Phil felt like God had taken a dump inside his brain.
The last couple of days had been awful. First, his friend and business partner had told him he was “losing his shit” and needed to “get a fucking grip” or would “end up in a psych ward”. Then, when Phil had argued, Jake had chased him out of the store with a baseball bat. He’d kicked out Wanda too.
Phil had stormed off home, thinking of all the ways he would make Jake pay. Cash was a problem now, and with no money and no drugs left, Wanda had split. The lack of drugs also meant that the inevitable crash was upon him. How long had he been awake for anyway? Two, three days? It was hard to remember.
Phil had laid down to sleep, but no sleep would come. When he closed his eyes, all he saw was snakes. And when he opened them, all he saw was the ceiling of his shitty apartment. His mouth was dry, his eyes were sore and his stomach was clenched in knots. Eventually, at about 10am the next morning, he was able to sleep. He woke up at 6pm, managed to eat and drink a little, then went right back to sleep for another 16 hours.
Now he was feeling miserably depressed. Why did he always fuck everything up? That Alicorn deal had got him five grand, and he’d blown it all. Even his tattoos looked shit now, as he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. Phil decided to make himself a cup of coffee, and tried to work out what the fuck to do with his life. Then he noticed the red light flashing on his answerphone. It was an old style tape recorder from like 1987 or something. Wandering over to it, he sat down to drink his coffee and pressed play
“BEEP - Hey Phil, this is Jake… look, I’m… sorry about last night. I’m jetlagged and grouchy, and you, well you were acting pretty crazy. And what was with that hooker? Anyway, Phil, a whole bunch of people have been in here today buying snakes and fluffies. Business is great! Are you there? Look, call me man.”
Well, at least business was good, Phil thought.
"BEEP - Phil, its Jake. There’s a whole bunch of fluffies in the back alley, asking for Sketties and Snake Daddy. I’ve told them its your day off. They’re singing SONGS man. Some kind of Sketty Land song that their mummahs saw on FluffTV. Come on man, pick up the phone… Phil? OK, call me back.
Singing songs? Phil thought, that was a new one. He remembered the Sketty Land show, how did that song go? It was like 3 years ago now, and some fluffies could still remember it?
“BEEP - Phil! They brought ALICORNS, two of the motherfuckers, babies, but good colours, in a fucking trashbag. They says its a gift for the Snake Daddy. I’ve got a buyer coming right over, I’ll split the cash fifty fifty bro, call me back.”
Alicorns? Phil thought, seeing dollar signs. His idea to demand that any munstah fluffies be brought to him had been one of his best so far.
“BEEP - For FUCKS SAKE Phil, pick up the damn phone! There’s like a hundred fluffies outside, demanding spaghetti! I had to order take out for them. The fucking delivery guy nearly had a heart attack! They were demanding that some fluffies be allowed in to Sketty Land, or they said they’d sorry poopie my store front. I’ve put about 20 of them straight into the deep freeze, because, fuck, I don’t know what to do man, I…”
Phil stared at the ansaphone, which must have cut out for some reason. He walked into the bathroom, splashed some water on his face.
“I’m the mother fucking SNAKE DADDEH!” he cried.
Over the next few weeks, things went a little crazy.
Firstly, Phil started back with his Snake Daddy routine, preaching more sermons to the fluffies. They didn’t find any more Alicorns, but Jake said the trade in snakes and snakefood was thriving too, and that he had made more money in one month than he normally made in six. Jake took on the business side of things, talking to the bank about his idea for a Reptile & Fluffy World store franchise, and phoning friends and colleagues to see who wanted in.
Phil had to bribe animal control not to round up and take away all his fluffies. He needed a new location, so he found an abandoned warehouse near the docks, but not too far from his fluffy congregation, and set up preaching there. Jake let him borrow the store van, which was perfect for transporting reptiles and fluffies to the promised land.
Jake had said that one problem with their plan was if any of the fluffies they sold escaped and started to tell the truth about Sketty Land. But then Phil remembered that fluffies could be “reset” with an electric shock about 50% of the time. OK, so the other 50% of the time, they were dribbling vegetables, but that didn’t matter as they could still be sold as slightly less amusing snake food. They didn’t risk it with the Alicorns though, as they were too valuable, so there was always the risk that one might get away and tell all. Then again, the Alicorns were likely being sold on to rich collectors in another part of the country, or more likely, in the US.
Another problem was that the snakes and lizards were fucking full. Jake solved this by taking several fluffies to the local zoo, and throwing them into the Alligator enclosure. Jake had cussed him out for that, saying that this was about the money, and not about being a Snake Daddy, or even actually killing the fluffies if they didn’t have to. For Jake, it was just business and amusing Snake food, but for Phil it was so much more.
Then, the bank loan arrived, and two of Jakes business partners paid him $35,000 each to open up REPTILE WORLD franchises. Jake cut Phil in fifty-fifty, just like he promised, and the pair of them were making a bunch of extra money supplying fluffies to the new stores. The fluffies had only found one more Alicorn in the last month, but she was pure white with a rainbow mane, and PREGNANT. Phil dearly wanted to feed her to the Alligators, “Alicorn, meet Alligators!” he was thinking, but the buyer Jake found gave them $20,000 for her, which he gladly split fifty fifty with Jake.
By now, there were about 300 fluffies turning up each night, and Phil was taking about 30 to Sketty Land, which was basically all he could fit in his van. There was fluffy poop all over the warehouse, and Phil was slightly worried that there might be a riot or stampede. Feeding the greedy fuckers was becoming a bitch, and Phil had to hire a food van and man (well, actually 3 men) to prepare vats of the stuff in advance. He also got one of the Herd smarties, for the congregation was now becoming a massive herd, formed of several smaller ones, to sort things out.
Firstly, he made the Smarty tell the fluffies what to do, so that he didn’t have to organise all of that shit. Bad poopies were a definite no-no, and would result in NEVER getting into Sketty Land. Phil told the Smarty to make sure that they only pooped over the side of the docks, and into the water. Inevitably, a few of the fluffies fell to their deaths, leaving stranded babies on the dockside, weeping for their mothers, but bad poopies would not be tolerated.
That left the weeks worth of shit that was already on the warehouse floor. Again, bad-poopies meant NO SKETTY LAND, so after a particularly rabid sermon, Phil made the fluffies lick the floor of the warehouse completely clean. It was amazing! These fluffies would do pretty much anything he told them to! The power and the feeling it gave Phil was almost sexual it was so intense. Following particularly good sermons, he generally went to visit some hookers to relieve the tension.
Then he had another bright idea. Going on the internet, he found torrent sites with rips of the old Sketty Land FluffTV show, which had been cancelled and banned 3 years back. He got a projector, the type boring business men use in meetings, and hooked it up to a laptop which he’d bought specially.
The fluffies fucking LOVED it! It was like proof to them that Sketty Land was real, as they had no idea that the fluffies and little girl owners were acting, or even what acting was. Songs from the show reminded fluffies of songs their mummahs had sung to them as babies, and several fluffies had actually started to cry.
By this point, Phil had hired Wanda as a permanent assistant/priestess/sexual relief. She dressed all in white, and seemed to share his love of feeding fluffies to reptiles. He got more tattoos, this time from the best artists in the city, and this time, he was a bit more careful with his drug intake.
Inevitably, there were the occasional unbelievers. One fluffy said he knew the Snake Daddah, from Grandma Jeanie’s Fluffy shelter. He started telling lies about the Snake Daddah chopping fluffies legs off, and feeding them to snake munstahs, but before he could say much more, Phil declared him an “UNBELIEVER!” and ordered the herd to stomp him to death or there would be NO SKETTY LAND. The speed with which the mob obeyed his order and pulverised their fellow fluffy with their hooves was kind of scary, but Phil would tolerate no opposition to his plans.
Jake had agreed deal to open two more Franchises, and they had to take on additional staff to transport captured fluffies out of town. Things were looking good.
