You thought I was gone? Well too bad. I am here to subject you to more bad writing! Unless you go back, in which case you won’t.
Anyways…
Marley was… well, he was Marley.
The 26-years-old man wouldn’t call himself a regular Joe, but he wasn’t exactly outlandish. Decently tall, if a bit gangly. Pretty slim, almost to the point of being called wimpy. His hair could be described as “burnished brass”, but it simply refused to stay down which, coupled with a patchy goatee of the same colour, kind of made him look (at least according to his friends) like a pothead. In truth, he had never even touched the stuff, alongside alcohol and cigarettes. Marley worked in a small office, doing nine-to-five like many others. Though he was far from being ecstatic about his rather uneventful job, he was rather content with how well he had bonded with his colleague.
So it was, that on a hot, sunny July afternoon, he decided he would take a dive in the small, in-ground pool that his grandparents had built way back when they still owned his small house.
Marley’s garden, in contrast with his home, was rather sizeable, though it had never been used for anything but the pool and a toolshed. The rest was essentially dryland, stretching for thirty or so meters before it started to merge with the wooded area behind it, or the neighbours’ properties beside his own.
After slipping into his trunks and flip-flops, he made his way towards his objective, only to stop a small distance from it, upon noticing something moving near it: a small, yellow form staring right into the pool. Without warning, it jumped in, causing Marley’s heart to skip a beat.
“SCREEEEE! HE-gurgle… HEWP! SABE BABBEH! WAWA BA’-gargle”
Closing the remaining distance quickly while grabbing the manual pool skimmer laying on the side of the toolshed, Marley eventually managed to catch the panicking creature, before getting it out of the net and laying it on the warm, sun-heated tiles. Upon closer inspection, the shivering, coughing and weeping mess of wet fur turned out to be a bright yellow pegasus fluffy foal, with a juvenile black mane and a matching tail. Once the creature had calmed itself down somewhat, it started thanking the human profusely for their timely intervention.
“F…fank’ou nice mista… 'Ou sa-kaff-sabe babbeh fwom meanie wawa! B-babbeh wubs 'ou!”
Marley was certainly pleased with himself for helping the small fuzzball, but there was something odd about what had just transpired. Thought he was far from an expert on fluffies, he seemed to recall the whole species shared a deep hydrophobia, so why had this foal done something so reckless?
“Say little fluffy, why did you jump into the pool? I thought you guys were scared of water…?”
“Weww… babbeh see udda fwuffy an’ wan’ gib huggies!”
What.
Looking into the pool, fully expecting to find a drowned fluffy staring at him, the only thing Marley saw was clear water and his own, faded reflection. Meanwhile, the wet foal had joined him at the edge. Pointing with a hoof, the fluffy happily chimed up.
“Dewe! See udda fwuffy? Dewe am udda hooman tuu! Hewwo udda fwuffy! Hewwo nice mista!”
Though it took a few seconds, Marley’s brain eventually clicked. The blasted fuzzball was talking to their reflections, and had previously jumped in to hug its own. Just how dumb WERE these things?
Groaning internally, he stood up and made his way to the toolshed in order to put the cleaning tool back where it belonged. He hadn’t made ten steps when he heard a loud splash, followed by more screeching.
“SCREEEEE! NUUUU! Nice mi-gargle… HEWP! SABE BA-gurgle”
That time, Marley groaned externally before sprinting back to the pool.
After another save and even more sobbing and trembling, the young man resolved to talk with the foal again.
“Huuu… fwuffy cowd, nu wike.”
“Listen, could you stop jumping in the pool? Thanks. Also, why are you here all alone?”
“Uh? Mummah teww babbeh tu find udda fwuffies ow hooman, bu’ nu teww wai.”
“Great. More of these suicidal critters lurked around”, Marley thought.
“And where is your mother? Is she here with you?”
“Nu. Mummah stiww am neaw twee-pwace oba dewe!”
Marley looked to where the foal’s hoof was pointing and sighed. It seemed his relaxing bath would have to be put on hold until he had found the wayward pegasus’ mother.
“Wait here, I’ll go look for your mother.”
“O…Otay.”
Making his way towards his house, Marley had barely managed to put the skimmer down, when he heard a familiar noise.
-splash-
“SCREEEEE!”
“Goddamn it.”
So, after rescuing the hapless foal AGAIN, putting it into a large, tall box, reassuring it that it was not a sorry-box, whatever THAT was, and wearing a pair of jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt, Marley was ready for the dangerous trek to the woods. Sweaty and longing for the promised bath, the man cursed his kind heart for having to walk around under the scorching sun. But when he eventually reached the trees, Marley’s blood ran cold despite the high temperature. For next to a large oak, laid a dead fluffy.
At a first glance, it appeared that the dead pegasus was indeed the foal’s mother, due to her yellow fluff and dark brown mane and tail. A more careful examination revealed a large gash in her left haunch, pus and rotten blood oozing from it, whether it was a wild animal or a hunter’s work, the young man couldn’t tell. Not that he had any intention to take a closer look.
Though hunting fluffies was obviously prohibited, it wasn’t unheard of hunt-related accidents involving the rainbow critters. Mumbling angrily, Marley headed towards the toolshed, knowing full well what he had to do.
After quickly checking on the foal, who had fallen asleep in the meantime, the man buried the deceased animal before finally getting the chance to cool down in his pool.
Later on, the foal recounted the story of how they’d ended up there. Apparently, if Marley had understood correctly, the pegasus vaguely remembered being asleep in its family’s nest when the mare had grabbed it, then it had been a series of cries, dog noises, human voices, screeching and so on. Its mother had walked for two days and nights before eventually stopping in the place Marley had found her. It seemed that she had never told the foal exactly what had happened, though the man could make an educated guess himself. After laying on top of her wound, likely to avoid scaring her baby, the mare had apparently instructed the small pegasus to “find other fluffies or humans”, before sending the foal on its way with the promise she would catch up after taking a nap, though the foal hadn’t quite understood why she was crying while saying that.
Thus, Marley had found himself unable to take the orphan to a shelter. Though he didn’t know much about fluffies, a friend of his ran a veterinary clinic for the rainbow animals and was more than happy to give him some pointers as well as schedule a date for the foal’s shots.
After a few weeks of the foal waking up during the night calling for its mother, heavily lowering Marley’s sleep quality, the small pegasus had eventually moved on. Whether it had merely forgot about her or actually accepted the fact she wouldn’t come back for them, Marley couldn’t say. His friend had assured him that it wasn’t rare for foals who lose their parents to “remove them” from their memory as a self defense mechanism, though the notion of fluffies actually coming to terms with their loved ones’ deaths was far from uncommon aswell. In any case, though the circumstances for their meeting had been less than favourable, both Marley and the newly named Fluffybee’s lives had become interwoven.
Sure, he had to get his land fenced in. Sure, he had to spend more time than he cared to admit explaining the young filly about how reflections worked. However, hearing his lively yellow pegasus greet him with her slightly grating, but mostly sweet voice every afternoon after a hard day of work, made it all worth it in the end.
Summary
Woowee. Boy has it been a long time since I’ve last written something. Though to be fair, I have hit possibly the largest creative block of my short writing career. I went through four or five other stories, always getting halfway through before running out of juice, constantly scrapping pages upon pages of work that never seems good enough. Until today, when inspiration struck in the form of a bee who had fallen in my pool. I have kind of a soft spot for the honey-making insects, so I scooped it up with the pool cleaning tool and set it down on the pool wall (mine isn’t an in-ground one sadly :P). I thought that would be it, before it literally jumped in the pool again. Cue me to the rescue once more. But AGAIN it jumped right back in after a short time. Rinse and repeat, until I finally had enough and set the damn thing on a railing away from the pool. And that’s where this silly little story comes from. Of course, I doubt the bee’s hive had been attacked by hunters and dogs, but hey, a little drama can’t (hopefully) be that bad.
