CANS 2 ELECTRIC BOOGAHU

BottledBeggar, November 6, 2016; 23:09 / FB 42053
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CANS 2 ELECTRIC BOOGAHU
By Bottled Beggar

"Fuck!" Austin Barnes simply exclaimed as the foal in a can that he held slipped from his hands. He fumbled, reached to grab the cylinder and its falling occupant, but missed, and the can hit the pavement and swiftly rolled away out of reach, not stopping but indeed gaining speed as it came to the decline of the long dip the road took.

He instantly knew Paul was about to start shouting and quickly lied “Don’t worry, don’t worry, little guy’s fine. Besides, we’ve got some spares here.”

That seemed to be good enough for Paul, and so it was good enough for Austin and he got back to work, quickly letting the blunder slip out of his head. No getting the can back now and besides, the little shit rats were a dime a dozen from the mill.

-

Mere minutes into life, the fluffy foal had been thrust upon a world that had no intentions of being gentle. Squeezed from its limbless, heaving mother's body, it was carried from what should have been the start of many warm huggies and tasty milkies and pretty mummah songs down a cold, frightening chute in the factory farm of its birth. Down it slid, shivering and peeping in confused fear until it came to a stop in a great mass of other newborns, most still wet with amniotic fluid and all scared and cold and hungry.

The foal reached out its weak legs in an instinctive bid for huggies, and though there were no soft nice hugs, it was able to find and grasp the squirming, nearly hairless body of another foal, which helped ease its fear, though it wished greatly for milkies for its rumbling stomach.

The short moments of comforting stillness were again interrupted when long, rubbery things grasped the foals and pulled them apart, lifting and carrying them away in terrifying flight until the foal was again set down on a hard, but dry and smooth surface. Its questioning peep as to whether its mummah was finally here was met with a rough poke by the rubbery meanie thing which pushed it over and all around, spreading its legs and prodding its tummy and sides. It chirped in distress at the (honestly not all that) rough treatment but almost as soon as it had begun, the inspection had ended and the foal was swiftly pushed along the surface until suddenly the ground again turned to that unpleasantly familiar slope of a chute, one of two such chutes that its descent down meant it had been deemed worthy of continued existence. Many other foals would be sent down the other, where only swift and bloody death at the impassive blades of the factory grinder awaited them.

As it was, the chute did not offer any improvement of comfort. Down it slid until it was placed on a frightful conveyor belt, disorienting with movement, and was carried along with a spaced line of similarly confused and unhappy foals. Their peeps and answering cheeps to each other brought little comfort to the foal, who squirmed, trying to find its feet so it could get off the mean path it had been thrust onto and find its mummah. Before its great escape could be enacted however, the very same mean rubbery things that had accosted the foal earlier returned, but instead of contenting themselves with poking, seized the foal in a tight grip that the foal already knew was not huggies.

*EEEEP* it squeaked in alarm, convinced that the thing, sure to be some horrible foal eating monster, was about to eat it. Instead, the foal's wide opened mouth was suddenly filled by the presence of a thin tube. Before the foal could emit a questioning peep, a drop of liquid dripped from the end of the tube, spreading across its tongue in a wave of bland, watery sustenance. The foal instinctively swallowed, and the grumbling ache of hunger in its tummy lessened. The foal's lips closed around the end of the pipette and made to suckle, but as soon as it appeared, the strange not-milkies thing was pulled from its mouth and the foal was suddenly rotated so that it was belly-up. A rubbery thing pressed down on the foal's belly and unwillingly it made poopies. Mere minutes into life, the foal knew that poopies weren't supposed to be made like that, but it was unable to control its immature bowels.

The small feeling of comfort from the small measure of nutritious formula and waste expelling was immediately replaced by a new sensation, that of something pressing and then going IN to the foal's anus. The shock and pain prompted terrified "*EEEEEEEPS*" as the panicked fluffy juvenile thought that the bad poopies it had made were trying to get back inside. The invasive presence stretched and there was a click. The presence against its anus retreated but the thing that was inside still remained, uncomfortable but no longer explicitly painful.

The next few minutes were a disjointed jumble of movement, the feeling of being picked up and suddenly dropped onto a soft, spongy pad surrounded by curved, cool, slippery walls, the sound of a cap being sealed, and then everything was still.

All around, the foal could hear lots and lots and lots of other foals, some chirping, some peeping, some crying even. The walls of the can blocked the foal from finding and giving hugs to the other babbehs, but it was better than being alone with the rubbery thing monsters.

A constant faint growling and a slight swaying could be heard and felt, and although the foal was altogether still very concerned and wished very much for his mummah, it was altogether quite exhausted and was able to be lulled by the sounds around it into a light nap.

-

The can that dropped from Barnes' hands hit the ground with a thunderous klonk that shook the foal from its sleep, knocked from its place on the sleeping pad that cushioned it just enough to avoid injury. The cylinder did not stop there however, and taken by the slight slope of the adjoining sidewalk next to the Foal In a Can machine and the truck parked next to it into a roll of moderate speed.

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!" scree'd the foal, taken from a pleasant nap to a world of spinning, terrifying chaos. Eyeless, it could only feel as it was knocked about and rolled around in its can, smacking against the walls of the container, giving the foal many bumps and bruises.

The can rolled upward, slowing, then crested the small hill and plummeted down an even greater decline. Screeching and wailing as it went along on the wild ride, its frantic cries for its mummah to save her baby went unanswered.

How long the can could have followed the sidewalk, we shall never know, for a cracked section of pavement warped the rolling container and its cargo's course, and it turned sharply off the path, and slipped through the yawning mouth of a drainage grate. And on it rolled through these sewers, old and rarely beholden to man, beast, or even sewage, foal quite nearly on the verge of making sickie wawas.

The can's momentum was finally halted by a pile of muddy bricks, which halted the can with a slight (to human perception) bump, knocking the can up so that it sat propped against the obstacle nearly diagonally.

Settling into a film of grime and mud, the can was soon effectively glued in place.

Dizzy and bewildered and afraid, the foal shifted out of the small ball it had curled up into.

"*Peep?*" it peeped, asking for not the first, and not the last time if its mummah was near. No answer, peep or otherwise came, and it settled for trying to unscramble its brains from the wild experience.

The foal realized belatedly that the presence of the uncomfortable meanie thing that had been giving his poopies place owwies was gone. By chance the shaking and tumbling had managed to dislodge the rectal plug which had been inserted. The foal sniffed and realized that he had made scaredy-peepees. It peeped in disgust and moved away from the smell of the waste. One small hoof brushed the plug that sat at the bottom of the can with it, and feeling its familiar shape and unpleasant smell, the foal peeped in miniscule wrath and kicked at the plug.

Can wedged into the floor at an angle, the foal could touch the sleeping pad that ran up the wall, but the angle was too steep for the foal to remain at rest anywhere but at the bottom of the can. Uncomfortable and still shaken, it began to peep and chirp once again, repetitive and expectantly, waiting to be rescued from its unhappy first day of life by the mummah it was sure was coming.

The foal could smell the not-nummy milkies place, remembered the way that small drop had helped just a little with its tummy hurties, and the memory made its innards grumble pitifully. It began to shuffle and scoot up the incline. At first it was not so bad. The sleepies softie gave the foal's clutching legs some traction and it was able to inch its way upwards. It got about three quarters of the way up before it lost grip and slid with a frightened peep back down to the bottom of the can, bumping its rear against the wall of the can. There it remained for a few minutes, chirping plaintively at the milk nipple, hoping vainly that its mummah waited just out of its limited field of perception and would sweep it up in her arms and give it the sweetest milkies and softest huggies. When no such deliverance manifested, the foal began the slow struggle back along the minor incline, pausing frequently to chirp and whine and jut out its head, lips sucking on air trying to locate the nipple. The foal only managed to clamber a few sorry milimeters before its grip failed and it found itself again at the bottom of its can where it had started.

Stumpy front legs flailed, marshmallow soft hooves pounding against the pad, back legs kicking at the wall of the can. Randomly, it would brace its legs against the surface and attempt to leap up the incline, mouth gaping, emitting a shrill "*EEE* *EEE* *EEEP*!", only ever covering an inch or so before sliding back and returning to the senseless thrashing. The can echoed and wobbled just the slightest with the sound and force of the foal's tantrum. On and on it screeched and kicked and whined, until after one particular jump attempt, it fell backwards and rolled down, landing upside down and bumping its nose against the wall and exhausted, miniscule heart hammering, could only lay and gasp for breath in the hot air of the can until finally it fell asleep.

-

Curious eyes peeked out from the gloom.

"Dis whewe fwuffy heaw widdwe chiwpy noisies. Am widdwe chiwpeh babbeh hewe?"

A young fluffy mare peeked her nose into the chamber, warily stepping along. A second fluffy, a stallion, lingered in the shadows, shivering and glancing about with wide, fearful eyes.

The second fluffy whined "Nu wike down hewe speciaw fwend, it scawwy dawkies and nu smeww pwetty. Fwuffy wan gu back to nestie."

The mare ignored his whinging and took a cautious step forward, sniffing-useless gesture as it was on account of fluffies' poor sense of smell and the surrounding stink-and glancing about. "Nu be scawdies babbeh, it am gud fwuffy and speciaw fwend. Wan huggies and mebbe be nyu babbeh fo fwuffy?"

She stepped forward, eyes drawn suddenly to a slight glint of light upon the can. She shuffled forward a few steps, and squinted, then gasped.

"Wook, it AM widdwe babbeh!"

"Whuh? Whewe?" the mare trundled forward, the stallion stumbling along behind. They came to stand over the can and the sleeping foal within, snoring and cooing.

"A pwetty widdew babbeh fo mummah!" the mare let out a happy sqeal and fell back on her haunches, clapping her hooves. Speciaw fwend, yoo can be a daddeh eben aftuh meanie hoomin mummah and meanie vet huwt no-nos!"

The male pressed forward, looking eagerly at the small form. "Bigges happies! Fwuffy am daddeh nao! Hewwo babbeh, am nyu daddeh! Wuv yu su wots!" the two strays clutched each other in a joyous hug.

"Babbeh is sweepies, buh wet's wakies so gib huggies and hewwos an take babbeh back tu nestie tu sweepies."

"Otay. Wakies, babbeh, mummah hab huggies and miwkies fo yoo!" Her snout bumped the transparent can walls and she snorted with surprise.

"Wut wong speciaw fwend?" The mare again tried to collect the sleeping foal and was blocked.

"Sumtink keeping mummah fwom babbeh."

The stallion circled the can, sniffing and prodding it. He sat with a face scrunched with concentration and suddenly bolted back upright. "Aha! Babbeh am in nu-see hooman ting, wike sweeties wawa bottwe!"

"Speciaw Fwend su smawties! Buh, how get babbeh out uf ting?"

The male began to fiddle with the can, clambering and pawing with clumsy hooves. "Jus nee fin way tu open wike nummies. Hewp Speciaw Fwend!"

The mare complied and soon the two of them were jointly wrestling the can, trying every method their minds could conceive of to open the container. The shaking and grunting of the fluffies finally broke through the veil of sleep and the foal began to rouse, half hearing and smelling the sound and odor of other fluffies "Hnnng, dis am hawd, su swippe-AH!"

In all of their jostling, the pair had managed to dislodge the can from it's position, and thus freed it slipped quickly out of their grasp and began to roll down the slope of the sewer. Both fluffies leapt after the can, and the mare even managed to run for a few paces before tripping and falling, reaching out with a vain hoof after the can as it vanished into the absolute darkness further on.

"Nuuuuuuuu! Widdwe babbeh, widdwe babbeh! Come back tu mummah! Nu gu to dawkies, huu huu!" she turned to the stallion and cried "Nee get babbeh back!"

But the stallion stared into the yawning black and shivered before stepping back. "N-nu Speciaw Fwend. It tu dawk and tu scawy. Dew might be munstahs and bad wawa in dewe. Hab to gu back, babbeh am gone, huu."

It took time, and there was a lot of pleading and crying and arguing, but eventually fear of the dark unknown won out and the mare relented, two fluffies shuffling and wailing about their lost babbeh as they followed the path up and out of the sewers.

-

The foal had been dreaming that it sat on the soft fluff of its mummah as she rocked and sang and let him drink the bestest milkies ever. Something began to cut through his mummah's lullaby, it sounded like the voice of fluffies. He began to stir, immediately feeling heart hurties for having to leave the bestest dream and immediately set upon by the awful tummy owwies, but he was curious and confused. The voices became clearer, and indeed it seemed to be two fluffies.

"-Fwuffy am daddeh nao! Hewwo babbeh, am nyu daddeh! Wuv yu su wots!" New daddeh? A new daddeh for babbeh? Then that must mean that the other fluffy, the mare, was his new mummah! Finally, he would get out of the awful housie with its meanie dummeh milkies place and get lots of huggies and love and good sweet milkies! It's heart soared with happiness as it heard the fluffies trying to free him and he gave a joyful peep.

"Mummah, Daddeh, wan huggies an' miwkies an' wub," he wanted to say "Huwwy!" he wanted to shout.

Then, he was spinning again. Just like the terrifying events of earlier, and the dark blind world was again a chaotic jumble of spinning, shrieking, and rushing stale air. Many forevers the foal was borne further into the dark underworld, which stretched on seemingly forever. But the true depths of the tunnels were not to be plumbed this day, as the floor leveled out, and the can came, finally, to a stop.

These new tunnels, while no deeper beneath the surface, were much older than the area previous, lined with long running pipes carrying ancient water where no one knew exactly. The floor was worn, grown over in patches by a slimy, smelly mould or fungus. There was no wind, not even the breath of a mouse.

After some while, once the world stopped swirling, the foal realized that the can was level, and it occurred to its rudimentary brain that now the nipple would be entirely accessible. Chirping frantically, it waddled blindly towards the smell of formula, not so much finding the rubber nipple as crashing into it. Its lips clamped down ferociously, and it began to greedily suck. Formula, bland and a little cold, filled its mouth and ran down its throat, suckled voraciously in spite of the lack of flavor. A full five minutes or so it sucked without pause, focused on nothing but sating its hunger.

As its stomach was filled, the rate of consumption slowed and the foal released the nipple with a slobbering pop. It began to sigh in satisfaction until a sharp cramping pain spiked through its guts, making it gasp in sudden agony.

Too full tummy hurties! "*Chirp!* *Chirp!* *Peep!*" The foal needed huggies and burpies to make the owwies go away, but no helping hooves came to him, so he resorted to hugging himself, massaging his bulging guts.

Each breath came as a painful gasp. Tears welled up in his eyes, and after a while, the foal began to squirm in various positions, desperately seeking deliverance.

One such shift accomplished what he had been attempting, and a great torrent of gas belched from the foal's mouth.

Tummy full and pain abated for now, the foal sighed a deep sigh of relief and immediately drifted into sleep.

-

In time, after countless cycles of feeding and chirping and blindly excreting, matured, the foal's eyes opened.

"*Chirp* Mummah?"

Freed of their concealing membrate, small bleary eyes blinked and shifted around.

His eyes saw no mummah. No toys or fluffies or humans or any good things. There was only the dim twilight of the sewer, with coarse, slimy walls and floor, and beyond that simple darkness reigned.

"*Cheep* Scawy!" He huddled in his can, front hooves pressed against his chest where his heart thumped with fear.

"Huuhuu...Nu wike, babbeh nu wike dawkies...Ahuuhuuu. Nee huggies fo scawdies." Somehow, he had managed to believe that with his see places finally open, the calls and pleas that had been so consistently ignored previously would finally be answered. He waited, trembling, and the seconds of answering silence stretched on.

"Pwease?"

But there was only the gurgling of the pipes.

Fluffies have only the most basic of ability to tell the passage of time, and in the sub-street gloom, the days would pass almost without distinction. Among its imprinted genetic vocabulary were words for the sky and sun, and thus even the young foal knew such existed. On some days, especially bright, sunshine crept fingers of illumination through the gaps in the ceiling, bringing a wan visibility to the chamber, but otherwise, the foal lived in darkness.

He was alone. Once there lived sewer fluffies in these deep tunnels, shunned and lost, the most wretched of ferals, who haunted the cold passages and eked out short, unhappy lives. By chance there had been enough net population growth for the stink of their existence to become noticed in the world above. Exterminators, brandishing terrible lamps that burnt the shadow soaked eyes of the sewer fluffs, and cudgels and wands of pressurised poison, swept through the tunnels, beating and dousing the troglodytes. There was no care taken even to remove the carcasses, which were simply sprayed with fluffy-specific corrosive solvents and left to liquefy and settle into the very sludge that sustained the mossy growths. Rats too avoided the passage, finding neither foods no suitable nests in those reaches.

For many hours the foal alternated between frightened chirping and crying out for huggies, and suckling at the nipple. At least now he could satisfy his tummy hurties, even if the milkies weren't very nummy, and that helped a little. In time he peeped and cheeped himself to his limit and slept, shivering still a little from fear and determinedly hugging against the sleepies softie at the bottom of the can.

He dreamed of being a walky-runny baby, zipping around on fast strong legs playing huggy-tag with his mummah and daddeh, squealing in delight as his parents caught and held him, rolling around on soft belly fluff. He cooed and nuzzled his mummah, bathing in their loving praise of how big and smart and strong he was. He nosed around, seeking out a nipple, letting his nose fill with the scent of poopies.

The foal woke with a startled snort, the stench of feces strong and everywhere, opening his eyes to see a spread of thin shit before his face. He recoiled in disgust but the stink followed him, even as he scrambled to the opposite end of the can. He must have moved in his sleep right next to the poopies. Shaking his heavy head, he noticed that his snout felt sticky. The realization struck like a physical blow: he'd gotten the poopies all over his face!

"Nuuuu, babbeh hab poopies on smeww pwace! Nu smeww pwetty. Gu way poopies!" the foal half-scrubbed, half-batted at his snout frantically, as if his own shit could be scared away like an errant fly. Unsurprisingly to anything but a fluffy, after a few moments he noticed to his horror that he had accomplished naught but to spread the filth to his front leggies, where the stink not only remained, but the poopies defiled the fluff. "Nuuuuuu! Babbeh hab poopies on pwetty fwuff!"

The foal wailed and flailed, accomplishing no more than spattering the walls of the can some.

"Huu, babbeh nee cweanies mummah, babbeh nee wickies and huggies an make poopies gu way! Mummah! MUMMAH!" his mustered shout barely echoed even in the cavernous sewers and again there was no reply. The smell stayed with him no matter where in the limited space of the can he went, and it began to make him gag, so he tried to hold his breath, but found it only gave a few moments of respite, and the problem remained. He had to get rid of the poopies somehow.

"...H-huuhuu, babbeh nu wan num poopies, y-yuckiest ebah...Nu wike."

He licked and licked, and although he could not remove them completely, he managed to fade the fecal coating to lesser stains. Blinking away tears, he crawled back to the nipple and tried to purge the foul taste from his mouth with thin formula before feeling a familiar gurgling pressure in his gut. He frowned.

"Nee make gud poopies nao. Good poopies nu be meanie tu babbeh!" he moved to the far end of the can, not very far in the grand scheme of things, and hunched and dropped a load, just a little larger than the ones before, and turned away from the shit piles with distaste. Before he had opened his eyes, his waste had been of no consequence besides relieving the pressure in his bowels, and though he did not give it much consideration at the moment, even now some small part of his small brain tickled with worry about how much space would be left for him if he kept making poopies.

Moving back to the sleeping pad, he closed his eyes and lay on his back, trying to bring good dreams. After some time, he heard a strange shuffling and scratching, a muffled touch he recognized as something brushing the outside of the can. He remembered the sound of two fluffies making similar noises, trying to open the meanie can and give him huggies. His eyes cracked open, believing his new mummah and daddeh had found him again.

If he had not just defecated, what he saw would have made him shit in terror.

A great centipede, a demon-like entity just as singular as the wayward foal can, nearly a foot and a half long, was draped across the top of the can, clutching the sides with dozens of powerful legs. Murky red across its many segmented body, the centipede's huge head hung directly above the foal, massive mouthparts rasping against the can walls. Twin clusters of pitch eyes, clustered groups of seeds of pure darkness gazed down at the smaller creature

It was a primordial dichotomy, the fierce, tough, merciless arthropod loomed over the weeping, soft, helpless fluffy. Were it not for the glass, the foal's death would have been long and agonizing.

Sobbing with fear, the foal jammed one forehoof into its mouth, sucking fiercely, before spitting out the limb, mouth full of a fresh wave of the feces that still coated the bottom of the hoof, gagging and gasping, choking on its own disgusting saliva.

Unable to subvert the protection of this wretched creation of man, and perhaps even feeling in its unknowable heart too much contempt for the pathetic fluffy to make it suitable prey, the centipede sloughed off of the can, turning its long back on the fluffy and continuing its path through the darkness. It departed, the last being the fluffy foal might encounter in the tunnels.

Indeed from then on, the only other signs of life this foal would come to know would be sounds faintly heard from the crack in the ceiling where the only light ever came, sounds that sometimes, if he listened hard enough, sounded like the voices of humans.

He would listen for a very long time.

-

Nearly up to his shoulders the foal was buried in a mound of poopies. Further from his body they had dried and hardened, but up close to him remained a mucky sludge of shit and piss. There was no moment that his nose wasn't filled with the wretched stench, and it was very nearly all he could do to to keep his head above the layer of filth during the day, but when he slept his chin inevitably fell into the mess and more often than not he awoke with the evil taste of shit in his mouth. Several times he was roused suddenly to find himself suffocating after his sleeping head sank into the mound, gasping and gagging out the poopies that blocked his throat and crying until his tears ran in filthy rivers down his cheeks.

His mane, like his tail, which once could have been a pleasant purple, was stained greyish black with crusted poopies. His scalp itched constantly and the hairs were brittle. He would place the top of his head against the ever closening roof of the can and rub in an attempt to relieve the itch, but this only ground the ugly prickly strands into his skin, worsening the itching. In some spots this had spiraled until sores had been rubbed into the flesh. Most of these were raw and scabbed over, and itched worst of all, but in other places the wounds would not heal, tainted by his own filth they had begun to fester.

His legs grew less and less mobile by the day. As space became scarcer and scarcer, he found that he could do very little else but wriggle slightly and uselessly flex his increasingly atrophied muscles. Though he knew no life outside of the hellish can, a part of his brain knew that he was meant to run and play in fresh air that smelled good and around pretty things with other fluffies that he could use his legs to hug. The thought tormented him. Between the constant nausea, hunger, and the pain of his cramped legs, his body longed desperately for the touch of something, ANYTHING besides poopies. He would have even settled for even the urine stained pad which had been the only soft thing in his life, even if it smelled like peepees. But it had long been buried.

In time the poopies hardened enough that even wriggling became nearly impossible, and the walls of the can were tight as hugs but not at all as nice. He'd grown far beyond what a foal in a can was meant to. Even those miserable foals in the machines who crossed their expiration date were retrieved and put out of their suffering long before this point, or else died of starvation or from their own poopies killing them from the inside. Indeed, had the foal not managed to dislodge his plug, he would have passed from a ruptured colon long before. But now, reared on formula and poopie nummies, and a constant flow of suffering, he had grown as large as the can could let him. Back legs and rear pressed firmly against the back of the can, the foal's face was wedged against the milk nipple, made ragged by frequent, desperate attempts to glean nourishment from something other than shit. One of his eyes was pressed hard into the nipple, and after a time of pain and flashing sparks, saw nothing at all. But he could not move his head without subjecting one eye or the other, and so remained as he was, trying to preserve his one functional see place.

Occasionally tantrums and panic attacks seized him and he screamed and sobbed and heaved weakly against his prison, sometimes managing to shift enough to thrash madly, usually just banging his face against the walls of the can, until he grew exhausted or sick enough that he sank back into the poopies and returned to the reality of his misery.

Now the foal, old enough to nearly be a full grown fluffy if not for the stunting effects of his home and malnutrition, simply cried. He cried all day, weeping and weeping and wailing, not even able to chirp. He cried until hunger forced him to choke down hard poopies, sobbing as he chewed and gagged on the stale excrement, and then cried more until he fell asleep, resting his head on poopies softened to sludge by his tears. If he was lucky, his sleep was dreamless, for good dreams of the good things he could never have only worsened his torture. When he awoke, he cried more.

Before he grew too weak to continue, his tantrums had brought further doom upon him. The banging and thrashing of his sickly skin fostered sores and cuts, which were set upon by bacteria. Three of his four legs had broken, and due to atrophy and decay he did not even realize. His underbelly was scraped nearly free of skin, and had it not been effectively glued to the bottom of the can, would have emitted a stench of rotting flesh as like to make men sick. Worst of all, his eyes had gone. One was shriveled and dry, necrotic from days upon days of pressure. But the other he had managed to nick during a tantrum, and infection was quick to invade. The eyeball was swiftly rotted away, leaving a wet, reeking crater of soggy black foulness, and the wretch was left to his hell without sight. After the days of utter terror from the complete darkness had settled, he became anxious, and near mindless with feverish illness, he had chewed a hole through his cheek, and that too was made short work of, with half of his face a gaping ragged gash, exposed bone ringed with a circle of weeping pus.

And still he cried.

Hardly the peak of quality and design, foal cans were acceptably resilient, and this can was especially so. But production contracts went to the lowest bidder, and in time all cheap things must come to an end.

The end of the can, where in the best case it would be opened and the foal taken into the hands of a caring owner, put under the pressure of the growing fluffy finally gave out. With a pop, the container was open. The fluffy's body, which had been long squished, decompressed a little, just enough to push out a little of the compacted wall of feces that filled the can near the fluffy's backside. The wad of shit fell out, and like a fetid turd itself, the fluffy slowly slid back, and finally out of the can. It lay on the ground, hacking out rattling, phlegmy breaths. The one leg that remained in a semblance of intactness, twitched, and dragged itself across a few inches, as if to feel its first touch of the outside world. It was hard, cold, and wet. The leg did not move again.

The fluffy's mind was gone, ground down and eaten away by a lifetime of misery until it was a stinking, rotting husk, with just a tiny, weak spot of sentience remaining. All that remained of what had been a fluffy, was a miserable wretched pit of horror and sorrow.

Too broken to live, but too alive to die, the fluffy remained, wheezing and waiting, waiting. Death would take His sweet time, until after another day the foulness of the fluffy's blood became too much, and the creature finally died.

--

Periwinkle had been a brood mare for three months. After a good year with a bright faced little human girl and her older brother who had bought her as a friend for the kid after a difficult divorce, she'd succumbed to the urge to breed. Despite the brother's strict warnings, she'd sought out a male and become with tummy babies. The good times were over. The brother took her away and brought her to the scary mill, where she'd had her leggies torn off and her body locked up. In time her tummy babies came, and one by one they were taken away, sent down baby eating chute monsters without her ever getting to see a single one. And then came more special huggies, and more tummy babies, and then they too were taken away. And on and on it went, an eternity for a fluffy's sense of time.

Each and every one of her babies would be taken away, and she would never get to hug or sing to any. But the human mister that had taken her legs said that all of the babies would go to human daddies and mommies.

Tongueless, Periwinkle allowed the thought to help with her saddies, and she began to croon and gurgle behind the feeding tube lodged in her mouth. Trying and failing to sing for her lost foals.