You are Duncan. You are cleaning your house when you come upon an old photo album . As you flip through the pages Atlas waddles up and plops his mustard yellow body in your lap to see what you are looking at.
“ What am daddeh doin’ ?”
“Oh hey there buddy!”
You pet his ketchup red mane.
“I was just looking through some pictures I’ve taken of you guys.”
You show atlas each page and you both reminisce. As you turn the page a photo falls out, the photo is of you holding a tiny gray alicorn foal . Atlas tilts his head to the side and squints as if trying to recognize the fluffy
“daddeh? Who am dat fwuffy?”
“Oh…. That’s Maya ,she was my first fluffy….”
Atlas has a confused look on his face.
“ Why maya nu pway wiff othah fwuffies?”
You sigh.
“Maya….” You think on how to phrase it so atlas can understand. “Maya didn’t want me as her daddy so she ran away to find a better one.”
Atlas looks shocked
“Why maya nu wan’ daddeh nu mowe!?”
You decide to be honest with Atlas on the real reason she ran away but you still phrase it in a way he can understand.
“I wasn’t a good daddy back then…”
Atlas can’t believe what you are saying.
You dare not tell Atlas this story. But thinking back You did the best you could ,but you had a lot of trouble controlling your anger back then. Maya may have been headstrong but your refusal to accept your inability to train her with your limited experience caused you to become jaded and extremely unreasonable. You snapped off a tiny piece of her horn every time she made bad poopies , when she talked back you would smack her across the face with a fly swatter. When she refused to eat her kibble you would crush the kibble into a power and mix it with caster oil then force feed it to her and leave her in the litter box as her bowels took mass exodus from her body. Maya was actually mentally retarded barely above foal level intelligence to the point that she legitimately could not figure out how to eat kibble without choking despite having teeth. Maya could not do the thing you were asking because she couldn’t understand the task and when she got overwhelmed Maya would scream,cry and shit everywhere out of sheer panic at the thought of being beaten again . Instead of getting her a diaper you would stick her nose in the shit which caused her wail in existential dread as she pitifully tried to run away from the smell not realizing it was on her nose. Then after weeks of this Maya finally snapped “Nu wan’ meanie daddeh!”
No matter how many times you smacked her or put her in the sorry box, Maya would simply scream “Nu wan’ meanie daddeh!!!” Over and over even as her voice got hoars she continued to scream it again and again.
“FINE YOU UNGRATEFUL BITCH!!!
You want a different Daddy so bad?”
You open her cage and toss her on the front lawn.
“GO FIND HIM !!!”
Maya Just walked in circles hoarsely screaming “Nu wan’ meanie daddeh!!!” On repeat. You slam the door shut and go watch tv. After about an hour you realize what you did and rush outside to get her. Maya is nowhere to be found. You search all over town for her but you don’t find a trace of her.
The one place you checked more than any other was the park, Maya loved the park, as unlikely as it was for her to make it to the park on her own you held some vague hope that she was there. You checked there every morning before work and every evening after you got off work. Deep down you knew she wasn’t there but you tried anyway in a vain attempt to make things right. Weeks passed and The guilt was consuming you swear you hear her crying in the dead of night but no matter where you look you can’t find her . Well you did eventually find Maya… though you sorely wish you didn’t, it was only 4 months later that you realized she wasn’t kidnapped by some abuser, she didn’t get taken by a bird of prey. No… Maya had never left the property . She had crawled up under the house and gotten stuck. If you had just checked the crawl space you would have found her. But it was far far too late. You wrap her shriveled husk in a blanket and that night you burry her in the park. Laws be damned it’s The least a piece of shit owner like yourself could do for all the hell you put her through. By many people’s standards you could have been infinitely more cruel as an owner. But you knew Maya had issues before you got her. You as a self proclaimed hugboxer bought Maya and proceeded making her life a living hell because you bit off more than you could chew. Every night you visit the park and sit on the bench. What you hoped to gain from this escaped even yourself. You just wanted to atone for your mistakes. You had lost your way after your great grandparents died, you had forsaken their teachings, now you were little better than your deadbeat parents.
It was then that you heard the hoarse cry of a foal coming from beneath the bench. You look down and see a foal dark tangerine in color with grayish almost swamp mud colored peach fuzz where his mane and tail hair should be. You bend down and pick him up. The poor creature is shivering. You rap your scarf around him as he poops in your hand. For the briefest of moments you think about yelling at him. But…then something happens. he suddenly stops crying and starts to suckle on the tip of your thumb. He’s just a baby , cold and alone crying for parents that will never come back.
you suddenly are brought back to being 6 years old sitting on the front porch of people you didn’t even know crying your eyes out.begging for your parents to come back. Suddenly the door opens and an absolutely ancient looking man steps on to the porch. Despite being woken up by crying at 3 in the morning. His first response wasn’t to yell. Rather he was far more concerned about you.
The old man speaks in a nasally Czech accent.
“Little boy it is so very late , why are you not at home? Please come in out of the cold. We will sort this out when the sun rises.”
You wipe your tears on your sleeve and hesitantly take the man’s hand . Just then you hear a woman’s voice from inside the house
“Miklós!? Miklós dear What is going on?”
“ Zofie you will not be believing this! I find small boy crying on porch . Very sad. very cold.” He looks down at you “very hungry?”
You nod your head.
The man smiles.
“Such Lucky boy you are. I was just about to get early morning snack. Tell me Small boy you like Bramboráky?”
You stare at him confused.
“Erm…how you say in English? Pancake of the potato.”
You snap back to holding the little foal. You look over at the spot where you buried Maya then back to the foal . You smile.
“Let’s get you out of the cold.”
