The Biggest Litterbox
by RQ
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Things hadn’t been easy for Mallo since he’d run away from home. He almost missed his old mummy and daddy. Almost. They were mean and didn’t give him sketties when he wanted and didn’t let him have special huggies. They said it was time for him to have his special lumps taken away because “there are too many fluffy babies without homes.” How could that be true? Everyone loves babbehs! How could there ever be too many babbehs? And he was a good fluffy too, so why were mummy and daddy being meanies? He was pretty too, and he knew it, having white fluff, a rose pink mane, and a horn. He was a good fluffy unicorn! He was a smart fluffy!
So when she put him in the car to see the vet, he told mummy that his seat harness was hurting him and asked her to take it off. “Mawwo promis tu be gud, nu nee nu hawnis!” Mummy shrugged and took the harness off. He was a good fluffy and she could just carry him into the vet’s office.
When they stopped in the vet parking lot Mallo got down near the door, and as soon as she opened it he leapt out and ran (waddled) as fast as he could. Mummy caught up and tried to catch him, but he pooped on her hands, the first time he’d ever done so. “Nu wet meanie dummeh mummeh take spechaw wumps!” he yelled. She was shocked for a moment, just long enough for him to waddle into the underbrush of a wood behind the parking lot. It was overgrown with prickers and blackberry bushes that pulled at Mallo’s fluff, but he kept on going. Mummy could not walk through the bushes and could only call after him to come back.
He didn’t.
And now it was many, many bright-times later. Mallo was hungry and dirty, but at least he still had his special lumps. As the days got colder, he got hungrier, though, and the cardboard box he’d found in an alleyway closer to town wasn’t very warm. Although he missed nummies and his warm fluffy bed, he missed baths and being pretty the most. His fluff wasn’t as white as it used to be. He knew he was still pretty, but not as pretty as before. He’d need to find a new housie.
Mallo heard someone walking down the alleyway. It was a human. He sprung out of his box and faced the human with the celerity of a kitty munstah-- or so he thought. The human just giggled. She was a late-middle-aged chubby woman with glasses, spotty pink skin, and frizzy brown and grey hair.
“H-hoomie gif smawty nummies an’-an’ howsie wite nao, o-ow…” Mallo tried the line he’d seen other fluffies try. None of them succeeded, but maybe he was special, he thought. He’d never done this before and wasn’t sure what to say. “Ow gif wowstest hoofsies an’-‘an bigges’ poopies!” The angry look on his face broke for a few seconds-- he was a boy! He couldn’t do “bigges’ poopies”, that was for mares with tummy babies! He gave her his meanie look again. “G-gif s-SOWWY poopies!”
The lady was laughing, with a big smile. “Awww, you’re so cuuuuute! Of course I’m going to bring you home!” She smiled broadly.
Surprised, Mallo looked confused for a moment. That was it? That’s how this worked? “O-otay wady. Gon gif Mawwo homie?”
“Yes, of course!” She picked him up in her arms. Mallo immediately coughed a little. She smelled like poopies and peepies and… another yucky thing he couldn’t identify. Not like how other humans smelled. But maybe that was something else. Or maybe a meanie hoomie gave her sorry poopies? Did hoomies do that?
Still, he was getting a home. Surely they’d both get a bath at the new home; old mummy and daddy always had baths. “Mawwo Su happies!” Mallo forgot his tough act and was pleased with how well his plan had worked. Surely he was the smartest fluffy!
The new mummy carried him to a van and she opened the back door. It was full of boxes and plastic trash bags; Mallo couldn’t see any car seats anywhere. She shifted some bags and boxes around until she found an empty one and put the fluffy in it. “Sorry there’s so much stuff in here, Mallo. I just haven’t had the time to clean it up.” She smiled. “But before we go home, I’m going to get us some SKETTIES!”
“SKETTIES!?!?!” Mallo shook with excitement. He hadn’t had sketties in so many forevers!
She smiled broadly. “That’s right.” Mallo noticed that she seemed as happy has he was.
In a little while, they stopped in the back of an Italian Pizza & Sub take-out shop, and she went inside. A few minutes later she emerged with a styrofoam container and a plastic fork and some napkins. She opened the back door and placed the container in front of him. “We’re going to share this, OK? You know, like fluffies do?”
Mallo nodded. “Otay! Otay! Shawe sketties!” He was so excited that he didn’t care if he had to share or not.
“OK!” She opened the box and he started numming the sketties right away. It was the best he’d ever seen or tasted.
She laughed. “You’re so cute!” Then she stabbed her fork into the mass of sketties and twirled it around until he had a big gob of noodles on it. She bit into it and ate it quickly, and then got another forkfull.
Mallo was very happy. He had a mummy who loved skettis and even shared hers with him! She had to be the best mummy ever!
Not long after, the van parked itself in front of a double-wide mobile home just outside town. Mallo thought it looked strange for a house, since the yard reminded him of one of the metal scrapyards he’s seen in town. There were old cars and bins full of metal parts, plastic items like housewares, and toys and big piles of mystery material covered with blue and black tarps. He commented on it. “Owd mummy an’ daddy’s howsie didn’ haf su manie owd vroom-vroom munstahs on dewe gwassies. Wai haf aww dese fings hewe?”
“Oh,” mummy answered nonchalantly. “I just like to collect things. I love looking for treasures and bringing them here. It makes me happy.”
That made sense to the fluffy somewhat. He knew what it was like to search for nummies and things to keep his nestie warm. Sometimes he’d look a long time and then find something really nice like a sandwich with sketti sauce inside and it would make him so SO happy. “Yesh, Mawwo wub tu fin’ fings wike nummies and fings fow nestie!”
“I know!” She chuckled. “But now you won’t have to do that. Mummy will bring you things and nummies.” Getting out of the van, she opened the back door and picked him up.
“Yay, su happies fow nyu mum–” He stopped short as he noticed a not-pretty smell in the air. It wasn’t just mummy, but it was everywhere. His ears caught something else that was strange: a sound that was both familiar and alien. It was fluffies. But lots of them. It was a low cacophony of huuhuuing, babbling, and chirping coming from inside the house. He wasn’t sure where the smell was coming from, but he was sure he knew where the sound was coming from.
“Wh-wat dat smeww?” He asked with a concerned look.
“Oh,” she sighed. “Mummy’s just not that good at cleaning up. I have a lot of fluffies here.”
He perked up a little. “Haf nyu fwuffy fwends?” He knew it!
She smiled. “Oh, yes, Mallo! Many many many fluffy friends!”
When she got to the house, she held Mallo in the crook of her arm and unlocked the door with her free hands, but she didn’t open it. She picked up a broom propped up beside the door and held it in front of herself as she opened the door with her other hand. “Back, get back, sweeties!” she said loudly. Some fluffies were trying to push their way out of the house, but she nudged them back as she entered.
“Nu! Wet fwuffy gu! Nee’ owt!” One of them yelled.
“It’s not safe out here, you know that, babies!” she said to them in a cutesy voice. She stepped inside with Mallow quickly and shut the door behind her.
Mallo gasped, and even he didn’t know that fluffies could gasp. He was shocked and had nothing to say for a few moments as his senses briefly overloaded.
The doorway was the only spot in the house with visible flooring. All the rest was covered with mounds of trash, everything had dirt and mud on it. Plastic bags and cardboard boxes filled with garbage, like paper, plastic bottles, cans, and more. A sharp curved shape had cut itself into the refuse layers where the door opened and closed, and from there it appeared to be almost 2 feet deep. Many book shelves lined the walls, and they too had junk on them, like knickknacks, piles of books, toys, plates, etc. Visually, it was too much for a fluffy to understand; they were used to simple things like saferooms and parks an streets. Mallo had been in a trash dump before to look for nummies, but he’d never seen one inside a house.
He’d also never smelled anything like this inside a house or anywhere. It was a stink of complex character, containing fluffy poopies, some other poopies, fluffy peepies, rotten nummies, and other things he couldn’t imagine. He began to cough, and mummy noticed.
She rolled her eyes, sighed, and apologized. “I’m sorry it’s so messy in here, Mallo. I’m just not that good at housework, heh!” She smiled weakly.
“Nuuu! Nu wan!” He heard a fluffy call out, its voice breaking with saddies. There were fluffies everywhere of all shapes and sizes. He’d never seen so many in one place. Some were moving, but some were not. None of them said hello to him and most ignored him, and the few that did talk to him did not seem very friendly. The fluffy continued. “Pwease, pwease, mummeh! Nu mow fwuffies!”
Another one said. “Dummeh mummeh, NU! Nu bwing nu mow fwuffies tu howsie! Dewe tuu manie hewe!” It was a gold-ish fluffy with brown dirt all over him. Mallow thought he was just a dirty meanie, and apparently Mummy thought so to.
“Now, now, goldenrod, I know you don’t want to share the house with more fluffies, but you have to! This fluffy had no place to go and he needs a home. It’s not nice to just leave him out there!” She seemed concerned, but not angry. She didn’t yell or even mention The Sorry Stick. This was strange to Mallo; he knew that fluffies weren’t supposed to tell their mummies and daddies what to do or call them “dummeh” ever!– Until he ran away, of course, but he had to do that to save his special lumps!
Mummy put him down on the trash heap, which was now the house’s floor. “I’m going to put out the kibble for the others, OK Mallo? You can have some more food then if you’re hungry again.” She stepped up onto the pile and trudged away to the doorway of her kitchen to get a sack of kibble. She walked around the bag and poured it into various large tin pans laid throughout the house. The fluffies slowly walked over to each and ate, emerging from spots within the trash that Mallo couldn’t even see. Since he was so short, he couldn’t see over the mountains of trash very far. He started to walk around to explore the house, but it wasn’t walking so much as climbing, and it took much more effort to move over the trash, whether it was soft and plushy or hard and bumpy.
He went down a hallway and looked into the open doorways of the rooms. Every room was the same, covered in the same trash and dirt that mass that flowed through all the doorways. There were places and shapes that could be hiding beds or chairs, but they were buried by the trash and shopping bags. Mallo went back to the living room.
The fluffies of the house generally ignored him as they were swarming the newly-filled food and water pans. Soon he saw a brown fluffy who was languidly kicking around a plastic bottle with his hooves. He didn’t say anything to Mallo, and a few moments later the fluffy pooped right where he was, right on the trash bags!
Mallo finally had something to say. “Whatchu doin’?!” he yelled. "Nu gu bad poopies in howsie! Nee’ gu poopies in da wittabawks!’
The brown fluffy just looked at him and grunted with a wearied expression. “Wittabawks ebbywhewe.” He went back to playing with the bottle.
Mallo was shocked to hear another fluffy say that. “B-buh-- buh…” Talking about pooping made him want to go poopies too. “Whewe wittabawks? Mawwo nee gu poopies tuu! Nu gu poopies on fwoow!”
“Hazewnuh Nu see fwoow nu mow.” Again, his face didn’t change.
“Wewe wittabawks?” Mallo asked again. “Nee’ Wittabawks!”
Hazelnut sighed and pointed his hoof to the back of the living room.
“Fankyu… stoopie poopeh fwuff!” Mallo barked. He was happy to leave the rude brown fluffy and his poop, and slowly made his way the few yards to the litterboxes. Once he passed the summit of one of the trash mountains, he saw that they were siting against the wall. There were about 8 of them, or in Mallo’s estimation, “many,” but he couldn’t go in any of them. There was no room for more. Each one was piled with poopies higher than the rim of the litterbox. He couldn’t even see any litter at all! “Nu!” he cried aloud. “Nu can gu in wittabawks! Dewe nu woom!” The thought of pooping made him want to even more, and he shook a little. “Nu wan gu bad poopies!” He had to find mummy and ask her to help. His old mummy and daddy always cleaned the litterbox and always sorry-sticked him if he made bad poopies!
Mallo trudged over the trash as fast as he could until he saw mummy lying on a sleeping bag in front of a TeeBee. It was like a nestie made of plastic bottles and bags, with her sleeping bag laid out on top of an easy chair which was hidden and flanked by a few cardboard boxes. He ran up to her, shaking with distress. “M-mummeh! Nee cween wittabawks! Ebby wittabawks fuww! Nu wan make bad poopies!”
She sighed, and looked towards him, but not at him. “Oh, I know honey. I want to clean the litterboxes, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I-I’ll get around to it someday. Mummy just can’t deal with it right now.”
“Buh-- buh–!!” Mallo didn’t know what to say. He’d never heard of a human who did not seem to care about bad poopies and the litterbox at all. That was rule number one! What was she going to do if he made bad poopies? The other fluffies here pooped anywhere they wanted and they never got in trouble, but he was so confused. Did she see them? He was getting frustrated, but he wasn’t going to give her sorry poopies either. She wasn’t mean. What was he supposed to do?
“It’s OK Mallo. Mommy won’t get mad about bad poopies. I know it’s not your fault.” She smiled weakly and turned back to her TV as she opened her DVR recordings and put on Young and the Restless. “Now just find a litterbox or another pile of poo and go on that, OK honey?”
“O-otay.” He still didn’t know what to do. He waddled over to one of the filled litter boxes and tried to stand on top of the feces mound to get into the box, but there was no “in the box” anymore. The poopies had spilled out and dried there like mud in the outside does. He pooped on top of the fresh turds already there. Then he did peepies too and it made the drier poopies wet again.
He was relieved for a second, but then looked at his hooves-- they were covered in poopies! “Mawwo nu wike dis!” he said to a grey pillowfluff nearby lying inside a bookcase. “Wewe Mawwo gu cwean hoofsies?”
The grey fluffy didn’t say anything. It just looked at him with tired, indifferent eyes. Just like mummeh’s. A pile of fresh and dried poopies sat behind its rump, some of it hanging down off the shelf edge like stalactites.
Mallo’s eyes then searched the room for something he could rub his hooves on, things he knew from his old house and the outside. Grass, paper towels, cloths, anything. But there was nothing like that. Just trash. He rubbed his hooves on some plastic bags, but they were too smooth. He notced that the white walls of the house were streaked with poop smears. He wiped his hooves on the wall to get the wet feces off, and it was effective enough, but it was still rubbed into his fluff. Around his hooves, his pretty white fluff was completely brown. “Nu wike!”
Just wanting to lie down, he tried to climb one of the trash piles to find a spot and felt something cold and squishy. He looked down and saw that he’d stepped in another pile of poopies, and the plastic bags he was walking on were moist with peepies and old sicky nummies. “Nu!” He angrily barked. “Dis nu gud! Haf tu wub hoofsies uff 'gain!” He went back to the wall and rubbed his hooves off.
Then he went another way to find a comfy spot to sit, and it happened again! This time it was rotten milk that had fallen on dried poop, mixing them together. “Nu, nu, nu!” Mallo shook his head. He needed to find a way to get around without stepping in poopies! He climbed to the highest trash mountain he could see, a pile of trash bags in the corner of the room that almost reached the ceiling. He sat on his rump and looked around the room again, searching for a clean path.
There wasn’t one. Everything in the room, absolutely everything had some poopies or peepies or ickies on it. Everything. What he had thought was only dirt and mud when he had arrived was actually shit. All of it. The kibble bowls had turds in them. The walls. Even the ceiling had poop spatter. He hadn’t seen it before because he was only seeing the part of the room he could reach and his mind hadn’t even considered the outlandish possibility that it could be poopies, but from here, he could see the whole living room. It looked like the dump where he’d go searching for nummies sometimes, but it was a dump inside a housie! How could that be?
There was a constant swarm of flies in the air, both the little ones and the big ones. Then he noticed the bodies and the bones. Fluffies had gone forever sleepies here, but they just stayed where they were. Babbehs. So many dead babbehs that he couldn’t count them. There was rotten fluff on some surfaces, even where the living fluffies were sitting or playing. Everyfluffy looked sick and their fluff’s colors were dulled by brown staining, while their hooves and weggies were mostly pure brown. They were all poopy.
He looked down at his dirty hooves. It was happening to him too. It was turning into a poopeh fluffy! He began to shake all over and tears fell from his eyes. “Nuuu… NU! Nuu wan be poopeh fwuffy!” Again he looked for something to clean himself with, but there was nothing. Even their water bowls had ugly brown wawas.
“Huu huu…” he wailed. “Nu feew pwetty!” In panic, he slid down the trash pile and pawed at the shit-spattered walls with his leathery, useless hooves. “NUUUU!!!” NU WAN DIS!!! PWEASE!!! NU WAN WIVE HEWE!!! NU WAN WIVE IN BIGGES’ WITTABWAKS!!! NU WAN WIVE IN TWASHIES!!!" Tears flowed down his dirty white fluffy face. “Mawwo nu be twashies! Mawwo nu poopeh fwuffy! Huu huu… HUU HUU!!!” He wiped his eyes with his hooves, and they stung a bit. Catching his reflection in a discarded plastic box, he saw dark streaks on his face. “Nuuu huuu! SCREEE!!!” He had wiped the poopies on his face!
He huuhuued for a few minutes and then ran back to mummeh, who was still watching classic Y&R reruns, oblivious to his distress, or anyone else’s. “Victor’s up to something! I know it!” She smiled.
“Mummeh!” Mallo cried. “Mawwo nu wan wive hewe nu mow! Pwease wet Mawwo gu outsies 'gain! Wan gu bak tu owd stweet bawks!”
Mummy sighed and paused her DVR. She slowly turned to look at him. “Oh, Mallo, I know my place isn’t the greatest, but I can’t let you leave here.”
Mallo shook with anger. “NU! MEANIE MUMMEH WET MAWWO GU OW GIF SOWWY POOPIES!” He’d just pooped, but he still had some new poop ready, if he pushed hard enough. He prepared to shoot.
Mummy shook her head. “You have Smarty Disease. The meanie doctors are going to kill you if you end up in a shelter! I’m saving you from the ‘forever sleepies’!”
Mallo looked confused again and relaxed his rear. “Mawwo smawty? Meanies wan huwt Mawwo? M-mummeh sabe Mawwo?”
She nodded. “Yes, I saved you!” She smiled weakly. “And you’re very smart! I’m not going to let the meanie shelter or fluffy catchers get you, baby.”
“Huu…” Mallo didn’t know what to think. He knew that there was a meanie doctor place that took good fluffies’ special lumps. He knew there were mean men who caught fluffies in traps and took them away forever. He’d seen them. They were scary. Mummy wasn’t lying.
She went on. “I never let any of my fluffies go. There are terrible, mean people out there who love to torture and hurt fluffies for fun!” She scowled. “As long as you’re here, you won’t end up in an abuser’s hands.” She smiled at him. “Mummy loves you very much. I’ll never ever hit you or hurt you with a Sorry Stick ever.”
His brain sputtered for a few moments, having no idea how to react. He wanted to hate her. But she loved him? And would never give him the sorry stick? He remembered the Sorry Stick his old Mummy and Daddy had. They’d hit him when he made bad poopies or demanded sketties. But they had a pretty housie and cleaned his litterbox too. Not knowing what to think of her, Mallo just nodded. “Otay, mummeh.” He was so confused.
Mummy patted him on the head. “You’re such a good fluffy!”
“B-buh-buh…” he managed to ask. “Wai mummeh nu cwean Mawwo? Wai nu cwean wittabawks?”
She sighed, “I told you, Mummy just can’t deal with it right now. But I’ll do it someday, I’ll get around to it.”
He waddled away and huuhuued to himself. “Huu huu…” he wailed as he threw himself onto a trash bag filled with plastic bottles. It wasn’t comfortable at all, but he curled up on it anyway and just kept huuhuuing and tried to sleep. He could hear tiny little noises moving through the trash heaps all around him. Having spent enough time in the street he knew that they were insects and mice, but in here there were so, SO many more. Mallo shivered. This was a house, not an alleyway! He rubbed his legs on his fluff in an increasingly frustrated attempt to get the bugs off of his body, faster and faster, his thoughts magnifying the flea bites and itches.
Every fluffy here was a poopie fluffy. Every babbeh here was a poopie baby. It didn’t matter if they were brown or had horns and wings or both or were missing weggies. Every thing in here was trash. Even Mummy.
* * *
Some days later, a purple mare’s little blue babbeh died. Her “wastes’ babbeh.” A few days before, its eyes had swollen shut and it couldn’t stop coughing. Eventually it started coughing boo-boo juice and made sicky wawas every time its mother tried to feed it milk. It chirped with hunger and pain, but no matter how much the mare hugged it, it wouldn’t get better. When it stopped chirping, she huuhuued loudly and put the corpse on her back.
Mallo just watched from where he was on a trash mound, not knowing what to think.
She ran over to Mummy, who was watching Y&R again. “Jeshie HAIT MUMMEH! HATCHU! MUMMEH WOWST MUMMEH!”
Mummy didn’t even move her head. “I know. I am the worst.” Her face was expressionless.
“Jeshie ith MUMMAH NU MOWE NAO!” the fluffy screamed. “JESHIE WICKY CWEANIES BUH BABBEHS STIWW GET WOWSTES’ SICKIES! FOWWOW DEM BUH STIWW GIT WOST IN TWASHIES!” She broke to huuhuu a bit. Sometimes very small foals would slide into the gaps in all the trash and the plastic bags. If the fluffies couldn’t dig them out, they’d have to listen to the babbehs chirping for help and milkies while slowly starving to death. Sometimes the fluffies could’nt even find them at all.
“Huu Huu! Stiww nu knu weww aww babbehs gu! Wost babbehs cuz uf YEW!!!” A stream of liquid poop hit Mummy’s torso as the mare turned around shot her.
Mummy just sighed. “I know you’re mad Jessie. I’m sorry about your babies.” She picked up the dead foal from Jessie’s back and put it in her lap. “We have this one though. I’ll put this babbeh in the freezer so you can see her and give her huggies again anytime you want, OK?” She produced a plastic baggie from a box lying nearby and placed the foal inside. She pressed out the air and zipped it shut.
The mare went on. “Nu cawe! YEW nebba cwean howsie an’ aww da babbehs git sickes’ and faww down on twashies an’ git buu-buus!”
Mummy just nodded as she reached for some paper towels she kept near her sleeping bag and used them to wipe most of the poop off. “I’m sorry, Jessie.” She balled up the paper towel and just threw it aside onto one of the trash heaps.
She got up and took the baggie to the kitchen. Mallo heard the fridge door open, and then shut. Mummy reappeared in the living room, and sat down on her chair again. The big brown stain remained on her shirt, but she didn’t act concerned at all.
Mallo had never seen anything like it. Sorry poopies didn’t work on her? Not even a bit? He felt scared-- that was a fluffy’s best weapon. But she’s invincible against it. And what did she do with the babbeh? Any plans he’d had about escaping or fighting her evaporated away in his mind, never to materialize again. Mummy was a munstah. But not like any other munstah he’d ever heard of.
The mare was frustrated, and just turned and walked away, still yelling. "Dummeh Mummeh! Jeshie HATCHU! Git wid uff aww dese TWASHIES! Nuu nee’ stoopie twashies!”
Mummy just nodded. “It’s not stupid trash to me. I know it all looks like trash to you, but these boxes and bags are important to mummy. What if I lost something I needed? Then I’d be sad like you!” She rewound her DVR to see the Y&R Victoria scene the mare made her miss. Another babbeh died, another fluffy pooped on her. It was just another day.
Mallo felt almost hopeless as he tried to sleep. But mummy said she’d clean up. She would, wouldn’t she? Isn’t that what hoomies do? “Huu huu… how wong tiww cweanies?” Mallo huuhuued to himself. He wasn’t pretty anymore and was now a light brown fluffy with a dull pinkish mane, hardly any sign remaining to show that he’d ever been a pretty white one. “Wan be pwetty fwuffy 'gain. Nu wan be ugwee poopeh cowor fwuffy.”
* * *
Many, many, bright times passed but Mummy still didn’t clean or give the fluffies baths. She still said she was too tired and that she’d do it later. She even said that she couldn’t take away some things because they were too special to her. But why? Did she love the trash more than her fluffies? Mallo began to think so.
Jessie would get pregnant again, just like all the mares did, but not of her own free will. All the mares had at least one litter in the house. The babies kept coming. The mares usually didn’t want special huggies, but the bored stallions in the house, particularly the ex-ferals, didn’t care. Once a mare had tummy babies she was a least a little happier and she would love all her babies once they came, but raising them in hell was always an ordeal in heart hurties with the sickness and death surrounding them. Most of the mares eventually got sick and died or became unable to make babbehs anymore. Then they’d just lie around in a constant state of sorrow. It was the same for the stallions-- especially the smarter ones.
Mallo didn’t want anything to do with the poopie trashie howsie. He didn’t want special huggies because it made the babies and girl fluffies hurt so much. His special lumps hurt sometimes and he wished he didn’t have them anymore. It was his special lumps’ fault he was stuck here in the biggest litterbox. He wished he’d stayed with old mummy and let the meanie doctor take his special lumps. There were too many babbehs. Too many fluffies. Too many for one house.
Nothing was stable or permanent, not even the fluffies themselves. Some would die, some foals would be born, some foals would die, some would grow up, and Mummy was always finding new fluffy friends to bring to the house. Mallo knew very well now why none of the fluffies said “hewwo” or seemed happy at all when he arrived. There was nothing to be happy about when a new “friend” arrived.
Mallo had long passed the point of repentance. He was so sorry he ran away from his old Mummy and Daddy. He was sorry he decided to live with Mummy. He wished he’d died in his cardboard box. He wished he’d been given forever sleepies by the fluffy catchers. Every fluffy in the house felt the same way, no matter where they had come from, even ones that had run away from hardcore abusers, even the ferals who had never had a housie or were starving to death when mummy found them. None of them had had it worse where they had been before.
After many forevers, Mallo got sick-- really sick this time. All the fluffies in the house were in various states of chronic illness, coughing, itching, losing their fluff, etc. But now Mallo was getting even sicker. He made sicky wawas often unless he managed to swallow it back, his smell place made wawas, and his see places got itchy and painful, so much that it was getting hard to see. Many of the fluffies had eye infections and some of them even even went blind. Mallo was scared his see places would stop working too! He was getting weak and it was hard for him to climb over the trash heaps to get around.
On his way to the wawas bowl, he stopped to lie down. Some still-lively foals were playing tag over the mountaintops of garbage above him; they had been born in this wasteland and were happy to play in it, at least for a little while, having known nothing else. One of the foals got its leg caught on the loop of a plastic Dollar General bag, which was itself stuck, by dried feces, to another flattened pile of plastic bags. The foal tried to run, dragging the bag with it, and like a layer of icy snow the mass of plastic baggies shifted apart from the other layers of trash above and below it, causing a little avalanche of trash, clouds of dust and dry fecal matter puffing in its wake. In moments Mallo was buried beneath a pile of garbage rubble. He could still breathe after it settled, and he tried dragging himself from underneath. However, his legs had already been too weak to move, and he couldn’t get traction. His struggling only caused the smaller pieces of debris to settle under him, making him sink rather than swim. “Hewp! Fwuffies! MUMMEH!!! Mawwo in twashies! Nu can moof! Nu wike dawkies!” His waggling legs barely made the pile quiver on its surface.
Yet the other fluffies did not hear him. The playing foals had been startled by the falling trash momentarily, but the catalyst foal slipped his leg out of the bag’s grasp and soon they all went back to playing as if nothing had happened. The uneven “twashie” mounds were always shifting like dunes and making noise at varying degrees. Mallo’s cries were muffled by the trash and drowned out by the usual cacophony of fluffies huuhuuing, babbling, and walking. His voice became hoarse as he strained his throat and breathed in the mist of rotten food and fecal dust that surrounded him. “cough Hewp… huu huu… hewp… pwease fin’ Mawwo! Haf sickies! Nu can git owt uff hewe! HUU HUU NU WAN! HEWP!! MUMMEH!!! MUMMEH!!! MUMMEHMUMMEHMUMMEH!!”
There were so many fluffies in the house that even they could not keep track of themselves, and it wasn’t just because of their poor memory capacity; Mummy was always forgetting how many she had in the house too. Fluffies were constantly coming and going (in one way or another). Mallo was now barely a memory for anyone besides himself. “Huu huu… pwease… sumfwuffy hewp Mawwo! Huu huu…”
Days went by as Mallo huuhuued to himself, sleeping and wiggling in his trashy tomb, eating any poop or bugs or spilled soda-pop or pee that he could. Insects and worms bit him all over, but his legs were pinned down and he could not wipe them away. He could only wriggle them ineffectively and beg them to leave him alone. “Pwease wittow buggies, nu huwt Mawwo nu mow! Huu huuuu Fwuffy nu is nummies! Nu touch no-nos an’ poopeh pwace! huu huu…” Flies laid eggs in his soft exposed tisses as they ate away the salty mucous and puss on his face and the wet ejaculates from his privates and anus, soon producing maggots. Fortunately for Mallo, the rot was bad enough that he did not feel too much pain beyond an intense burning and stinging, but he did notice that he couldn’t feel his mouth and was increasingly unable to form words. Fortunately still, he wasn’t fully able to grasp the reality that there were maggots eating away the muscle meat of his tongue and cheeks. “Huuuggguuu… chirp huuuggghhh…” He could not even huuhuu anymore.
* * *
Becky cleared away another shovelful of trash and fluffy shit and dumped it into the the big wheelie trash bin. “Phew,” she sighed from inside her respirator. Even with her hazmat suit on, she felt like she’d need to bathe in bleach when she got home. “There’s no way this place won’t get condemned and demolished.”
Derek, another hazmat suit clad human, tapped with his shovel the now-exposed plywood floor, its carpet having rotten away and merged with the trash long ago. “Yeah. All the fluffy shit and piss has pretty much destroyed the floor, look.” It was softer than wood was supposed to be and bent down a little under their boots. “Once we get these biohazards out, they’ll probably bulldoze it.”
“What a shame,” Becky lamented. “I’ll never be able to afford to own a home as long as I live, but this fucking cunt can get a house and then fucking destroy it? For the benefit of fucking shitrats? That just boils my pee.” She dumped in another shovelfull. “But really… I don’t usually feel sorry for fluffies, but this is just something else.” She scraped up another shovelful. “More foals here. Every shovelful has some dead baby bits.”
Derek was still shoveling too. “There would be dead lady bits in here if I had to live with a crazy bitch like her. She said she wanted her grand-babies to visit her here, but obviously her daughters said no. And she wouldn’t clean the place up. Wouldn’t get rid of the trash or the walking-trash. Not even to see those kids.” He grunted. “I don’t usually speak ill of the dead but after seeing those refrigerators…”
Becky finished his sentence. “I’m glad she’s dead too. But I’m just sorry it was a quick heart attack when she deserved to fall and break her hip and die a slow death like these creatures. With every bin we’ve filled I’ve hated her more and more.” She cleared some trash bags and saw another dead adult fluffy. But this one was fresher; Its eyes, ears and face were covered in fat grey writhing maggots.
“Eww sigh This one looks recent. Still soft and meaty” She slid her coal shovel underneath the fluffy, and lifted it to the big Hefty trash can behind her. It shook a little as she moved it. As she lifted the shovel to the top of the bin, she though she heard it chirp. She set the shovel on the rim and looked at the fluffy. It was writhing a little and it’s chest was moving.
“Holy shit. Hey Derek, look at this fucker.” she poked at its side.
“Chirrr… peep Chirp” Its grotesque tongueless and skinless jaws moved up and down slowly as feeble sounds emerged from its throat and Its leg muscles twitched and quaked as if they were trying to move the legs, but were too weak.
“Ewww! Nasty!” Derek laughed. It wasn’t funny, but the shock of the fluffy’s appearance was hysterical. “This truly is a house of horrors!”
“What do we do with it? Should we take it to the rescue crew like the others? They said for us to bring them all the live fluffies for adoption or euth-ing, but this one’s barely alive at all.”
Derek shook his head. “Yeah, well… I think it’s a waste of our time. She’s a goner.”
(nuuu …nuuu am guww fwuffy… am staa… staaawon… pwease… hewp… )
“I’ll do it.” Becky dumped the light brown fluffy on the floor. Its mane might’ve been pink, but maybe it had been red. So hard to tell under the filth.
“OK, look out.” Becky raised her shovel and banged it over the fluffy’s head thrice. The fluffy stopped chirping and didn’t seem to be moving. She picked it up with her shovel again and dumped it in the bin. “There! We can euth just as well as they can!”
“Heh.” Derek dumped another shovelful of feces and trash into the bin on top of the fluffy, and they both returned to their previous routine, shoveling up the trash and dropping it all in the trash can.
(nuuuu… fwuffy haf wowstes’ owies… nuuu can muf… nu can huuhuu… nee’ huuhuu… pwease… wan foweba sweepies… fwuffy stiww hewe… wai… wai… mummeh nu wub… fwuffy… )
END
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and ending up dead.