Bitter: Morning

It's really not the same anymore.

They always say the same things over and over again.  Please don't hurt me.  Please give me my babies back.  Please give my legs back.  After so many generations, I kinda figured they'd learn something new.  Oh, yeah, there are the ones that are a little smarter, the ones that have experience with pain.  They just cry, a wobbly kind of wheeze that sounds like 'huuuu huuu'.  They're the ones without ears, or with one eye, or pushing themselves around because they've got no legs.

I only kill them to put them out of their misery.  The rest die because they have something I never did.

It's always the ones with kids that set me off.  You'd think that would be more of a problem, given where I work, but those moms are always suffering, one way or another.  Okay, I slip up now and again, but I don't usually touch her stock.

Outside of those walls, though...I've lost track of how many happy fluffy families have died by my hand.  I guess that's why I've got arms to die for.  Lots of practice swings.

Time to start the routine again. “Good morning, kids.”

“Yay, mommy!”

They love me unconditionally, my execution stock.  Occasionally, they'll ask why one of them leaves with me to go to work and doesn't come back with me at night.

“Mommy, miss Bwuebeww!  Whewe go?”

“She was a bad fluffy and made mommy sad.”

They all gasp in unison.

“Bwuebeww dumb!  No wan' bad Bwuebeww!”

These things are terribly easy to manipulate.  Heh, Emerald is so big, she's about to pop.  I don't usually let them screw, but it's unavoidable sometimes.  It's been so hot for so long, now it's almost impossible to find stray moms with foals.  It's better this way anyway.  She's much happier than the average stray.

“Mommy!  Em'wal big!  Em'wal wuv babehs!  When babehs?”

“Soon, Em.  Soon.”

“Yay!  Wuv babehs!”

I can feel my eye twitch, but I hide it with a quick smile.  Time to feed the prisoners.

At first, my cousin – Lucy, not Sarah – thought I could use a pet.  I'm allergic to dogs, and don't really care for cats.  'Fluffy ponies!' she said.  Hypoallergenic, and they can talk.  They can tell you what they need, what they want to do.  Perfect for me.  Like with most things, though, she saw with her heart, and not her brain.  I still remember my first fluffy pony.  I named him Apple, since he was red and green.  He was a pegasus, so he liked to run.

He was the most annoying fucking creature I have ever encountered.  I'll give him one thing, though; he sure made it easy to vent.  I chalked the first few times up to training, because he loved to shit everywhere.  He's the reason I even got the bat in the first place.

'No wan' shiny sowwy stick...'

That lasted about a week.  During the end, I'd beat him because I felt like it.  When Lucy found out he had died, she got me another one.  This one was a girl.  Given my experience with Apple, I treated her with open disdain...but she was a unicorn, and that meant she was quieter.  For a while, we had a sort of normal relationship.  She'd play with her blocks, and I wouldn't beat her with my bat.  Hell, I even managed to train her to a reasonable degree.  I only named her after a month of being sure she wouldn't piss me off enough to kill her.  I called her Snow.  Things were fine...until she got pregnant.

When she gave birth, that's when it all went wrong, when I saw that these fluffy little bastards had that one thing I never did.

I didn't snap right away, but only after three mornings of opening that safe room door and being subjected to an assault of how much Snow dearly loved her babies, and how much her babies loved her.  That was the day I found out how far a foal could fly with a good swing.  Honestly, it wasn't the physical part of the whole thing that satisfied me; it was Snow's cry.

'Huuuu...huuuu...'

She had that thing, and lost it.  Now she understood.  I kept Snow, but she only lasted five months more; a shattered wreck of a fluffy pony that shuffled through life, a lot like me.  As dumb as the little fuzzballs are, she never forgot the babies that weren't there.  Call it programming, like Sarah; call it love, like Lucy.  It doesn't matter.

It was suffering.  Suffering that I could inflict on something with virtually no repercussions at all, like a video game made flesh.  I had never felt so powerful.  So...happy.

Snow died of her own accord.  I let her out to play, and she refused to come back in, so she got to fry in the desert heat.

I got another fluffy pony myself, although they were, as a concept, becoming less pets than disposable stress balls that shit themselves.  This time around, I got three of them, one of each type.  As happy as Snow had been before I hit her kids out of the park, these three were happier together than she ever was alone.  They made a little herd, and I treated them very well, as long as my mood held up.  It was fascinating, watching them interact.  I don't even remember their names, but they're the ones that got me my job.  You can blame Lucy for that one, again.  She thinks I'm doing better, so she tells Sarah I'd be great for a small breeding business.  I don't think what Sarah does now is quite what Lucy had in mind.

“Mommy!  Wan' pway bwocks?”

“Not right now, Steel.  Go play with Ivory.”

“Okay!  Pway wif fwiend!”

“Good boy.”

Fucking sun pouring in through the windows.  I almost wish this weren't my day off.  Let's see what's on TV...

The female of my original little herd got knocked up too.  I was expecting the father to give more of a shit than he did, but he just cried and asked why I was hurting the babies.  Not his babies.  How fucking disappointing.  The other male didn't want to play with me anymore after that night, and the female actively tried to run away.  I helped her out with that by throwing her over the backyard fence.  I forget what I did with the father, but the other male became my method of venting work-related anger.

“Bwocks fun!  Em'wal wan' pway!”

How sweet, they're carrying blocks over to her.  Ivory's taken up the role of attendant, rolling her around wherever she wants to go, or helping her eat and shit.

“Babehs wuv bwocks too!” she giggles.

I bet she never talked to me like that...

I can only tolerate watching them laugh and play for so long; that's why they usually spend most of my weekends and off days in the safe room.  I only give them time outside during meals, just enough for them to think I really do love them, which isn't a high threshold.

“Mommy, wan' huggies!”

Pick up Steel, give him a hug.  Make sure the rest of them see it.  That's right, smile.  Mommy loves you very much.  Set him down, and he goes waddling back to the herd, babbling inanely.

Ugh.  Emerald will not shut up about her future children.  I need some air.

“Back to the safe room!”

“Okay mommy!”

Ivory rolls Emerald ahead of the group and into the room.  I bring up the rear.  Once they're inside, they start talking about missing me before I've even shut the door.

“Wuv mommy!  Miss mom--”

Shut the door before Ivory can even finish, then listen for a second to the muffled conversation behind it.  The word 'ball' is said a lot; they've already forgotten I'm gone.

Fucking goldfish have longer attention spans.

Maybe I'll go to the park today.  There's almost always a fairly intelligent feral herd hiding out in the woods there.  I've gotta clean the bat before I can use it again...oh, I know.

I'll use the shovel instead.