Every day I open the door to my porch and step outside. I live nowhere special. The house I live in is pretty tiny and all I can see when stepping outside is the flat grassy surface of my environment, and yet I can never get enough of it. Seeing and hearing untouched nature provides a sense of relief that eases any negative feelings in my head. It’s something I find myself needing more of as I come to terms with my increasingly aging body and mind.
It wasn’t always like this though. There was a time when I had a companion. His name was Ian. He was a fluffy pony with a beautiful brown coat and a grey mane. Used to always sit beside me and watch the grass sway in the wind.
“Wook daddeh! Gwassies am danceh gwassies!” He would say excitedly. I’ll still look down to my right where his little cushion used to be and wait for him to say it.
You might laugh at the idea of me being emotional over something considered a child’s toy but there was something special about Ian. You see, Ian didn’t come into my life the way a fluffy usually does for people. I didn’t find him in an alleyway begging for attention. He didn’t knock on my door asking for shelter. He wasn’t even given to me as a gift.
Ian just showed up in my life one day. It happened shortly after my wife passed. Everyday was a struggle just to get out of bed. I would have dreams of her beside me and then wake up to an empty spot on the bed. Nothing I could do would stop the torture. Every meal I would remind myself of our long talks by the widow as we ate, every room felt so much emptier without her presence. It got to a point where all I could do was sit outside and cry.
One day I was doing just that when a tiny voice interrupted me.
“Nice mistah? Why am ou makin sad wawas?”
I lifted my head up expecting to see a child and saw nothing. I thought I had maybe begun to finally lose myself.
“Maybe nice mistah need fwiend?” The voice said again. I looked down to where it was coming from and saw a small creature looking up at me. His brown fur and grey mane made him look exactly like a sort of chubby horse that had been shrunk down to the size of a chipmunk.
“Who are you?” I asked. Fluffies were very uncommon out here. There were no stores in the town because of our tiny population. You had to go out to the city if you wanted one. I had never seen one of them in person because of this and was surprisingly calm with this one.
“Am babbeh,” the fluffy responded. “No have mummah ow daddeh, but dat otay! Babbeh nee be stwong fo babbeh!”
I locked my eyes onto his and could see the life behind them. This wasn’t the brainless creature I had heard people talking about. The little guy had life in his eyes and a defiance towards the hardships of life.
“My name’s Spencer.” It was hard for me to say that in between sniffles but he seemed to understand.
“Hewwo Spencew.” He waved one of his little hooves. “Am babbeh.”
I wiped some snot off my nose. “Hi baby. You’re all alone?”
The fluffy nodded.
”It’s not easy, right?”
He dropped his head.
“I know the feeling.”
His head went back up. “Weawwy?”
”Yeah.”
And that short exchange led us into a conversation that lasted the rest of the day. I wouldn’t have even noticed if the sunset hadn’t appeared. He wasn’t the most intelligent conversationalist I’d met but just having anybody to talk to helped so much. I don’t know if he ever really knew what a difference he made that day.
What I learned about him was that he had been dropped off with some of his siblings in a box on the street. The previous owner lived in the city and wanted to have a go at breeding. He became furious when his efforts led to producing fluffies that lacked the particular mane he was looking for and so the babies all went out. Didn’t matter whether they lived or not. He just wanted them out of sight and out of mind. The fluffy before me had watched as each of his siblings slowly succumbed to their lack of nutrients before he made the escape. All that he had to motivate him were the lyrics from the song his mummah sang to him. They told him that he needed to grow up big and strong to make her proud, even if she never saw him herself.
“And den babbeh find nice mistah makin sad wawas and com tu make bettah!”
I smiled at him and gently matted his mane. “You helped a lot. Thank you.”
He cooed at my touch and nuzzled his little head into my fingers.
“Would you want me as your new father?” I asked quietly while continuing to run my fingers through his mane. It was a little coarse, most likely from the weather and rough conditions he had been living through.
His eyes lit up with more life than I had ever seen in a toy. Any doubts I had about whether flluffies were toys or living creatures ended with that look of happiness.
“Weawwy? Nice mistah be nyu daddeh!?” he was so excited that he started to lift his front legs and playfully stomp them.
“Yes. And I’ll even give you a new name!’
That resulted in an even stronger reaction. His bushy grey tail wagged from side to side so rapidly that I almost expected him to fly away.
“Babbeh get nyu daddeh and nyu namesie! Babbeh am suuuu happies! Biggest heawt happies ebah!”
I decided on Ian. It was a name my wife and I had intended to name our son back when we were still trying for a child. He called it the best name ever while running in circles. I couldn’t help but laugh.
From that day on, Ian and I became inseparable. He shared his saferoom in my bedroom so that he never felt lonely and I’m pretty sure I had it set up that way so that I wouldn’t as well when I look back at it. The next ten years were a peaceful time. Every day was the same thing and we loved it that way. I would wake up, gently wake Ian up, and then the two of us would tackle whatever adventure was in store for us.
One day I walked into my room and saw him scribbling something on a sheet of paper with the crayons I had given him. It looked like some kind of stick figure standing next to a grey blob.
“What is that?” I asked curiously.
Ian gave him a toothy grin and held up his picture. “Siwwy daddeh! Dis am Ian an daddeh! Ian wub daddeh mo den anyfing!”
The way he said that with that innocent grin stirred something inside of me. I got on my knees and gently hugged him.
“Teehee! Ian wub bestest daddeh huggies!” He giggled. “Make ebewyting bettah!”
”You’re right. They do.”
I cherish memories like this even more after what eventually ended up happening to Ian.