Charlie woke up.
His breathing was ragged, and his head felt like it had collided with a brick. His mouth was dry as a desert and felt rough and furry. When his cough seized him, he felt like he was going to throw up. Then, he did.
“Uuugh…” he groaned after the acidic foulness had escaped. His brain and stomach were both rebelling against the tyranny of his drinking. Mornings were the worst part, but at least it helped him to forget.
Charlie rolled over, his sleeping bag and pile of cardboard boxes didn’t make the wooden pallet he had been sleeping on any more comfortable. The fire had died down to smoking ashes during the night, and the cold autumn morning was sucking the life out of his bones. His back ached from his sorry excuse for a bed. Charlie needed a drink.
Reaching over for his vodka bottle, Charlie rolled over again, to lie on his back, staring at the white and empty sky.
“Wha?” he asked God as his hand failed to find the vodka bottle. “Aw hell.”
Charlie slowly sat up, and looked for the bottle. It wasn’t next to his bed. It hadn’t rolled under the pallet. He looked over at his companion, Ben, who was still sleeping soundly, and snoring slightly. Charlie just knew the dirty bastard had stolen his vodka. Rage grew inside Charlie’s head, just like the bile inside his guts. He reached for an empty to throw at the rotten bastard’s head, but the empties were gone too.
“Wha?” he asked again, but God remained silent.
Charlie blinked and looked around him. All of the empty bottles were gone, including those they had lined up on the wall of the abandoned children’s playground over the past few weeks. In their place was a pit full of broken glass, and several dead fluffies, all horribly lacerated, and all wearing little white robes.
“What the actual fuck?” Charlie asked his creator, “Do you think this is funny Lord? Why do you do this shit to me?”
On the other side of the fire, Ben continued to snore.
Charlie unzipped his sleeping bag, and hauled his aching frame out of the relative warmth of the bag, and into the cold Toronto morning. Some more wood for the fire, that should help. And some food.
But some dirty bastard had stolen his fire wood, and his potato chips. Also, someone had burned a fluffy corpse on the fire. Charlie could see its ash white bones staring at him, horned skull grinning. Charlie just knew that the fluffy was happy and with God now. Probably sitting on a cloud and eating spaghetti, while Charlie continued to live and suffer.
“Why did you make me live another day Lord?” he asked the heavens, but they did not reply.
Standing up, Charlie moved his aging body around, and stretched. He’d find some food, then something to drink, then he’d…
“Huuu huu huu…”
Charlie winced, somewhere a child was crying! There was broken glass all over the playground, but maybe some kid had been playing here. Charlie’s heart ached at the fear that a child might have hurt themselves on all the glass. And it was all his fault! Why? Why am I so bad? I try my best but I always hurt people, Charlie thought to himself. I’m a no-good rotten low-life.
“Huu huu!” the crying continued.
His self-pity was temporarily overwhelmed by his concern. He hobbled through the playground, looking for the hurt and crying child, wandering past bodies of… more dead fluffies. Now that he thought about it, this morning things were fucking weird. Where the fuck had all these fluffies come from? And how the fuck had they all died violent deaths? Have I done this? Charlie thought. Suddenly his mind was filled with visions of himself, high on lighter fluid, torturing fluffies to death. No Charlie, you’re not that sick, get it together man.
“…whaaaat the fuuu… What happened here? Is that…? What is that?!” Charlie did not know why God had woken him to such carnage. It looked like some kind of fluffy war had happened here. And the white robed fluffies had lost.
“Huu huu!” the cry came again.
Charlie turned the corner, and saw that a wooden rope bridge had collapsed. In the debris below, was a dead fluffy, and next to it was a crying fluffy with a broken leg. The fluffy has sky blue fluff, and wearing a little white hooded robe.
“What?” he asked again, “A fucking fluffy? I thought you were a kid from all that huuing.”
“Huu huu huu… Fwuffy hav wowstest weggy owwies… pwease nice mistah, pwease hewp fwuffy. No wan fowevew sweepies, and hewd hav wunned away.” The look of utter misery on the poor beasts face nearly melted Charlie’s heart. The creature had clearly been bawling for hours, but with no mom or dad to take care of it, it would die out here in the Canadian fall. The creature looked in despair at it’s snapped and ruined leg, bone protruding from its fluff, then back up at Charlie’s face and wailed.
“Pweeaase hewp fwuffy! Huuu huu huu… huu huu huu… hhhuuu huu huu huu huu…”
Charlie’s head pounded, but beneath his dishevelled exterior, he still had a good heart. His head was still rebelling against last night’s vodka, and the fluffy’s wailing was not helping one bit in that regard.
“Okay! Okay! Just quit that crying. Charlie 'll help ya fluffy.” He told the pitiful creature.
“W-weawy? Chawwie wiww hewp fwuffy?” the wounded beast asked him, disbelief apparent on its little furry face. Damn but these things did sound adorable.
“Yeah,” said Charlie, looking the other way, almost embarrased to be seen helping the creature. Hunching over, he slowly picked up the crying fluffy, and opened up his jacket. He held the creature close to his chest, being careful not to move its mangled leg too much. Then he zipped up his jacket, so that just the fluffy’s head was sticking out.
“There. That’ll keep ya warm little man,” Charlie told the fluffy. “Say, what happened here anyways?”
“Da meanie Wed Fwuffy an Bwown Fwuffy did huwty fwuffy’s hewd…” was all the fluffy could manage.
“Well,” said Charlie, looking again at the bodies of fifteen or so fluffies that littered the playground, “Look’s like you were the lucky one eh?”
“Fwuffy nu am wucky… fwuffy hav owwies! Huu huu huu…”
“Old Charlie’ll get ya fixed up,” Charlie told the miserable fluffy. “Hey, do you gotta name fluffy?”
“Fwuffy nu hav name. Am onwy fwuffy,” the fluffy huued.
“Well, that ain’t right. All creatures need a name. Even animals. Howsa 'bout I call you Lenny?” Charlie asked.
“Wenny?” the fluffy asked, not quite believing it had been given a name. “Wenny wuv name! Fankyu daddah!”
“Oh no, no, I’m not your daddah,” said Charlie plainly, the expression conjuring up memories he tried to keep at bay. “Just call me, Old Charlie. That’s what everyone else calls me.”
“Owd Chawwie? Fwuffy WUV Owd Chawwie!”
Later that morning, Charlie took the fluffy to get some medicine. He took the roll of old bills out of his shoe, and bought a bottle of Old Turkey from a liquor store. He would have preferred some cheap Polish vodka, but the Old Turkey was on special offer.
“Here Lenny, get this medicine inside ya,” Charlie told the fluffy, pouring some of the cheap and gak inducing whiskey into the bottle lid, and holding it to the fluffy’s lips.
“Gak!” the fluffy cried, just as all first time drinkers of Old Turkey were apt to exclaim. “Fwuffy nu wike medicine Daddah!”
Charlie sighed, “I know Lenny, but you need it. It will make the owwies go away, for a while.” It worked for Charlie’s owwies, after all.
“Uh… otay daddah…” the fluffy said, reluctantly drinking another cap full of the fiery cheap liquor. Charlie’s heart winced when it called him daddah, but the poor fluffy was injured and traumatised, so he let it go.
“F-fank yu Daddah… um Wenny mean, Owd Chawwie…” the fluffy slurred. The small dog sized beast would get drunk quickly, he reasoned.
“So tell me fluffy, why were those mean fluffies fighting you guys? And how come they managed to beat you all? And what’s with all the white robes?”
Charlie listened as the typsy fluffy told the story, pausing only to accept cap full’s of “medicine” from Charlie. As he listened, he took swigs from the bottle, feeling the fire in his belly, and the warmth spreading up his throat and into his brain. It numbed the pain that would otherwise live there, having taken up residence there many years ago, and made him feel at ease with the world, and with God, for a little while. The babbling fluffy seemed easier too, and hadn’t cried or squealed with pain for quite a while now.
“Hangon, wait a minute,” Charlie said, as some part of the fluffy’s story, which he had only been half-listening to, suddenly snapped into focus. “You mean to tell me you’re one of those Snake Daddy fluffies? That believes in SkettyLand?”
“Yes!” Lenny told him, slurring the words as the alcohol took affect in its tiny body. “Wenny am bestest toughie in da Snake-Daddah Hewd. Wiww num sketties, an go to sketty wand!”
Charlie frowned a looked down at the little creature, huddling for warmth in his jacket. The poor little bastard had been sucked in, like all the others.
Somehow, the fluffy must have understood the look of incredulity on Charlie’s face.
“Uhh…” the fluffy slurred, “Do Owd Chawwie nu beweave in Sketty Wand?” the poor blue fluffy asked.
Charlie didn’t quite have the heart to break it to the fluffy that Sketty Land was a pile of bullshit.
“Uh… I dunno about sketty land, but would Lenny like to have some soup?”
“Wat am Soup, Owd Chawwie?”
“Soup,” Charlie explained, "is really good food. Especially when its cold out.
Charlie spent the rest of the day with the fluffy he had nammed Lenny.
First, he took him to a nearby soup kitchen. The college girls that volunteered there thought Lenny was adorable, and were pleased that he had adopted a pet. Lenny liked them too, and loved the soup. Some of those girls would be about the same age as… No, Charlie didn’t want to think about her. Not her.
Lenny sat on the table, and drank an entire bowl of soup. He wasn’t as starving as the other ferals, due to all the spaghetti he and the rest of his cult had been getting. Eventually, Charlie and Lenny said their goodbyes to the volunteers and other customers at the soup kitchen, and went back outside.
Then, the went back to the playground, but only to pick up Charlie’s shopping cart full of cans, as Charlie didn’t want to stay there anymore. Somehow, a fluffy had managed to get on top of the cart, and had shat all over several of the cans. Lucky they were only going to be melted down. Charlie reckoned the whole cart would get him about twenty dollars. Luckily, Ben hadn’t taken it, and was nowhere to be seen.
Later, they amused themselves by throwing cheap bread at the pidgeons, and occasionally eating little bits themselves. Lenny laughed at the “birdy munstahs” and thought it was hilarious to see them fly and peck at all the bits of bread. Charlie found the fluffy’s innocent happiness a real joy, and soon found himself laughing along with it.
Lenny still winced every time his mangled leg touched something though, so Charlie slowly fed him more cap fulls of Old Turkey, until the fluffy passed out.
“Chawwie?” Lenny asked, just before he fell asleep, “Am Wenny a mummah-fuckew?”
“What?” Charlie exclaimed, “No, no you’re not a mother fucker. Whoever said that to you was an asshole.”
Lenny sighed in content, “Dat am gud. Wenny nu wan be mummah-fuckew… Wed Conan am asshowe…”
Charlie wasn’t sure what the fluffy was talking about, but it looked adorable as it drifted into an Old Turkey induced sleep.
An hour later, Lenny reached the doors of Doc’ Ron’s shelter for abandoned fluffies. He’d seen people drop fluffies off here before, and new that the veterinarian was a total hugboxer, who would probably save a feral fluffy with a broken leg.
“Hey,” Charlie said to the fluffy, who was fast asleep in his jacket, “Hey, wake up lil fella. We’re here.”
“Wuuuhh… whewe am Fwuffy daddah?” the drunken fluffy asked him.
Charlie twinged again at the fluffy’s words, but it was not Lenny’s fault.
“We’re at the shelter Lenny. These guys will take care of you.”
At the mention of the word “Shelter” the sky-blue fluffy suddenly stiffened.
“Wha? Wenny nu wike shewtew daddah! Dey am mean to fwuffies!”
“No, not this one lil fella,” Charlie explained, “They take care of fluffies, even hurt ones. They might even fix your leg, or at least stop it from hurting eh?”
“Fix weggy? Make owwies go away? O-otay den daddah,” the fluffy said warily.
The girl at reception had a look at Lenny, and agreed to take him in. She said that Doctor Ronald wasn’t there at the moment, but should be in later that evening. She thought the fluffy’s leg would probably have to be amputated, but said that Doctor Ron could do it easily, and that Lenny would be OK.
“Well, I suppose this is goodbye then Lenny,” Charlie said, and smiled at the fluffy, who was sat on the receptionist’s desk, beaming with Old Turkey cheer.
Lenny’s face suddenly dropped.
“G-goodbye? Daddah Chawwie gonna weave Wenny hewe? Nu wuv Wenny nu mowe?”
“Aww its not like that Lenny, its just that…” Charlie began.
But Lenny’s face said it all. Suddenly, he looked as emotionally broken as he had been when Lenny had found him early in the morning, crying in despair with his horribly mangled leg.
“Huuu huu huuu… Daddah nu wuv Wenny nu mowe… huu huu huu…”
Charlie’s heart twinged again, making him feel half sad and half sick. He turned to leave, and tried to walk out quickly. It would be better that way.
“Nuuu! Pwease daddah! Nu go away!”
No! Please daddy! Please don’t go! the memory cried.
Charlie turned to face the fluffy again, tears welling up in his eyes.
“Daddah? Daddah wiww stay?” Lenny begged him.
“O-okay Lenny, Old Charlie’ll stick by ya.” Charlie declared, feeling a lump in his throat, but making a firm decision.
“You? You want to keep the fluffy?” the receptionist girl asked. She’d be the same age as Charlie’s daughter, by now. For once, this thought made Charlie feel better inside.
“Yeah… yeah I think I will keep him,” Charlie said, “You think Doc Ron can fix his leg though? I er… I don’t have much money…”
“Sure,” the girl said, smiling, “Ron fixes strays and ferals, so I’m sure he can help fix Lenny here, especially as you’ve decided to adopt him. It’ll be one less fluffy for us to feed and home after all.”
“Owd Chawwie wiww adopt Wenny? An be nyu daddah? Weawy?” the half crippled blue fluffy asked.
“Yeah… yeah I will,” Charlie said, wondering what the hell God had intended for him when he woke up that morning, surrounded by dead fluffies.
“Fankyu daddah! Wenny WUV you!” the fluffy declared.
