ADHD sucks. Having to wait another week for my ADHD meds because of a technicality sucks more.
Here’s a pair of stories I started working on but am finding it difficult to continue. Perhaps interest/suggestions from comments might serve to help me focus on them. And if not, perhaps they entertain someone for a few minutes instead of just gathering dust in my WIP folder.
Lessons Learned
When the foal awoke, the world around it seemed no different to the world beneath it’s eyelids. It trembled within a void of midnight black, darkness enshrouding all like an oppressive curtain draped over the very world. The tiny biotoy shivered in fear, curling deeper into itself.
“Hewwo…?” it whimpered, in a voice so frail it was like the last smouldering ember of a candlewick burnt to the wax.
All of a sudden, a surge of pain erupted down its left flank, a surge that seemed to precede the whip-crack of the sorry-stick by a full second. The foal let out a startled cry, curling ever tighter as its bleating devolved into hushed whimpers.
“Nu nu wha babbeh do, bu’ babbeh sowwie…” it sniffed, covering its head beneath its hooves. “Babbeh neba do annie-fin wong 'gain.”
Another flash of pain, another whip-crack. To the tiny, frail foal in this dark little room, the sound was like a gunshot.
“Why huwt babbeh?” it sobbed, tears straining the fluff of its cheeks. “Onwy widdle babbeh. Onwy wan huggies an’ wub…”
“Lesson one.” intoned a voice, a deep, gravelly baritone that seemed to echo from all directions at once. “To want is pain.”
“Fwuffy no wan’ huwti-” CRACK
The foal was silenced by a third violent snap, and this time the pain exploded from its rump: A stinging, burning pain that lingered long after the initial shock had faded.
“You do not understand. You may, in time, if you last that long. And if you do, you will become something more than you are now.”
The terrified foal only buried its head deeper beneath its marshmellowey hooves, earning itself another lash from the sorry stick.
“Understand this, little foal. Life is pain. You cannot hide from it. You cannot run from it. No matter what you do, it will hurt. If you want to live, you must learn to accept it. Tell me. Do you want to live?”
The foal dared to raise its head, wide tearstained eyes searching the darkness, before venturing an answer.
“Yus.”
“Yes WHAT?” the voice demanded, and the crack of the stick came again, though this time the blow fell not on the foal, but on the ground beside it. Deciding it must have chosen the right answer, the foal mustered what little courage it had.
“Babbeh wanna wib-” CRACK
“AND WHAT IS LIFE?” demanded the voice angrily, punctuating each word with the crack of the sorry-stick. “WHAT IS IT TO WANT?”
The blows fell over and over, eliciting terrified squeaks from the runt.
“HUWTIES!” the foal shrieked, sobbing helplessly as lash after lash rocked it’s tiny, helpless form.
“Correct.” the voice comfirmed, as the sorry-stick continued its drumbeat upon the fluffy’s hide. “Now, learn to live.”
The nameless stallion raised its gaze, the lightless onxy voids that were its eyes focusing upon the fluffy that stood before it. Blood dripped from its forehead where the fluffy’s hooves had struck it, but it felt neither pain, nor fear. It had known worse hurt from the moment it could speak, and had long since grown accustomed to it.
“Dummeh fwuffy no heaw smawty?” bragged the fluffy that stood over it: A scarlet brute with a horn a shade darker than it’s fur, the deep red of dried blood. The smarty expected it to back down, to attempt to pull away, to complain, to ask why, but it would be disappointed. Instead the nameless stallion’s lips split into a smirk, an arrogant, defiant grin that seemed to mock the smarty.
“Is dat aww widdle babbeh got?” the nameless stallion chortled, making a choking noise that could have been mistaken for laughter. “Fwuffy gib you wun mowe chance. Den is fwuffy’s tuwn.”
The smarty’s nose flared with anger, and he immediately charged. Perhaps if he hadn’t been blinded by his anger, nor lowered his head to use his prized horn, he might have noticed the telltale glint of light from the nameless stallion’s mouth: the glint of a broken shard of glass it had scooped up in its teeth after being sent reeling from the smarty’s first blow.
The second strike never fell. Instead, the smarty charged towards his would-be victim, then cantered past him, swaying like a drunk. A red streak marked the edge of the shard of glass the namesless stallion clutched between his teeth, a red streak that would have had a sister on the throat of the smarty, if not for his crimson fur obscuring it. His eyes wide, the smarty opened his mouth, gurgling in a futile effort to speak, though the words never made it past his torn throat.
“Dummeh cheataw!” one of the smarty’s herd gasped, as the realization of what had just happened slowly set in. “Fwuffy say he wet smawty gib huwties firs!”
“Wesson fiwe.” the nameless stallion grunted around a mouthful of jagged glass, rounding on the herd. “Onwy wosers pway faiw.”
The glass had been a double-edged blade, and the nameless stallion’s own mouth dripped boo-boo juice where it had cut into him from the force of being dragged through the smarty’s flesh, but he paid it little mind. His daddeh—no, that man had never been a daddeh to him. But he had been a teacher, and his lessons, lessons written in pain rather than upon a blackboard, had equipped the fluffy with all he needed to survive, and indeed, to thrive, where no other of his species could have. Neither the cold times nor the abusers had taken him, though they had tried. And yet, that was all life had been to him up until now: Survival. Always his mind was on making it to the next day, finding the next meal, and his life had quickly grown empty, meaningless. Until now. For he had realized, even knowing the first of his teacher’s lessons, that there was something he wanted above all else. And as was his way, he had taken it.
“Ouh am fwuffy’s herd nao.” he said. It was not a question, but a statement, one his dark eyes dared any of them to challenge, though no such challenge came.
This was intended to be a story about a fluffy who underwent brutal conditioning at the hands of a man who was equal parts lashing out at a world that hurt him, and trying to instill the harsh lessons he had learned in the biotoy in place of a child of his own. The result was a fluffy with a marked mental fortitude compared to most, and the plot would have focused on his attempt to build a herd in his image. Strong underlying themes of legacy and memento mori, of the at times futile effort to leave a mark on the world that will persist after you’re gone. Scenes of the fluffy training his herd would have been intercut with flashbacks to his own brutal training, slowly revealing more about his ‘teacher’ in the process.
D4F: Doctor Dirac’s Discount Divergent Fluffies
It was a crisp spring morning, the chill of winter still heavy in the air, and Adam found himself strolling idly down the street, wondering what to do with himself. Of course, Adam was one among many such Adams, a countless number in fact, but this Adam is the one with which our tale began, so we shall refer to him as Adam A.
We shall never know what it was that found Adam A outside the quaint little shop that day, captivated by the small, squat building nestled between two much larger ones. Perhaps it was simple curiosity, or whimsy. Perhaps it was an inevitability, a foregone conclusion set in motion decades beforehand, a chain reaction that rippled throughout the world like a wave, countless actions and reactions triggering an inexorable sequence of causes and effects, all of which converged upon on that one critical point. Or perhaps it was the rock in his shoe that he stopped to remove, that stayed his feet just long enough for the garish, cartoonish letters of the shop’s sign to draw his attention.
“Doctor Dirac’s Discount Divergent Fluffies…?” Adam A read aloud, as confused as he was intrigued by the strange sign.
Adam A knew what fluffies were, of course: the cultural phenomenon had been as impossible to miss as the piles of their waste that had begun to fester in every alley. He’d been one of those souls fortunate enough to never actually encounter one up close before, though: no ‘Smarty’ had ever sought to invade his yard and claim it as their own, no feral had ever found its way to the leg of his pants, sobbing for a ‘New Daddy’. He’d only ever seen them from afar. As far as his opinion on them went, he was utterly ambivalent—he found them cute, though almost sickeningly so at times, and somewhat endearing, but tales of their misdeeds and misbehaviors had always overshadowed that appeal. Up until this point in his life, he’d never truly given any serious thought to adopting one as a pet. But something about the almost amateurish sign before him grabbed him, latching onto his curiosity like a starving foal to its mother’s nipple, and refusing to let go.
What the hell was a divergent fluffy?
He knew there was different breeds, of course—such as the recursive micro-fluffies, miniature miniature horses, which were even smaller than the cat-sized standard variant. He’d also heard of the sub-species, the ones with wings and horns, and even heard tell of some with both. But he’d never heard of a divergent fluffy.
Before he knew what was happening, he was pushing open the door to the humble shop, and stepping inside. After all, it wouldn’t hurt to look, would it?
The interior of the shop seemed strange, in an ineffable way Adam A couldn’t quite place. A curious, transient wrongness, that teased his mind like a word forgotten, or like the rock from his shoe, niggling at him in a minor, yet irritating way. Tall shelves lined walls that seemed just a little too long to match the building he’d seen from outside, though his mind dismissed it as a trick of the light, or of his own memory and lack of attention. Some were piled high with toys and pet carriers, others with bags of formula and kibble, but Adam A’s eyes were quickly drawn from them to the space in the center of the room, which was dominated by a series of mismatched cages, pens, enclosures, and cases, within which frolicked a number of, to his eye, perfectly normal fluffies. He took a few steps forwards, eyeing them with intrigue, when one in a cage to his left let out a sudden cry.
“SCREEE! WOWSTEST WEGGIE HUWTIES! NU TAKE WEGGIES!” the mare shrieked, and suddenly, before Adam A’s eyes, one of her legs detached itself of its own accord and fell to the floor, leaving her with a red-tipped stump. Yet before his eyes, the stump sealed itself, immediately healing over into a flesh-coloured bald spot.
“Poor thing.” a kindly voice mused from behind him, and Adam A spun on his heel to find himself face-to-face with an elderly man wearing a pair of rounded spectacles and what looked like a costume store’s idea of a lab coat. The obviously-fake ID badge pinned to his lapel announced him as ‘Doctor Dirac, FR’.
“I didn’t… it… it’s leg just came off!” Adam A stammered, still reeling from what he’d just witnessed, yet with enough presence of mind to realize what it must have looked like. He’d heard of ‘abusers’, too, people who got their kicks torturing innocent—and at times well-deserving—fluffies, and the last thing he wanted was this man, evidently the proprietor, thinking he’d been doing exactly that.
“Yes, I know, I saw.” Dr Dirac muttered sadly, before another shrill cry split the air, and Adam A whirled to see the process repeating itself before their very eyes, the mare’s other front leg detaching this time. The doctor moved over to the cage, pulling a syringe from several that lined his deep pockets, and unlatching the cage. With practiced ease he picked the fluffy up and slid the needle into a fold of skin on the back of its neck, withdrawing it without so much as a peep from the terrified creature.
“This should help with the pain, dear, but I’m afraid there’s nothing else I can do for you at the moment.” Dr Dirac cooed to the fluffy in a warm, soothing voice, and she quickly calmed, as much from his bedside manner as from the drugs he’d given her.
“Fank ouh, doc-tow daddeh.” she sighed, barely noticing as one of her rear legs plopped to the floor below, and the doctor eased her back into her cage.
“Quantum-entangled pair.” he told Adam A, as if that was sufficient explanation. “Abuser must have gotten hold of the other. Or one of those crazy ‘pillow fluffs are happy fluffs’ folk.”
“But her legs… they just came off…” Adam A repeated, the doctor’s words only further confusing him.
“Yes. I know. I saw. And you told me.” the doctor chuckled, his faded blue eyes twinkling with mirth. “Shall we get down to business? 15 dollars, that’s as low as I’m willing to go.”
Adam A’s eyebrow raised, the confusion in his face only growing.
“For what?” he asked.
“For the fluffy you are going to buy, of course. He’s been talking about you non-stop. In truth, it’s somewhat of a relief to have him off my hands. A chatterbox fluffy is enough of a handful, let alone a chatterbox tachyon-fluff.”
Adam A could only gape at the doctor, struggling to understand what was happening.
“Oh dear, I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? Forgive me.” he said, strolling off into the aisles, and gesturing for Adam A to follow. “Allow me to tell you about this fine establishment. I am Dr Dirac, owner, CEO, manager, and employee of the month. And our company’s purpose is simple. We take in divergent fluffies, and sell them, at a reasonable price, so they can find a good home.”
“And you’re trying to sell me one?” Adam A asked, pausing to watch two identical fluffies hugging one another in a cage he was almost certain had held only one a moment ago.
“No, I am selling you one.” the doctor said wryly, as if the matter were already decided and Adam A had no say in it at all.
“How do you know I’ll give it a good home. I’ve never owned a fluffy before.” Adam A countered. “I don’t have the first clue how to care for one.”
“I never said you would give it a good home.” the doctor corrected, again with that same mirthful twinkle in his eyes. “I said I would sell you one, and it would find a good home.”
Adam A couldn’t see the difference, and puzzled over it for a moment before writing it off as a strange sense of humor on the old man’s part, judging by the way the wrinkled corner of his mouth turned upwards.
“What the hell is a divergent fluffy, anyway?” Adam A voiced the very question that had dragged him into the store in the first place.
“In layman’s terms, I suppose the best way to explain it would be any fluffy that happens to be strange or ‘weird’ in some regard.” Dr Dirac explained matter-of-factly. “Oddballs. Curios. Bizarre fluffies.”
Adam A’s eyes fell on a curious, innocuous looking earless fluffy locked within a matryoshka of cages within cages, staring back out at him with pitch-black dots of eyes far smaller than those of the other fluffies around him, and he couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. Everything in here seemed weird to him, and not just the fluffies. He reached a finger out towards the cage, only for the doctor’s hand to intercept his.
“I would advise you stay away from that one. Quite dangerous.” Dr Dirac cautioned with a stern seriousness, tugging on his wrist with surprising strength for a man of his advanced age, and leading Adam A towards a larger cage nearby, a cage with what looked like a car battery hooked up to it. Within sat a blue ‘earthie’ fluffy with a red mane, and a matching tail that was wagging so hard it seemed likely to tear free and fling itself across the room.
“Hewwo daddeh Ad-am!” the fluffy gushed excitedly, “Petew am su sowwie daddeh! Nu mean to ged wosties!”
This was intended to be a lighthearted sci-fi story about a fluffy unbound by linear time: He could see the past and future as he could the present, and travel through time. The catch? He was a fluffy with a fluffy brain and thus a goddamn idiot, and also, this particular type of time travel used the multiple universes approach, so each time he jumps through time he ends up in a different parallel universe. He’s aware of this and is constantly trying to get back to the original universe and his original daddy (when not distracted by the things fluffies are typically distracted by, namely, everything)—as are countless other iterations of himself from other universes, with hopefully amusing results.