“Aw am skettiman.”
“If you really want your sketti, you’ll have to try harder.”
“Ai am skettiman?” the chartreuse mare tried again.
“Not the right lyrics. One more chance,” Dave replied.
“Ai am sketsman!”
“Perfect! Now, show me your craphamsters.”
“Nu am cwaphamstaws, am pwetty babbehs!”
Gleefully the feral mare ran off to her soggy cardboard box, her hooves tippy-tapping on the concrete of the alley she was raising her family in. It was a typical case of “mare needed babies, owner said no, mare had them anyway.”
“Dis am Bestest,” she said, holding up a bright red foal, whose cheeks puffed up. “Bestest, dis am nice mistah.”
Bestest blew a raspberry, his impotent wings fluttering from the effort. Dave had no idea what made it particularly good by fluffy standards, but he had seen one just like it recently.
“An dis am Owang!” the mare spoke again in the most grating baby voice. Was she hamming it up because she was around her babies? The orange filly wiggled her stubby legs as her mother picked her up by her sides.
”You’ve named her after her colour?” Dave asked, wondering whether he should call the mare “puke” in that case.
“Nuuuu! Da nummies! But bebbeh nu am nummies,” she clarified, almost dropping the poor filly in her excitement. “An dis am Wainbow,” she pointed at a skinny cotton-candy coloured mare, “an Cwowd,” a fluffy with some kind of follicle disorder resulting in excess fluff. Both were less responsive, possibly from malnutrition.
Dave looked around in her box. Usually they had at least a few abuse targets of their own.
“No poopy babies?” he asked as the box disintegrated at his touch. He was going to have to disinfect his fingers.
“Nu dummeh poopy babbehs, dey wen foweva sweepies.”
Classic bitch mare. Never change.
“Nao skettie?” the chartreuse mare asked, attempting to ply Dave with puppy eyes.
Rummaging through his bag, he pulled out a pack of spaghetti, shaking it at the mare. Her ears dropped, eyes narrowing.
“Nu waw skettie, cook skettie!”
Demands? After he graciously bought the cheapest spaghetti he could find? At least he already prepared the tomato sauce at home.
“Don’t worry, pretty girl,” words that almost made him gag, “I will cook them right here for you! When you sing the entire song, they will be done.”
“Da skettiman song?”
“Entitely!” Dave replied, selecting the song on his phone.
His pan was filled from a bottle of water, his camping stovetop lit up with a little whoosh, and he opened the box of spaghetti strands while giving the mare an expectant look.
“Start.”
The voice command started Scatman by Scatman John, and the mare took to the challenge. It would take a while for the water to start boiling.
“Ama skettiman!”
“Again.”
The song started playing from the start, the mare whining.
“Am a sketsman?”
Better. It would do. His phone continued.
“Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub.”
The mare’s eyes went wide.
“Skettibettibabbiesamwubwubwub.”
“Again.”
“Nuuuuuuuu!”
Dave knew this was going to take a very long time, so he continued with is meal prep. He picked up Rainbow by the scruff of her neck, causing the filly to scream.
“Bad uppies! Bad uppies!” the pink earthy complained.
The mother came to her aid, running up to Dave.
“Be nice tu babbeh?”
“Again, or no sketties,” Dave commanded, restarting the song, letting her know there was only one way. He was glad he set up the voice command just for this purpose.
“Aw am sketman,” she tried, increasing in volume, fuelled by the fear of losing out on a meal, “skettibetti—”
Under loud complaints, rolling his thumb and index over the skinny foal’s sides, he forced her to evacuate her bowels.
“Eeeeeeep! Huwties! Huwties!” she screamed at her mother, at the ‘nice’ mister manhandling her.
“babbiesamwubwubwub!” her mother continued, sniffling as she supressed her motherly instincts to save the malnourished fecal factory.
“Ag—” Dave threatened, intentionally stopping himself short from completing the command. The mother understood.
Meal prep. With a free hand he grabbed a bunch of stands, bundling them nicely together, setting them on end on the floor, and he lowered the foal onto it.
“Poopie pwace huwties!” she screamed, her body resisting. Fibrous as they were, dense and polymerised, the spaghetti did not yield. The foal, on the other hand, screamed out as the strands stretched her open, yielding to the building pressure.
The sudden drop in resistance caused Dave to go a bit faster than he intended, slipping the foal down on the bunch of strands, perforating her colon.
“Wowstest! Wowstest huwties!” she squeaked, tears streaming across her cheeks.
The mother stopped her awful attempt at Scatman, forcing Dave’s hand.
“Again!”
She was crying, her voice trembling as she tried to sing it one more time. He would forgive her mistakes and wait for her to reach the next challenging part.
“You will get your sketties when you are done, and only when you are done! Do. You. Understand?!” Dave let out with more authority than needed, strengthening his words by slamming the foal down a little bit deeper on the strands, blood seeping along them. They had to be halfway her body now. Any time, now, and the diaphragm—
“EEEeeee…” her voice quieted down to a rattling gasp as her body lost control over her lungs, unable to properly inflate them anymore when first the diaphragm, then the lungs were punctured.
“Sing bitch! Again!” Dave shouted as the mother wallowed.
“Ah am sketman, huu huu huu!”
Creative new lyrics, but that’s what scatting is all about.
A few more pushes, and the strands started poking out of Rainbow’s open mouth, gagging on them as they were covered in part of her own entrails. The water was boiling at this stage, and he stuck the dying foal into it. The rigid strands kept her above the water, but as they weakened, she slowly got closer to the boiling liquid.
“Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub.”
“Skettibabbieshuwtieswubhuuhuuhuu.”
Brilliant ad libs.
Dave reached for the remaining foals, which were trying to comfort their mother with pointless hugs. Bestest… No, Bestest baby could be toyed with later. Cloud honestly looked too silly, his white fur reminding Dave of a sheep. That left Orange.
She shivered when he picked her up, conveniently releasing her bowel contents out of pure fear. The chartreuse mother did not even respond, too fearful to have to start again.
Picking up a fresh strand, Dave insulted his Italian ancestors by snapping it in shorter pieces, the foal appearing somewhat less worried now, perhaps hoping she would not be ran through like her sibling. She shrieked when he pinched her leg, shivering in his grip. The strand pressed against her little hoof, right against that ridiculous heart soft spot Hasbio created, its sharp edge poking her.
“Huuhuuhuurties!” Orange shouted.
Dave had no idea why. The strand did not budge. Were there sensitive nerves located on her hoof? His question was answered when he rolled the strand in his fingers, rotating the sharp tip against the spot, drilling in, tearing the soft spot up.
“Huuu maamaaaa!” she screamed.
Mama kept singing, her eyes firmly trained on Rainbow, who was still twitching on the spaghetti as her lower body sank into the boiling water. Blood gave it a nice, light red hue.
“Ba-da-ba-da-ba-be bop bop bodda bope.” The next challenge.
“Babbiebabbiebabbiebabbie—”
“Again!”
“Munstah!”
“Finish and it will stop!”
The song stopped playing. One too many voice commands in hands-free mode.
“Again, you worthless whore! It’s your fault Rainbow is drowning, you can still save her if you just sing well!”
Back to Scatman for her.
Holding Orange’s little leg firmly in place, he pushed the strand deeper with his thumb, sliding through her hoof and between her bones. Very little blood came out, the wound plugged by the intruding spaghetto. A portion still poked out of the hoof by the time he felt increased resistance, possibly hitting the shoulder joint. Orange shrieked and cried. Contrary to Rainbow, who was still clinging to life as much as she was clinging to the spaghetti, Orange was already in the “wan die” loop. Not all fluffies had the same mental fortitude.
“Ba-da-ba-da-ba-be bop bop bodda bope.”
“Babbiebabbiebabbieboopboopbwuddahboop!”
With fear in her eyes the mother looked at Dave, who nodded in appreciation.
“You’ll finish the skettie song in no time and save them all.”
She cried enough tears to pose a drowning hazard for micro fluffies at this point.
He repeated the process on Orange, pressing strands into her legs one by one until she had four of them. Setting her down, she looked like a fluffy on stilts.
“Come on, walk to mummah, give her a hug,” Dave taunted her.
“Wan die,” the foal on stilts muttered, not moving. Why? David had put so much effort into setting her up nicely, why could she not play along? He flicked his finger against her rear to move her, causing her to fall over instead. Her joints were clearly immobilised.
“You ungrateful pincushion,” Dave cursed her, suppressing the urge to step on the pathetic biotoy as her legs ceased to move. He had to help her if he wanted to play more. Grabbing her by the leg, he snapped the strand in the middle, causing shards and splinters to ravage her leg from the inside. Turns out there were layers to the “wan die” loop.
“Wowstest huwties! Wowstest! Wan die! Pwease! Wan dieeeee!”
He did not let her, snapping her legs midway, one by one, ravaging them from the inside. Shards of spaghetti and bone poked as she bled profusely.
“Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you
As a matter of fact, a-don’t let nothin’ hold you back
If the Scatman can do it, so can you.”
“Wha. Wha am dis. Wha am dese wowds, tu many wowds,” the pathetic mother yelped as the song reached the next step.
“Again!”
Dave held a wheezing Orange and lowered it into the pot from which only Rainbow’s head poked out. Her leggies, now free of restraints, wiggled limply as the boiling water lapped at them. A splash of the hot liquid caused him to drop her, resulting in a brief shriek before she went under. Rainbow had to be so envious of her quick fate. He tossed in the rest of the spaghetti and set a timer on his watch, then reached for Bestest.
“Nuu again! Wet go ob babbies!”
“I just did, you saw what happened. Again.”
“M-munstah…”
“Again!”
“Ai am sketsman…”
She was resilient, he had to admit. All the more fun to play with. He could imagine a more creative way to dispose of Bestest. Cloud just stared sheepishly. Was it fear or curiosity in his eyes? Weird fluffy.
The mare was nowhere near done when his watch beeped. Not wanting to insult his Italian roots further, Dave quickly strained the pasta and placed it on a plate, adding his homemade tomato sauce. Somehow, Rainbow was still making noises from somewhere within the pile. Orange’s blind eyes stared at nothing in particular, which happened to be her mother.
“Eat.”
“Aw am sketsman…”
“You reached the end,” he lied, “you can eat.”
Cloud waddled towards the plate and started munching on the sauce, followed by a hesitant Bestest.
“Aw am sketsman,” the bitch mare muttered again.
He hoped she wasn’t broken yet, hoping to take her home for some more fun. Bestest avoided his siblings, Cloud seemed unfazed and just ploughed through the plate.
Somehow, the spaghetti was cleared within minutes. By the time he loaded them into a crate and drove home, he could still hear the occasional muttering from the back of his car, a voice raw and hoarse:
“Aw am skettiman…”
