“Wakey wakey fluffies!” I called out as I entered the warehouse and turned on the lights, “Its nummies time!”
“Daddah! Daddah!” called out some of the fluffies, who were already awake. The rest yawned and groaned and stirred in their fluffpiles.
I quickly moved from pen to pen, filling their feeding troughs with kibble, and checking their water bottles. The whole warehouse stank of feral fluffies that I had ‘rescued’. The ferals had quickly learned the rules about pooping in litterboxes, due to my unusual punishment system, but that still left me with a lot of good poopies to scoop and throw away each morning.
“Daddah! Daddah!” a fluffy called out to me, “Can fwuffy dwaw pictuwes again?”
“Yes yes, I’ll get you your crayons, but you have to have nummies first,” I explained, “No numming crayons like yesterday.”
I ignored the grumbling from the enthusiastic former crayon eater. The important thing was that my system was working, the fluffies wanted to draw, and every new fluffy became quickly socialised to the system. Drawing is good, and leads to rewards. Not drawing is bad, and leads to punishments. I’m not an abuser, and don’t even use a sorry stick. No, I have a simple system, that the fluffies understand and follow.
Soon, all the fluffies were awake, and greedily nomming their first meal of the day. Dozens of mares, and not a few babies, lived in each of the pens, and were now stuffing their snouts into the troughs and eating their fill. I had tried keeping a separate stallion pen, but it was just too much hassle, so I sold the stallions off cheaply and paid a stud service when I wanted to breed them. In any case, the mares were better at drawing for some reason, and quickly learned to indoctrinate their babies into the system.
“How are my bestest fluffies today?” I asked the well behaved artists in the ‘Bestest Fluffies’ pen.
“Otay fank yu daddah,” a friendly mare answered, her bestest baby riding on her back. “Can fwuffy dwaw bestest pictuwe fow daddah today? Get sketties?”
The other fluffies ears perked up at the promise of sketties, all apart from one or two of them, who looked either sullen, or afraid. They knew that the bestest of the bestest would get a large bowl of sketties, even as the rest of them howled, begged and wept. The other fluffy artists would get kibble, but occasionally some of them would get a few strands of sketties, a little pasta sauce, or a single meatball, if they had done very well. It all depended on their art.
“How are my good fluffies today?” I said, moving on from the bestest, and onto those who showed promise, but weren’t selling very well.
“Otay daddah,” said a hard working fluffy, who had managed to draw a stick man the day before. “If fwuffy be gud, and do bestest pictuwe, can gu to bestest fwuffy pen?” she asked me.
“Sure you can,” I told her, “thats the system right?”
“Yay!” she cried for joy.
“Huu huu huu,” wept a red pegasus sitting next to her, “Nu wan be gud fwuffy… wan be bestest fwuffy again. Huu huu huu huu huu…”
I watched as the red pegasus wept, having been demoted the night before, and taken away from all her friends in the bestest pen. She hadn’t produced any decent art in a long time, and her star rating online had fallen dramatically. No one had paid more than a dollar or two for her art, which barely covered the postage. She needed to up her game, and soon, or further demotions awaited her.
“And my dancie fluffies?” I said, asking the next pen how they were doing.
“Daddah! wook at fwuffy! Am gud dancie fwuffy! Pwease can gu in gud fwuffy pen? Wan dwaw gud pictuwes!”
The dancie fluffy pen had very high feeding troughs, meaning that the fluffies had to balance on their hind legs, in order to feed. This, along with the name for their pen, encouraged their dancing, which was a habit for many fluffies, having been a ‘dancie babbeh’ in their brood. If the fluffies danced well enough, they were given pens and paper. A fortunate fluffy could then be promoted to the good fluffy pen. Any fluffy that misbehaved, refused to dance, or drew nothing but scribbles, could expect to be demoted however. Being demoted from the dancie fluffy pen was every fluffy’s worst fear in the warehouse.
“Pweeease… daddah… fwuffy need nummies…” begged a half starved yellow earthy. “Fwuffy soo hungy… hab wowestest tummy owwies…”
“Huu huu huu…” cried another, “Pwease gib nummies daddah…”
“Sure thing fluffies,” I said, tipping a wheelbarrow full of fluffy shit from the other pen’s litterboxes into the poopy pen.
Immediately, the starving fluffies ran forwards, sinking their noses into the steaming pile of shit, desperately nosing for a tender morcel, or piece of half digested food amongst the stinking crap. The recently demoted fluffies from the dancie pen couldn’t bring themselves to eat poopy nummies yet, but the veterans of the poopy pen had no such qualms, and gobbled down turds as fast as they could, spitting out litterbox litter, and avoiding the foulest mess as best they could. Some of them even looked up to me with their poop-stained snouts, and thanked me.
“Fankyu fow nummies daddah,” said one fluffy, still chewing her foul meal, “Can hab cwayon? Wan dwaw pictuwe fow daddah.”
“Ok,” I told her, knowing that she would draw hopeless scribbles again. It was vital to keep up a sense of hope amongst the poopy fluffies however. If any of them managed to draw something half decent, they would occasionally get vegetable peelings to supplement their diet. And the bestest picture would promote a fluffy into the dancie pen. Even the bestest picture was generally awful though, and many of these fluffies were soon demoted back again, despite their howls of despair.
“Okay fluffies, its drawing time!”
The fluffies cheered with enthusiasm, although one or two simply sat there crying, knowing that their efforts would not be good enough, and no doubt expecting a demotion, or a sorry hoofing from their sister fluffies, if they let the pen down by drawing something badly.
I began with the bestest pen, pinning paper up on the walls of the pen, and putting the marker pens down in the middle, in a tray with the lids glued to it, so that the fluffies could take each magic marker in turn. They were well trained, and could replace the markers into their pen lids, so they wouldn’t dry out. Other than the occasional fight over “bestest wed mawkew!”, I had no trouble from these fluffies. I wondered what brilliance they might produce today. Last week, one had drawn a fluffy family, frolicking in a park, which had sold for seventy five dollars. I told them I expected their best work today.
“Yes daddah, fwuffies wiww wowk hawd.” they told me.
Moving to the good fluffy pen, I handed out crayons, after pinning the papers up on the walls. These fluffies could not be trusted with marker pens, and I had to give them one crayon each. It meant that their art was not as great, but these fluffies were not artistically talented for the most part, and rarely produced anything worth more than ten dollars. Those that did produce, typically got promoted.
“Huu huu huu… pwease daddah… can gu back in bestest pen?” the same pitiful fluffy from earlier begged.
“Only if you draw something good,” I said, handing the sniffling fluffy a blue crayon.
“O-otay daddah,” said the fluffy, staring up at me, her eyes full of tears, “Fwuffy wiww twy…”
I moved on to the dancie pen, and pinned up the paper, high up on the walls, so that the fluffies had to stand on their hind legs, and dance while they worked, drawing pictures with sticks of charcoal that I gave them. These fluffies were sad that they could not draw the multi-coloured wonders that the other fluffies drew, and many of them knew they had no chance of being promoted, so simply drew motivated by the fear of being demoted to the poopy pen. A recently promoted fluffy from the poopy pen was different though, and immediately started to sketch out an idea on the floor. She was clever, and might even get promoted again.
“Okay poopy fluffs,” I said, as I started pinning paper on the walls of the poopy pen. “Are any of you going to draw something good today?”
“Yes daddah,” said fluffies, their hooves covered in liquid shit, as they scrawled and scribbled their crap onto their canvases. Even their shitest creations held merit in their eyes, such was the power of the Ranking System.
Later that evening, I returned to the warehouse to inspect today’s artwork.
My bestest fluffies had delivered, as always, drawing rainbows, meadows, fluffies and balls. I treated them with more kibble and toys to play with, then photographed the art to upload it online. The anons would rate it, and people would bid to buy the originals. For some strange reason, I got lots of orders from China. Those guys just loved fluffy art I guess.
One or two pieces from the good fluffy pen were reasonable too. Again, I fed and treated them, and put the art online. As with the bestest fluffy pen, the art would be rated and sold, allowing me to choose which fluffies to promote and which to demote. This was a time of hope and fear for the fluffies, and excitement for me, seeing how many hundred dollars I might make that evening.
The dancie fluffies were similar, except that people rarely bought their art. The rating still helped though, but they rarely got above 2 stars out of five. The ratings still mattered though, as they determined promotions and demotions.
My shit-fluffs were eager to show me their pathetic scat-creations. I tolerated their enthusiasm, and pretended to care, for the sake of the Ranking System, but in reality I wished I could simply throw them all into the local canal. I tipped another wheelbarrow of turds into the middle of their pen, making the more hungry fluffies dig for the choicest poop.
“Okay!” I declared, as the auctions ended. “We have a winner! the winning fluffy, with the bestest bestest artwork is… number 127!”
The fluffies rarely had any idea what their “name” was, as they couldn’t read the numbers on their ear tags. They simply called themselves and each other “fluffy” although fluffies that revolved between promotion and demotion heard their number often enough to learn it, and believe it was their “name”. 127 was often the bestest, and she knew it.
“WuntooSeben am bestest again? Get sketties? Weawy?” she squealed with delight.
“Sure you do 127,” I told her, lifting her up gently and settling her down on the high table, in front of a steaming bowl of sketties, which she immediately started to devour. Every fluffy in the warehouse could smell the sketties, and see here up on the high table. Every fluffy, from her jealous pen-mates, to the lowliest poopy fluffy, shit-stained on hooves and snout. Every fluffy knew the hierarchy. Every fluffy knew the Ranking System.
I then chose the best fluffies from the lower pens to promote, who reacted with pride, thanks, and delerious, tearful thanks, from a shit covered fluffy who would be able to eat kibble for the first time in weeks.
Then, it was time for the demotions. Prideful fluffies reacted with rage, only to be hooved by their new pen-mates. Others accepted their fate silently, or sullenly, thankful at least that they still had food, and ignoring the taunts and snickers from less kind fluffies. But then came the time to demote a dancer to the poopy pen.
“Nuuuu! Nuuu wan poopy pen!” squealed the loser, who had done nothing but random squiggles with her stick of charcoal. It was a little unfair. Several other fluffies had done nothing but squiggles too, and some fluffies had got into fights, or eaten their charcoal, thinking it was nummies. Still, I had to pretend that one piece of art was the worst, and had decided a long while ago that it was best to do so almost at random.
“Nuuuu! pwease daddah! Nu wan be poopy fwuffy! Pwwwwweeeeeeeeease!”
“I’m sorry,” I told her, with false sincerity. “Its the rules, of the Ranking System. One fluffy has to be demoted.”
“Nuuuuuuuuuu!” she cried, as she struggled, kicked, and pissed herself, “Fwuffy nu wan num poopies! Nu wan dwaw wiv poopies! Fwuffy nu wike Wanking System!”
But there was nothing she could do. I hurled her into the poopy pen, where she would no doubt live for several days, until she either managed to produce something worthwhile, or succumbed to the poor diet, and died.
“NUUUUUUUUU!”