President Quimby sat in the Oval Office, long after his advisors had left. He sat, his palms flat on the table where many others had sat before him, deciding the fate of the nation.
But Quimby couldn’t decide on anything.
Being the President sucked.
It had all started out so well. Elected to the highest office in the land! Making liberal hugboxers cry! Hurling hundreds of fluffies into bonfires! Promising to build a wall between the US and Canada!
Well, it hadn’t worked out so well. It turned out that building a wall that big actually cost a fuck ton of money, and congress and the senate seemed to block him at every turn. Budget deficit this, they said. Aging population that. Invest in renewables this, they said, the oil is running out… the military is underfunded… a trillion dollars a year in interest payments… climate change… yadda yadda yadda…
Quimby was sick of the sight of the smarmy faced bastards.
China is laying claim to the South China sea… they said.
So? Isn’t the South China sea part of fucking China? He had asked.
No, it turns out that those fuckers were taking oil that rightly belonged to Vietnam. Vietnam of all the fucking people. And now, those damned dirty gooks were making noises and shooting at Chinese ships. The Chinese, for their part, were shooting back. Turns out that the Vietnamese were pretty good at sinking Chinese ships though. The nations were on the brink of all out war.
Can’t we just let the bastards settle it between themselves?
No, the ASEAN pact means that twelve other nations will side with Vietnam, including Japan and South Korea, which means the US has to get involved.
Japs, Chinks and Gooks? When the fuck would it end? And why did he have to get involved? Why did everything have to be America’s problem.
He’d responded by giving the Chinese 48 hours to stand down, and moving the 1st and 5th Carrier fleets into the area, as well as a bunch of subs.
But now, now, those Chinese mother fuckers weren’t backing down! Saying, as Quimby had said right from the fucking start that the South China sea was part of China. Hence, their oil, hence, Vietnam was the aggressor, hence, the US is an aggressor too, hence, the US has to leave, or there would be Repercussions.
Quimby was not entirely sure what Repercussions meant. Neither were his cabinet, nor his generals, nor their translators, who spent a long time arguing about exactly what the Chinese had meant, in their statement which had been entirely in Mandarin. Was Repercussions actually the right translation? What did those Chinese motherfuckers mean?
Quimby was pissed off with it all. What was the point of being the most powerful man in the world if a bunch of peasants who didn’t even speak English could tell you what to do?
He’d asked his generals about sinking a Chinese ship or two, to show them who was boss. The generals had talked about the bastards militarising entire islands and using them as “unsinkable aircraft carriers”. Then, they’d said that even the couple hundred aircraft of the 1st and 5th fleets weren’t really much help when you were sitting on the bastard’s door step and they had over four thousand fighter jets.
Four thousand? Why the fuck hadn’t anyone told him this before he’d moved the fleets and issued the ultimatum? What the fuck was the matter with his generals.
He’d raged and fired a few of them.
For a moment, Quimby was tempted to reach for his Scotch. But no, he wouldn’t give those fuckers the satisfaction.
Then, he wondered about writing something ambiguous on Twitter. Let those Chinese motherfuckers wonder about the meaning of a made up word. Withdraw immediately or there will be serious Covfefe or If you do not withdraw by the deadline we will respond with Furious Bozdo.
That could work, wondering where the last word in particular had come from.
Quimby got up from his desk, and headed for the underground bunker. An hour or two of abusing his fluffies would settle his mood and relieve all the stress he was feeling.
He hoped.
“Quick! Fwuffies! Wun! It am munstah daddah!” a fluffy cried out to the herd in the shadows.
Quimby whistled as he walked down the cold stone steps, a bucket of vegetable peelings from the kitchen in his had. He always liked to let the fluffies know he was coming, as their fear and anticipation were part of the game for him now.
“Fluffies?” he called out, “Fluffies? Daddy is home…”
“Nuuu!” one squeaked, and he laughed inwardly as he heard several more wailing, whining and weeping at his approach.
Quimby flicked on the light, and an old flickering fluorescent illuminated the old bomb shelter with a wan white light, revealing a herd of twelve or so dirty and malnourished fluffies, along with a number of babies that changed daily as they were born, died or consumed by their starving parents.
“I’m baaaack.” Quimby told them, in his best horror villain voice. “And I have… nummies…”
Most of the fluffies simply hid or quivered with fear. But, as always, there were one or two whose hunger and natural pre-disposition to trusting humans meant that they couldn’t resist asking for food.
“Daddah bwing… Nummies? Fow fwuffies?” a pale blue stallion with a torn black mane asked him.
“Yes, lots of nummies. Whole carrots this time,” Quimby smiled like a snake.
“Nummies? Cawwots? Fow fwuffies? Weawy?” the stallion asked, with the smallest hint of the wide-eyed innocence he so loved to destroy completely.
“Yes,” Quimby replied, “But if you want to eat them, you have to play… a Game.”
“Nuuuu!” a nearby fluffy wailed, from inside a dog-eared cardboard box, “Fwuffy nu wike hide da sausage game! Daddah nono stick am too big fow fwuffy!”
Quimby sighed.
“No, not that game,” he told them. Not tonight at least. “Today we’re going to play a game called United Nations.”
“United… Nashuns? What game am dis?” the curious pale blue stallion asked.
"Well, said Quimby, placing the bucket full of carrots and vegetable peelings into the starving fluffies pen, where the scent of the food made the fluffies tummies rumble with hunger. “Its a game where you all have to be different countries, some good, some bad. Then we talk for a bit, and the good countries get nummies.”
“G-good, cuntwees?” asked the blue fluffy, “What am cuntwee?”
“Well, its kinda hard to explain. But if you are a good country, you get nummies.”
“Den fwuffy wan be gud cuntwee!” said the stallion, standing up straight and puffing out his chest with pride, “Den get bestest nummies for speciaw fwiend. Den speciaw fwiend make bestest miwkies fow bestest babbehs!”
“Yeah, thats great. You can be the bestest country then,” Quimby told the stallion, to encourage him and the others, while slowly stepping into their pen “You can be… America!”
The pale blue stallion gazed up at him with something approaching… adoration? God-damn it, no human being had looked at him since his days on the campaign trail.
“Fwuffy hab… name?” it asked him, “Fwuffy am… Amewica?”
“Yeah, you’re America! The bestest country!” he told the creature.
“Oh fanku fanku daddah! Fwuffy am name Amewica! Fwuffy am bestest Cuntwee!” the fluffy danced, and ran up to hug his leg before he kicked it away.
“What about the other fluffies? Are any of them good fluffies? Do they deserve to eat and play at being countries?” he asked America.
“Daddah fwuffy am gud, can daddah-fwuffy pway?” America asked him back.
Quimby peered at an older and weaker looking fluffy who carefully trotted up to stand next to his son. It had white fluff with a pale blue mane, and the resemblance was striking.
“Oh sure!” Quimby agreed, “This fluffy can be Great Britain.”
“F-fwuffy am Gweat Bwitain?” the older fluffy croaked disbelievingly, “Fwuffy hab name? Am gud cuntwee too?”
“Yeah… yeah, kinda a good country,” Quimby agreed.
Looking over at the battered old cardboard box, he kicked it, “You gonna come out fluffy? You wanna play?” he asked the inhabitant.
“Nu! Fwuffy stay in boxie. Fwuffy nu wan pway hide-da-sausage. Fwuffy nu wan daddah nono stick. Fwuffy nu wan cawwot in bung-hole again.” the box explained.
Ah. That fluffy, Quimby thought to himself. “Well, in that case, you can be France.”
“Fwance am gud cuntwee?” the fluffy asked curiously, still to afraid to venture from its box.
“No! France is nothing but a bunch of cheese eating surrender monkeys! France doesn’t get any nummies!”
“Huuu huu huu… Fwuffy nu wan be bad cuntwee,” the box huued to the herd, “Fwance am soo hungy… huu huu huu huu huu…”
“That’s the spirit!” Quimby said, rubbing his hands together. “Hey, its cold down here. Are you fluffies cold? How about we light a fire in the fireplace?”
Quimby left America and Great Britain arguing about who was the bestest, and who deserved the most food, while he found and lit an instant log, and piled a couple of regular logs on top of it in the fireplace. The cellar had been a bomb shelter in the 50s and had never been renovated, despite the cellars all around it being the most hi-tech imaginable. It was still well stocked with firewood, rations and gas-masks though, and Quimby liked to come here and play with his fluffies, in secret, when the trials and tribulations of the presidency were weighing on his soul.
For the next few minutes, he lured the rest of the fluffy herd, and even some of their babies out into the open, by throwing pieces of potato peel into the pen, which they quickly and ravenously devoured. He quickly named the temporary members of the UN security council - Germany, Mexico, and a couple of places he’d not heard about until last week. Then he named the others: Russia, Japan, Vietnam, and North Korea. And then finally China, at which point, the game started in earnest.
“But fwuffy nu wan be Chunees! Fwuffy nu am swanty-eyed bastawd!”
“You HAVE to be!” Quimby raged at the fluffy all of a sudden, “Someone has to be the bad countries. Or there will be REPERCUSSIONS!”
“Huu huu!” China wailed, always referring to itself as The Chunees “Da Chunees nu wan be bad Cuntwee. Nu wan Wepuwcussions. Fwuffy nu know what wepuwcussions mean!”
“It am mean cawwot in da bunghowe,” replied France, almost nonchalantly.
“But fwuffy nu am bad!” China wailed.
“It could be worse,” Quimby taunted China, “You could be like North Korea. What does North Korea get to eat?”
“Huu huu,” wailed the brown coloured fluffy Quimby had appropriately picked to be North Korea, “Nowf Kowea onwy get num poopies… Cos aww ova Cuntwees gib sanctions… Huu huu huu huu huu…”
“So, do the Chinese deserve any nummies at all?”
“Yes pwease daddah? But dewe am nu nummies weft in da bucket naow! Huu huu huu…”
“Well don’t just cry about it like a little bitch. Get some nummies from another fluffy you fucker!” Quimby told it, "Try getting some of Vietnam’s nummies.
China warily approached Vietnam’s pile of vegetable peelings, which Vietnam was quickly nomming down.
“Pwease Vietnam? Can Da Chunees hab sum nummies?”
“Nu!” Vietnam replied, a mouthful of carrot spilling on the floor, “Dis am Vietnam’s nummies, for babbehs!”
In the background, Vietnam’s emaciated and half-dead foals looked on in awe, no doubt dreaming about the delicious milkies their mother might soon produce.
“Nu!” wailed China, apparently far more feeble and pathetic than her name-sake country.
“Well dont just take no for an answer! Take some nummies!” Quimby told her, educating her in the basics of resource extraction and venture capitalism.
Quimby watched and laughed as China tried to beg, then steal some vegetable peelings, and finally resorted to kicking Vietnam on the nose before stealing some food as she wailed and fled.
“Hahah! That is it!” Quimby clapped, “Now who has more food you can steal?”
China looked over at America’s food pile, which was by far the largest and most impressive. China’s belly wailed with hunger.
“P-pwease Amewica…” China begged, approaching the much larger male, “Can Da Chunees hab some nummies? Amewica can shawe?”
America looked up from his food, swallowed, then stamped his hoof on the floor. Puffing up his cheeks, he told China where to go!
“Nu! Dis am 'Mewica’s nummies! 'Mewica awways get bestest nummies, cos 'Mewica am Bestest Cuntwee! Dat mean, when it come to nummies, it am awways 'MEWICA FIWST!”
Quimby wanted to dance with glee! He had never been so entertained by a fluffy turning smarty before, but watching America bully the other fluffies was the best thing he’d seen all day. To tell the truth it was giving him wood. He wondered where France had gone too, but he had long ago retreated to his cardboard box, eating his measly portion of lettuce.
Then, China did something that delighted and enraged Quimby at the same time.
“Mewica gib da Chunees nummies naow! Ow get WOWSTEST HUWTIES!” China raged, stamping her hooves on the ground, still red with blood from Vietnam’s nose.
America looked a little taken back. The smaller mare was squaring up to him, hear hunger and fear combining into a kind of desperation that might actually make her quite dangerous in a fight. It was not what America really wanted.
“D-daddah? Can Mewica shawe some nummies wib da Chunees? Chunees am vewy hungy…” America asked him.
“No! What did I tell you about America first? You get all the best food. The others have to fight over your scraps. Thats how it should be.”
“But daddah…” America complained, whining like a liberal hugboxer.
“No!” Quimby yelled back at him. “What do we say to countries who want to give us worstest hurties?” he asked the fluffy.
“Dat dey wiww get wowstest-wowstest huwties instead?” America asked him.
“Yes! So tell her!” Quimby replied.
America squared up to the smaller mare, looked down at her, and yelled at her plainly.
“Da Chunees gu way naow! Ow Mewica wiww gib wowstest huwties!”
Quimby was practically hysterical. For some reason, his mind was picturing tweeting this at the People’s Army twitter account! Let their politicians wonder about that one.
Then, China kicked America in the nose, hard enough to make it bleed, making him squeal and run away.
Quimby’s amusement turned instantly to rage. He stomped over to China, and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck.
“Bad upsies!” she said instinctively, but silenced herself when she saw the growing fury in his soul.
“Kick America will you?” He snarled, “Kick America? We’ll I’ll show you what happens to countries that kick America! Worstest FIRE hurties!”
Quimby carried the wailing and protesting fluffy out of the pen, and hurled her headlong into the flames of the nearby fire, which by now was roaring merrily. For a moment the fluffy was stunned, scrabbling to balance her hooves on the uneven and burning logs, slipping between them and standing on red-hot embers and ashes. Burning her sensitive hoof-pads. Then, her fur started to catch, and she finally realised what was happening.
“Nuu! Buwny-huwties! Fwuffy nu wan!” she wailed, before scuttling out of the fire nearly as quickly as Quimby had thrown her in it, flames licking at her fluff.
Quimby just snarled and kicked her back in again.
“Nuu! Daddah! Pwease! Da Chunees am sowwy!”
Quimby laughed this time, kicking the crying fluffy back into the fire again and again. Each time she fell, it took her a little longer to get out of the flames. And each time they embraced her, a little more of her fluff started to smolder, then burn, then suck the fat from her flesh like a candle wick. By the fifth or sixth time he kicked her back into the inferno, she was burning severely, and as the flames consumed her flesh, something deep within Quimby also fed.
“Daddah! Nuuuu! Buwnies!” the fluffy screamed. “Screeeee! SCREEEEEEE! SCREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”
Quimby picked up a nearby poker, and used it like a spear, impaling the fluffy back into the fire, which ravenously consumed her. Pinning her down, she wailed and screamed as her fluff burned and her flesh melted. She screamed and screamed until she could scream no more, and was merely a burning and bubbling corpse. Eventually, her eyeballs popped.
“Huu huu huu… Daddah am munstah daddah…” a fluffy wailed, “Why huwt Da Chunees? Wussia nu wub daddah nu mowe! Wussia HATECHU!”
Hate welled up within Quimby too, but it was a delicious kind of hatred. The whining and complaining summed up everything that he hated about fluffies, and everything that he hated about human beings. Picking up the poker again, he chased the weeping and wailing Russia around the pen, smashing each of his legs in turn with crushing blows from the poker, laughing and feeding on the fluffy’s pain and misery as he went, feeling laughter emanating from another place entirely, but making its way into the world as it left him.
“BOZDO!” he yelled as he smashed and crushed the fluffy, “Bozdo! Bozdo! BOZDO!”
Quimby had no idea what the word even meant, but it felt liberating to say it out loud after all the millennia, and he wasn’t about to imprison it within his subconscious any more. He skewered the weeping and crippled Russia on the end of the poker and fed his body to the fire, where the maimed fluffy screamed and wailed as the fire ate him too. Then he fed it North Korea. Then he fed it France.
“Haahahaha! You fuckers! DIE! DIEEE! DIEEEEE! All consumed by BOZDO!” A small part of Quimby’s mind wondered what the fuck he was saying, but the fires had let it loose on the world and their was no putting it back in its box now.
Quimby sat down by the fire and opened his bottle of scotch. He watched as the bodies of the four fluffies turned slowly to ash, and listened as the herd wept and wailed for their loved ones.
He tried to drink, but Bozdo didn’t want Whisky. Bozdo wanted death.
Quimby looked back at the fluffies, but knew their deaths would not be enough. He had to kill more, and soon. He wondered about driving down to a local shelter, getting an aid to buy the entire stock and skinning them all alive, but it was weak and he knew it.
He was the president of the United States and he was playing with fluffies in his fucking basement.
If only the mother fucking Chinese could be so easily burned.
But they can…
The only problem with the Chinese was; they could give worstest hurties back to America, along with the Russians, who were sure to join in. And the latest wargames always showed him losing most of California and the Eastern seaboard if things really went nuclear. The bastards.
Then Quimby remembered. California and the East Coast always voted Democrat anyway. If they were reduced to smoldering radioactive ash, he’d never lose an election, ever again.
Deep within Quimby’s soul, Bozdo laughed.
[Next story in the Jellyverse Saga] COMING SOON