Fluffy Farming
By: Turboencabulator
Tuttle farm is a historic farm near the border of Pike and Dubois county, in southern
Indiana. Established originally in 1795 by five brothers of the Tuttle family, Saul, Samuel,
Abel, Joshua, and Adam, it quickly grew in the nascent state after the Indian Removal Act of
1804 allowed massive land holdings to be available to farmers. Its proximity to a major
tributary of the Ohio river, the Western White River, meant trade was brisk and profitable, and
goods from the Tuttle and surrounding farms found their way north to Chicago, as well as south
to New Orleans, as well as up the Ohio to Pittsburgh.
The early days of the farms, up until the beginnings of industrialization, were marked with
continual profits and a loose confederacy of support between all the regional farms. The
Tuttles were primarily focused on livestock, with their sheep being known for unusually fine
wool. Crop waste from neighboring farms were sent for feed, and in turn clothing and scrapple
was sent back. Dung from the livestock of all the farms went out to the fields in equal
measure, and the region operated in relative harmony.
Unfortunately, in 1910 there was a sudden surge of mining in the region, and the Tuttles were
squeezed out of the majority of their land by a confederacy of predatory businessmen, thirsty
for potential mineral rights, most notably coal. The land was also gored for the high-quality
limestone the region is known for, with some quarries in former Tuttle land still
operating, and one boasting it being chosen to supply the stone for Rockefeller Center.
After the coal turned out to be a bust, the farmland was left in holdings and left to fallow,
mostly returning to semi-wooded states over the next century, unless a quarry expanded or a new
small township was established. There was more grim news on the horizon for this region,
however.
In 2027 a major chemical spill upriver, now known to be a case of purposeful dumping, caused a
massive die-off of beneficial microorganisms in the soil surrounding the Western White
River. The land went from decently farmable to absolute garbage, only really able to support
the thinnest, hardiest trees and the most hardened ground cover. It became a pale shadow of the
frontier it once was.
However, by the work of conservation groups, a method of re-populating the microorganisms was
found, and patches of land were purchased back one at a time, revitalized, and then set up for
farming once again. In 2031 the original Tuttle farmstead was discovered, and despite it being
two hundred years later, the majority of the main buildings stood, with the house still
weather-tight and with bottles of moonshine in the crawlspace.
Now, the Tuttle farm is slowly being patched back together, but instead of sheep, they farm
fluffies. The strange bio-toys make for excellent farm animals, and the collective that runs
the farm wouldnât have it any other way.
0500, Feed building
Peter nursed his coffee while going down the line of electric micro-tractors, checking the
charge lines and the feed trailers were all hooked up. Bumbles, his workfluff, was out cold on
the passenger seat of the cart. The chubby grey earthie had a remarkable sense of smell and
taste, so judging the quality of silage was left up to him.
A quiet poot and giggle greeted Peter as he poked the fluffy.
âHey, you. Sleepyhead.â
Bumbles picked his head up, one side of his face all flattened and non-fluffy, and looked
around. âNnnhhh too earwy.â
âYou and me both.â Peter said, picking Bumbles up and carrying him inside the silage building.
Rows of clean steel tanks were along one wall of the warehouse-like building, augurs poking out
the top to chutes, all connecting to a central mixing basin. Peter took Bumbles up to the top
of one and opened it. âRoy dropped these off, said it was mixed.â
Bumbles leaned forward, sticking his head in the top of the tank, and inhaling deeply.
âSugaw beets, mostwy. Timofee hay, too.â
âCool, so, what, a quarter?â
Bumbles nodded. âToo widdle hay an poopies get messy.â
Peter went down and began operating the controls. Augurs spun to life, mixing the grains,
silage, and refuse from the farms in the central basin, churned together with waste molasses,
water, and additives.
A scoop was fished out and presented to Bumbles.
The fluffy looked at it, smelled it, and promptly rolled face-first into it, munching away
loudly.
Peter nodded and began filling the feed trailers from the central hopper, dreaming of the fat
cut of country pork and pile of eggs waiting for him back at the kitchens, sipping his coffee
and watching the lights come on in the rest of the farm.
0530, Vet clinic
Doc Mitchell changed out of his boots and into soft slippers, while Lucky sat nearby,
fastidiously grooming herself. The mare had an obsession over cleanliness, far removed from the
normal state of a fluffy. The pair got up and, in silence and darkness, slipped into the
clinicâs holding pens.
Flicking a switch illuminated a row of photographic safety lights, turning Luckyâs pure white
coat a murderous red. The only relief was the night-lights in the pens, a neutral amber. They
went together from pen to pen, checking the fluffies within. First, a colt with a broken leg,
sleeping fitfully but consistently. Then, an expectant mother.
Lucky looked up at Doc and pointed at the mother. She was ripe. Doc nodded and marked on his
chart, before going to the next pen, a stallion who got caught up on a stray piece of
half-buried barbed wire.
Luckyâs nose wrinkled as she looked in, and Doc could see why. The infection in the stallionâs
leg was not responding to antibiotics. Checking his chart, the stallion was marked as an
excellent breeder and well-behaved. Two good reasons to amputate instead of just culling the
fluffy. Doc hated having to do that.
The final pen was a quietly peeping affair, a half-dozen chirpies nestled together with their
mother, dozing fitfully around her young.
One of the few things that made Doc smile. He pointed at the two mares and then at his own
eyes, watching Lucky.
The fluff nodded and sat down where she could see both mares, while Doc picked up the
stallionâs bed and carried him across the hall to the little exam room slash operating theater.
He was scrubbing up when the stallion woke up, making little sobbing noises. âWhai weggy huwt?
Whai owwies an no niceys?â
Doc rolled back over to the stallion, a crisp mint color in the regular light. âHello
there. Youâre having a bad day arenât you, Thumper.â
Thumper nodded, eyes watering. âDawk, whai weggy hab owwies?â
With a sigh, Doc began unwrapping the dressing. âWell, you had some bad luck and found some
stuff we called âbarbed wireâ. Itâs like fence wire, but it has little bitey-things on it. It
was old, and dirty, and when it poked you, it left some bad stuff in your leg.â
âAn da bitey-stuff gib owwies?â
With a nod, Doc began inspecting the festering wound. âIâm afraid it gave your leg very very
bad owwies, Thumper. I donât like to tell fluffies this but weâre going to need to take your
leg away or itâs going to give all of you very very bad owwies too.â
This was not a good thing for Thumper to hear. He promptly tried to get up, whinnying and
sobbing. âNu! NU! Need weggy! Weggo no huwt an SCREE!â
Thumper collapsed as he tried to put weight on the infected leg. Doc caught him on the way down
and sighed, laying the fluffy down again. âI know this is scary. Iâve had to do this more than
once. Your leg is not going to get better, if it stays on you, you will go forever-sleepies.â
The stallion just lay there, breathing heavy, wincing in pain.
Doc got his chin down with the stallion, almost nose to nose. âYouâll still be able to
play. Running is going to be hard though. Plus.â Doc looked around, with a conspiratorial
mischief. âYour special place will still work.â
Thumper glanced at Doc. Doc wiggled his eyebrows. Thumper giggled, then groaned. âO-otay.â
Doc sat up. âExcellent.â
A minuteâs rummaging and Doc gently placed a 3D-printed fluffy anesthesia mask on
Thumper. âRight, Thumper. Why donât you tell me what your favorite toy is.â
Thumper blinked, then his tail flipped once. âI weawwy wike da buildin-bwocks. Da big wuns I
can make ca-castews⌠wit⌠ahnnnnnnâŚâ
Out like a light. Doc immediately began shaving the fluffyâs infected hind leg, dexterously
injecting local aneesthetics.
There was a knock at the door and Libby poked her head in. âHey, Lucky said you had something
come up?â
Doc nodded, not looking up from the surgery. âThumperâs having an amputation. Weâve got one
mare ready to pop and one delivered, could you type and induct the fresh litter? Iâve got a
feeling the mother might be carrying some recessive genes for milk production so we might have
a potential milk-mare in the batch.â
Libby nodded, earrings jangling. âOn it.â
She ducked out, and Doc continued carefully removing the stallionâs leg.
0600, Vineyard
Clara was sitting on a roof looking over the modest vineyard. It was a bowl-like area of the
farm, the rows of vines radiating out from the central building. She turned slowly on a
swivel chair, scanning the vineyardâs compacted gravel walkways and well-weeded beds for
motion.
Above her in a rack were three weapons, a precision paintball marker, a pellet rifle, and a
suppressed Ruger .22. Each one she had adjusted and tuned by hand, with exacting precision.
âPlbbtbrbbtbrbbtbrbtbbbrbtâ
She looked down the ladder to where her fluffy sat. The uni was huge by fluffy standards,
nearly knee high on a human, and a bright copper color. He sat on his posterior, hind legs
splayed out, blowing a raspberry very quietly, and long.
He stopped, giggled after a beat, and began again.
âPlbrbbrbrpbrpbrbtbprbptbâ
âWin, why are you doing that?â
Winchester looked up at her, blinking, tongue sticking out. Then his eyes came back into
focus. âFeews funny.â
He giggled as Clara facepalmed and looked back out over the vineyard. âWell you probably should
wake up the rest of the herders, I see motion.â
Winchester immediately perked up, and went off to wake the other farm-toughies stationed at the
vineyard. Clara pulled down the paintball marker and rested it on a railing, sighting through
the scope on a doughy, fuzzy face peering out of the brambles a good fifty meters past the edge
of the vines.
Sweeping the edge of the forest, she counted six fluffies, all watching from the supposed
safety of the weeds. One had its cheeks puffed, and turned to the nearest other fluffy, saying
something and bopping it on the nose.
âFound the smarty.â Clara muttered, and began loading pepperballs in the markerâs hopper.
Over the next few minutes, the faces slowly grew, until a herd began slowly making its way out
of the roughage and towards the vineyard.
With a glance Clara knew her own herd had managed to slip around to either side as the
intruders crept closer. They were surprisingly calm, and must be either smart, or scared.
She grinned quietly, wondering how they would react when none of them would be able to reach
the grapes.
âYu see, Smawty find nummies. Dummy hoomins no can keep nummies fwom bestest smawty!â
âNo, but height can.â She muttered, flicking the safety off and lining up the cross-hairs.
The smarty was turned away, facing the two dozen or so members of his herd. One little âplakâ
sound, and a capsaicin-filled paintball was introduced at high speed directly into the
miniature tyrantâs rectum.
âEertgh.â The smarty said, before falling flat on his face and sobbing.
None of the other fluffies understood what was going on as Clara switched to full auto and
unloaded a few dozen pepperballs into their collected mass.
The screaming prompted the herding fluffs to surround them, kicking them into a pile together
and making sure none ran. Not that they could, the herd was writhing in a pile of burning and
welts.
Lightning a cigarette, Clara climbed down and got into the cart, driving it out to pick up the
would-be thieves.
0800, Breeder barn
Tyrone was a huge, jolly man, proud of his Creole ancestry, his skills with a barbecue pit, and
the accordion his granâfather had left him, which he practiced almost religiously.
The breeder barn was his domain, a big, warm place, the floor covered in clean straw, pens housing the fluffies neatly assembled in rows with companion fluffs all together in fluffpiles.
He bounded in to the barn, kicking the lights up on a fader, and began rollicking along the
rows playing a Cajun two-step. The barn quickly lit up with cheers and sleepy giggles, some
fluffs sitting up and dancing, others breaking out into huggie-fests and stretching together
from awkward nighttime fluffpile reconfigurations. The youngâun pens, as he called them, were
full of happy little cheers and nonsense songs as the fillies inside attempted to sing along to
the rolling, thumping melody.
âGOOD MORNING!â He shouted, setting his accordion on the shelf behind his desk.
The entire barn reverberated with a collective âGOOD MOWNING TYWONE!â
He laughed, clapped his hands together once. âSo, mares and fillies, we have a special
breakfast today for you all, itâs sugar-beet tops, your favorite malted barley and sweet corn,
and I put in a little ask for extra carrot greens and hay!â
There was cheering, and he waved his hands to settle the crowd. âAnâ for all yall good
fluffies, we gunâ have a bit oâ my favorite. Buttermilk biscuits anâ sawmill gravy.â
There was muttering in the ranks, excited. Nobody had ever had Tyroneâs favorite. The plump,
waddling fluffs watched as Tyrone pushed a cart from pen to pen, setting down warm biscuits and
gravy on edible cornbread plates.
Every fluffy thought it was the most delicious thing, and Tyrone agreed.
The morning treat finished without incident, and the normal feed-slurry was dosed out by the
automated system in the barn afterwards. Tyrone never had a problem with these girls, not once
they graduated from the youngâun pens, for you see, Tyrone had a system.
It was simple. Good, patient mares got to be mummahs. And mummahs had to be big and healthy or
their babies wouldnât be big and healthy. So every mare and filly was an exemplar of fluffy
behavior. Good poopies werenât just the norm, they were absolute. Fighting was unheard of, and
sadness was always fixed by a good huggie-pile and Tyroneâs music.
Bad, meanie mares were sent to the Owwie place. Nobody ever questioned what the Owwie place
was, its name made it obvious. The last bad filly had tried to demand more food for herself,
saying she was the bestest widdle babby, and making bad-poopies at Tyrone.
He had been sad, and every fluff watched in silence as he took the slowly-panicking filly
through the rows, up to the far wall of the barn behind the shelves and carts, and into the
door to the Owwie place.
When he came back, he was alone.
Eventually, Tyroneâs system became self-regulating. Bad fluffies were corrected or exposed, and
good fluffies were promised lots of babies and happy times.
When he picked up a trio of mares from a pen and told them it was time for babies, their
neighbors cheered for them.
It meant they themselves were one step closer.
1100, Breeding barn
Doc walked the aisles of stallions, mostly paired siblings in the same pens. Solo stallions
were prone to depression, but pairings from the same family almost never had competition
problems.
He sighed and leaned on a pen containing a rarity. Cecil and Cobalt were two unrelated
stallions that had fallen for each other. Homosexual stallion pairings were incredibly rare,
and could be confusing for the fluffies if a human didnât guide them through it.
âHow are you two doin today?â
Cecil was half asleep, but Cobalt looked up with a little grin. âWe doin otay. Yu hab mawe dat
need babbies?â
Doc nodded. âYup.â
Cobalt nosed Cecil soft. âBe back.â
Cecil nodded and made a cooing chuff sound. Cobalt got up and into the uppies pose, and Doc
carefully picked the fluff up and carried him to a breeding pen.
Tyrone had delivered three mares ready for breeding and Cobalt was paired with the earthie in
the trio, due to his size. Doc introduced the two, and went back to his work, giving the
pairings privacy. A sharp âeepâ interrupted his reverie over a crossword, and drew his attention
to Cobaltâs pen.
The mare was curled up, covering her special place, and Cobalt was sitting nearby, ears
flattened, confused.
Doc leaned in. âNow, now, whatâs the matter here?â
Cobalt shook his head. The mare, unnamed, wiggled herself into a tighter ball. âSpeciaw pwace
have owwies when twy speciaw huggies.â
With a little whinny Cobalt looked down and away. âCobawt sowwy. Nu unnerstanâ.â
Doc sighed, and nodded. âItâs ok, this happens sometimes. Here, let me help.â
He picked up the mare and carried her to a counter, and quickly slipped an injection in her
scruff. She eeped, then got giggly and drowsy. Flipping her over on her back, Doc began the
inspection.
As expected, she was un-dilated even though she was of breeding age. With the deft motions of
long practice, Doc took a dilator, slathered it in veterinary lubricant, and slowly slid it
into the mare, stretching her open. She made little gasping coo sounds, doped out of her mind.
A moment of stretching and Doc returned her to the shared pen, with an extra shot of mare
pheromones for good measure. Within moments both the mare and Cobalt were breeding with vigor, and Doc went back to his crossword.
After the noises settled down, Doc bathed the stallions and returned them to their pens, Cecil
and Cobalt curling up against each other again.
Lucky tugged on his trouser leg. âDoc, da mawe is weady to move on.â
Doc nodded. âThank you, Lucky. How is Thumper doing?â
Lucky sat down, with an expression of consternation. âThumpew has twuble standin up, but he is
wearnin fast. Has bad saddies though.â
Doc nodded and sighed. âNot surprising.â
They both went out, and a napping mare with six chirpies was quietly rolled down a covered,
heated walkway, to the processing building.
1300, Processing
The mare arrived in a room, dozing lightly. It was warm and comforting, the middle of the room
was a large, soft table, a low wall going around three sides. Pete slipped in, rolling a well
oiled cart over, and sitting at a low backed chair, at the open side of the table. He took a
few minutes, marking down the preamble for this batch, and setting up all the little fiddly
things he would need.
With a few gentle pats, Pete woke up the mare.
âHi there. Iâm Pete.â
With a little yawn, the mare sat up on one haunch, helping her chirpies feed. âHewwo.â She
said. âFwuffy nu see Pete befowe.â
âWell,â Pete says, setting out six little elliptical beds, and lining them up on the
table. âYou know how Doc makes sure fluffies are healthy?â
She nods, watching him work.
âWell, I do the same, but I make sure babies are healthy. This is the first time youâve had
babies, right?â
âYus.â she said, nuzzling her feeding chirpies. âWub babbies.â
He smiled, marking things on his tablet as she cleaned the feces and urine out of her chirpieâs
fluff, barely making a face at it.
âWell, I need to have a look at them. Theyâll stay here and Iâll make sure you can see
everything that goes on, but letâs start with one in each of the little beddies.â
She nods, and Pete holds out his hand for one. A momentâs hesitation and she gives him the
first chirpy. He gently examines it, putting it in the first bed, and marking down the type and
gender. Five more and Pete nods. âYou have very pretty babies. And.â He gently booped her on
the nose, making her giggle and paw at his hand. âIâm going to make sure your babies are very
healthy. Ok?â
âYus.â she says, tiredly and proudly looking over her children in a neat row.
âYou look tired.â Pete says. âHow about a bath and a nap? Youâll be right here with them but I
have some good milk here somewhere.â
Itâs a bit late, though, as the mare has already fallen forward lightly, snoring in a pile.
Pete turned her properly into the fluff bed and began working. First, saliva samples were taken
from each chirpy. A microcautery laser etched a serial number into the ear of each of the
infant fluffies. Invisible unless a flashlight was shined through from the back.
The peeping was stifled by Pete firmly placing each chirpy on a teat, slotted into the beds
they rested in. Four females, two males, he thought.
The males he marked for fertilizer production, putting little flags on their beds, marked
with a large white F. Three of the females would be sent straight to meat production, the final
would be cycled back into the breeding loop with Tyrone. These had flags with M and B,
respectively.
Pete set the saliva samples into an autosampler and kicked back to wait for the machinery to
find anything interesting.
The first interesting thing was one of the females was sterile. No big deal, continue on.
Second, however, was one of the males. The fertilizer mark was promptly swapped for an I when
Pete read that, genetically the little chirpy was predisposed to being an alicorn level
intelligence, but in an earthy.
A quick swab and Pete had the mother checked, and after a few minutes of chugging, she was
found to be completely normal.
âDamn.â Pete said. âTough luck, girl.â
After transferring the mare to the cart, he pulled a mesh net over the bed, securing it firmly,
and placing the six chirpy beds next to her. The rattle of the cart woke her, making her
struggle against the mesh. âP-pete, wut happenin?â
Stony silence. She managed to turn and look out at her six babies, just in time to see Pete
hand the tray of chirpies off to another human.
âPete! GIB BABBIES BACK!â
With a deft hand, Pete turned and jabbed the mare in the abdomen, knocking the wind out of
her. She wheezed and retched, writhing against the mesh restraining her in the bed.
âHush now.â He said, wheeling her along and through a door marked âButchersâ.
1400, Fertilizer production.
Libby looked over the small collection of new fertilizer producers she had to work with. A low
pen on a cart, full of colts and fillies. She could already see the reasons they had been
rejected for meat production. Too high energy, too spirited, some were neurotic or a bit odd,
others just couldnât build the weight.
So she pushed the cart down the hall and into the fertilizer hall, painting Cickâs vap-o-rub on
her upper lip before going in. The juvenile fluffies recoiled at the smell, tiny, squeaky
voices complaining about nu-smeww pwetties.
The hall was filled with chest high towers of cages. Each one was a mesh floor with a tray
under it, wire walls, and a thin, bare pad against one corner for a bed. Stacked four levels
high, each level a pair of pens, wall to wall. The fluffies could press together for warmth
at night, but never pile, and never hug.
And there was no place they could escape someone. A trough was fitted into opposite walls,
forcing the fluffies to eat apart, so they could gorge themselves without worrying about there
being a limited amount of food. The troughs were always full of MSG-laden slurry, largely the
sort of garbage you would feed to pigs, blended up and homogenized with starches, fiber, and
agricultural plant waste.
The first pen she came to was empty. Opening the door, she picked up one of the adolescents, a
foal.
He waved his hooves at her in a joyous display of affection, giggling merrily. She smiled down
at him, and sliced his cock and balls off.
A moment of shock passed, and the little gelding began to scream. Without a second thought she
tossed him in the cage and closed the latch. One by one she sliced off genitals, picking up
screaming and struggling foals and fillies without distinction, and chucking them in two foot
steel cage, stinking of shit and fear.
After she finished with the new inductees, and changed her apron, a simple button press on the
wall made the cages cycle. Lukewarm water sprayed for a few seconds in each cage, rinsing off
the fluffies and washing the slurry of feces and urine into drains, to be desiccated, powdered,
and bagged as the best fertilizer in the US.
As she was walking past, she heard the tell-tale splatter of shit. Turning, she saw a brown
stain on the ground behind her, and the puckered asshole of a fluffy pressed against the bars
of its cage.
In a flash she had it out and up by the scruff of its neck. It screeched and struggled,
bucking.
âPut fwuffy down! Meanie hoomin! Deserbe sowwy-poopies!â
Libby dropped the fluffy, letting the sound of shattering bone ring through the pens. It
screeched, and tried to move, but Libby already had it underfoot, stepping on the broken leg.
The screeching continued until she picked it up again.
âGuess what, shitpig? You just lost an eye.â
Flicking out her pocket knife, she slashed down the fluffyâs eye, making it scree and jerk.
âDo that again and I take the other one.â
It huu-huued, curling up and sobbing, shaking, staring at her with its remaining eye. She saw
it was more fear than hate.
The hate was there though. She made a clucking noise. âLetâs move you someplace more useful.â
She went to the central cesspit, opening the access hatch, holding the fluffy by its good
hindleg.
It struggled, screaming. âPwease! NU! NU WAN POOPIE PWACE! PWESE NICE MISSY NU! FWUFFY BE GOOD! FWUFFY SOWWYYYY!â
She dropped the filthpig, letting it break another leg, as well as its nose on the concrete
floor under the slurry. It managed to sit up, covered in feces and urine, up to its abdomen in
the sewage, and looked up at her, crying, half-pleading.
She spat into its face and closed the access hatch, letting its screaming and begging echo
through the production hall.
1405, Meat Production
Tyrone cradled the selected filly, a lively little unicorn, and hand-fed her from a
bottle. Glancing over the other three, he nodded to himself. Pete always had an eye for good
meat production. The cheeping babies smelled the air, mouths open and searching for milk.
After he finished with the selected breeder, Tyrone tucked the sleeping chirpy in with a pair
of other selected breeders, lightly spraying them with synthetic mother smell. Theyâd grow up
mentally bonded into a little happy family and never know the difference.
The other three he put in the individual fluffy pens, sized for meat, a teat mounted in the
front until they were old enough to be weaned off of the harvested mareâs milk. Fatty, greasy,
and sugar-laden milk, and more than a touch of MSG. One at a time, he took a foreleg in his
hand and softly broke the joint. The loud scream was muffled by the teat jammed in their
mouths. After a minute, the sniffling peepy crying was reduced to suckling more fervently than
before. The instinctual kneading motion guaranteed the joint would never heal correctly.
Tyrone spent a minute in the milking room, checking on the milk-mares. Most were normal, though
a few were derped or otherwise mentally handicapped, which was fine by the farmâs
standards. Much more docile. They were happily bumbling about in their large, faux-pastoral
pens, minded by gentle gelded bodyguard fluffs, all of whom were trained in how to apply the
milking cups, and put them back for cleaning.
Then to the meat pens. The small, cramped pens were stacked high, not wide enough for a fluffy
to turn around. On one side, a wall of fluffy faces poking out of rubber-ringed holes, snouts
perpetually buried in a feeding trough of addictive, fattening mash. The other side a wall of
docked fluffy tails and shit-caked haunches, troughs of water carrying the waste away. The
rubberized mats the fluffies were on were rinsed hourly, the fluffies themselves rinsed daily
with warm water. The rows were stacked ass-to-ass, faces displayed out on a walkway.
Tyrone walked down the rows of munching, jabbering idiots. Some were engaged in moronic
conversation with their neighbors, others were face down in the feeding trough, gorging
themselves. Others slept in place, pulled back in their hutches slightly so they can rest their
heads on the padded ring. Yet others were zoned out, slowly going wall-eyed with boredom.
The whole room was softly lit, a neutral, golden twilight. Shifts were randomly spaced. No
fluffy knew what time it was, and concepts beyond âdayâ and ânightâ generally werenât spoken
of. The thin, fluffy-centric ambient music was dull even by their standards. The only things
here to engage a fluffy was eating and talking, which they did prodigiously.
The small readouts of the scales in each cage were never noticed by the shitpigs. Tyrone noted
down the ones ready for slaughter on the chart on his tablet, and left them to their
monotonous, empty life.
1530, Meat packing
Fat, semi-mobile fluffies were dumped in shallow plastic bins, and passed under a high pressure
hot water spray. The screeching protests rapidly fading to confused huu-huus and pleaded
questions. The workers racked the bins in front of warm air vents, letting the crippled
fluffies writhe inside, unable to do more than sit up weakly, forelegs quivering with the
effort.
One tried to reach out for Simon as he walked past. Simon was a gourmet butcher, proud of his
french training, and he gently took the fluffyâs hoof. For a brief moment, the fluffy smiled,
then Simon pulled its foreleg down and snapped it against the edge of the bin, wrenching the
ankle down until bone protruded from the fluff.
The fluffy screamed, and Simon grabbed it by its lower jaw, swinging it high overhead and
smashing it down on a butcherâs table. Loud cracking sounds from split ribs accompanied
additional, agonized screeches.
Simon danced, spinning around to the far side of the table, so every fluffy could see what was
in their future. He seized the fluffyâs fat, useless limbs and stretched it out spread, the
screaming growing more agonized and unstable. A butcherâs knife was drawn with a keening ring,
coming down four times, removing the fluffyâs marshmallowy hooves.
The audience of fluffs were screaming, horrified, shitting and pissing all over themselves, but
unable to turn away as Simon began to sing Paganini, the pool of blood spreading under the
sobbing, shuddering fluffy.
Simon smiled, a splatter of blood over his face and smeared on his teeth. âMy lovely meat pigs,
would you believe the amount of work that goes in to making you taste so, so fine.â
Jaws hung open as Simon began to fill a syringe. âWe used to take your voices so you couldnât
talk to each other, but we found that if you made friends, if you felt empathy, when one
suffered, it made the rest taste oh so good.â
âAnd now,â he said, looking into the syringe, the pale blue fluid catching the light. âThe
ultimate garnish. Iâve always wondered what neuroinflammitories felt like.â
He glanced down at the sobbing, immobile fluffy. âIf you survive, please tell me. None of them
have.â
He injected the fluffy in the scruff of its neck.
Silence.
The fluffies in the pens watched as the hoofless, broken fluffy wordlessly began to breathe in
shallow, short, hitching spasms, its corpulent neck craning backwards, eyes rolling up as its
mouth opened, cracking its own jaw.
Then the sound of pure agony escaped from the fluffy. A roaring, screeching, unearthly
suffering was released in the butcherâs shop as the nerve endings swelled inside their
passages, throughout the entire fluffyâs body.
The audience of fluffies covered their ears, shutting their eyes against the sight. They
writhed, screaming in sympathy, trying to stop the sound of suffering but it kept coming.
Eventually, the violated fluffy expired, lungs releasing the last scream, frozen, contorted.
Simon shuddered, smiling, looking over the fattened fluffies. Most were profusely sobbing and
trembling. Several were catatonic. A full quarter had derped.
He and the other two butchers put on some opera and dragged out fluffies to work on. Some
struggled, others simply hung by the scruff of their necks. The screaming would begin again, at
a more normal level, as the fluffies were skinned alive and disembowled, a minimum level of
organs left in to sustain their life until the horrific end.
Finally, they were parted into cuts, the refuse dumped for recycling in the fertilizer
production barn, and the choice fluffy meat blast-frozen and racked for transport.
1800, Outside the kitchens
Tyrone was in the pit, barbecuing fresh fluffy meat with gusto next to Samuel, the
gardener. The dozen and a half people working the farm were gathered with their working
fluffies, variously engaged in huggy-tag, attempting to work out how to tap a keg, conversing
over the Old Oaken Bucket game, and more.
Doc went around the periphery, lighting old fashioned oil lamps, and hanging the most recent
one he had restored, rescued from a junk store in Spencer. He glanced aside and saw Lucky shyly
press her cheek against the cheek of one of the herding fluffs.
She saw his look, and froze. Doc smiled soft, and Lucky smiled back, pressing in more to the
stallion and giggling with him.
It would be nearly ten when the crew returned to their apartments, more than a few in a drunken
haze with their fluffies.
And tomorrow, the cycle would begin again.