering and thinking and talking and doing stuff and…and what was happening?
Daddeh was in front of him. Hooray for daddeh! “Dabbeh? Hoobay! Babe sabbeh, daddeh! Bowbeegawd escabe mubstah! Dabbeh, hewb!” He rocked back and made huggy legs, catching some wind as he did. His shivering intensified, but daddeh did nothing.
“I’m sorry, Bo. But I’m not in college anymore. I’ve got an actual apartment, not some dorm I can clean with a mop when you shit.” Beauregard was confused. Bad poopies? He would never! "Bu…bu dab…bu daddeh!" He pushed through his mental fog, albeit with great effort required. “Nebba make…bad poopies!” Daddeh frowned and shook his head.
“No, not anymore. Because I had to give you a poopy plug, remember? Because you kept having accidents?” Beauregard strained to remember. He didn’t make bad poopies. The closest he’d been was the occasional squirt where a tiny bit of poopies got past his poopy place before he could pucker it and trot to the litterbox. But now that daddeh mentioned it, he had been getting help from daddeh to make good poopies for…well, he wasn’t sure how long. His poopy place hurt, though. What was he talking about again?
“Fubby…nebba…doze onwy wittwe poobies. Nu am weaw poob…boop…nu am weaw poopies.” Daddeh frowned again. “Buddy they had to replace the carpet both times you did that. I had to put a plug in your ass. I drain you every day now.” Beauregard reflects for a moment then nods. “Dabbeh beawy gud hewb Bowbeegawd poobies! Fankyu dabbeh!” Then Beauregard did the front weggie dance adult fluffies can do.
Daddeh sighed into his hand. This was taking forever. He reached down and lifted his pet’s tail. A tail he’d lifted easily thousands of times to clean him; to keep the gross little fella from stinking up the place. He grabbed the silicone stopper by the ring and pulled it from Beauregard’s asshole with an audible “ploop” followed by a “Whooooooa, dem biiiiiig poobies! Wook owb bebow, dabbeh! Cawebuw poobies!”
He tossed the rubber stopper into a tuft of Crabgrass and walks towards his car, prompting Beauregard to pursue. “Dabbeh? BowbeeGawb obah hewe! Whewe dabbeh goobin?” His daddeh sighed, stopped, and turned around.
“I’m going home. You can go…well you can go wherever you feel like going. I’m letting you go. Goodbye, Bo. I’m…Look this is hard. I’m…I’m sorry man, I’m just gonna go.” Bo was freaking out. "Nuuuuuuuuuub! Dabbeh, nuuuuuuu! Nu beeb Bowbbeh! Dabbeh hab tu bwing Bowbie biff dabbeh!" He turned away. “I can’t. You’re too much now. I’ve got a job and…and a life now. I don’t need some toy I got when I was an undergrad because I was homesick.” Bo was silent, jaw agape. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Look man, I tried. You promised not to shit, you stained the carpet. I got you this plug, but you tried to poop with it in and…and frankly I think it scrambled your noggin a bit there. I don’t know, I went to business school. They don’t teach us that. I’ve gotta optimise my life, and I can’t do that if my perfect half-pet who can look after himself and entertain me instead eats up all my time by getting confused, lost, sick, and wrapped up having the same inane conversations over and over again. Shit, you’re barely following this.”
Bo was sputtering, and occasionally chirping like a dummeh babbeh. “Bu…bu…bu…bu Bowbiegaoud wub dabbeh…an…an dabbeh…dabbeh pwobiss awbays wub Bowbie tuu…” He didn’t understand. He couldn’t always remember everything, but he never lost sight of that! When he could barely remember where he was, he had daddeh’s love in his heart. Daddeh would never stop loving him. Never leave him.
Daddeh was leaving. Wait. Wait! He’d been computing trying to sort out what all was being said, and he’d failed to notice daddeh getting in his metal munstah! “Waib! Dabbeh fowgeb Bowbiegawb!” The munstah was moving! Oh no, it was too fast! "Hubby weggieb, hab tu be fabstew…haf…haf…gun wose dabbeh!" The poor panicked stallion continued chasing until the taillights disappeared. He couldn’t even tell where to, just that he couldn’t see them anymore.
He waddled off the street onto the cold, dry grass and sat down. It was itchy, especially given how damp he was. He’d been draining shit slowly since daddeh unplugged him, not that Beauregard had taken any notice. He was shell shocked. He sat for what felt like a lifetime before he groaned to his feet and began to waddle away.
“Haf…haf…haf…su…” He stumbled briefly, catching himself before actually falling. “Su tiweb…nee sweebies…ow weast wibbwe westies.” He waddled over to a small shrub that he figured he could hide under. “Bowbie nee hab bestes sweebies, den twy memba whewe daddeh am…wish dabbeh heew.” As he reached the shrub, he curled up in the surprisingly soft grass underneath it. Drifting off to sleep, he shivered. It wasn’t cold enough to hurt him. Not yet.
Hopefully he could remember where daddeh had gone. He’d…he’d just seen him it felt like. He’ll keep walking tomorrow. Surely daddeh will find him and explain all this stuff like he does every day.
He yawns and drifts off, muttering under his breath. “Goonye dabbeh…seebu tubowwow…”