I shuffled down the side walk at a fast pace. One of my arms was sticking out, the other was sucked into my jacket. People stared at my disfigured shape, particularly noticing my protruding belly. Still I shuffled along ignoring their glares. I may look like a pregnant one armed man, but that is no reason to judge me!
But, my brilliant disguise kept Fluttershy safe as we travelled on my morning commute. I had stuffed her in my biggest jacket and zipped it up, effectively hiding her. I guess she wasn’t too happy about the idea though because before I knew it she was crying. My shirt was literally soaked in her tears, and I didn’t have a clue on how to comfort her. I couldn’t take her out and show her my best funny face, we were in public. Instead I thought back to what I did that day I had first found her. I quickly withdrew my arm and offered her my finger. She gladly accepted it and began to chew on my finger. She must have been teething by the way she clamped on to my finger. Another thing to add to the list of how ridiculous I looked.
I hustled on down to work with Fluttershy in tow. I have a decent job. I am the store manager of a bookstore, biggest bookstore in town! That was the actual name of the store, and it lived up to that name. People marveled at the vast collection of literature. But I guess the big boss took quantity over quality. We may have a lot of books, but they’re books no one’s heard of. Business isn’t doing so well lately. It’s times like these when I wish I could put that big apartment building to use.
As soon as I got to work I raced off to my office before anyone could question me on my appearance. Once I hit that door I unzipped my jacket and quickly took my finger out of her mouth. “Man you have a good set of chompers! I thought I was having my finger amputated!” I joked. She smiled back at me, picking up on the joke somehow. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
I picked up Fluttershy and stuffed her under my desk as fast as I could. The intruder entered right as I was getting up. I bumped my head and I heard a man chuckle.
‘You alright down there Mr. Carter?’ the voice said.
‘Yes, I’m fine. Don’t call me Mr. Carter, makes me feel old.’
‘Fine,’ the voice said,’ Stephan, we’re out of note cards.’
‘You came in here about note cards?’ I scowled, ‘You’re just slacking off.’
‘I may be many things, MR.CARTER, but a slacker ain’t one!’ the voice shouted in response.
‘All right, I’ll add note cards to the endless list of things we need to get. Now will you please do your job?’ I said pleading with him.
‘I’ll think about it.’ the man chuckled as he left.
That there is the biggest head ache I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with. His name was Gerald, Gerald Johnson. A forty five year old slacker who has a grudge against me for getting his job. At first I sympathized with him, I was some punk kid who walked in here and within a year climbed the ladder he had been climbing for fifteen years. I guess deep down I still kind of sympathize with him. That’s the only reason he’s still working here.
Enough about my coworkers, if I don’t think of something to do with flutters here I’m history! There’s no way I wouldn’t get fired if someone to report I had her in here. Especially something like her. People are afraid of what they don’t know, because what someone doesn’t know about will definitely hurt them.
I mostly sat at my desk with her in my lap, using the desk to conceal her. That worked for an hour or so, until she got bored. “No problem,” I thought “I’ll just give her a funny face or two and let her chew on my finger again. Two problems with that though. One, I had to explain what that high pitched squeal was every time Fluttershy laughed. The second problem I ran into was the finger, I swear she’s trying to bit my finger off! I needed to think of something fast.
During my lunch break I ran down to the costume store to buy Fluttershy a disguise. We went over to the “dog costumes” isle and started to look around. There weren’t many costumes to choose from, which isn’t surprising since pets don’t usually wear costumes unless their owners are crazy pet worshippers. No one was around, so I didn’t see any harm in letting Fluttershy peek out and take her pick. “Take a look,” I whispered to her, “Pick out anyone you would like!”
She stared in awe at the vast array of color spread out before her. The sight of her so awestruck by a few cheap costumes made me smile with delight. Suddenly her eyes flashed to one costume in particular. It was a clown costume with pink and blue polka dots, very flashy but I thought it would do the trick. As she admired the spectacle of tomfoolery and jest I heard her squeak a soft “yay”. “Whoa!” I said in a low voice, she responded with a loud resounding “YAY!!!” I wrapped my hands around her muzzle to quickly silence her, but I was too late. Everyone in the store peeked behind the aisle to see what the racket was all about.
I had managed to play it off as if I was the one who made the disturbance and covered Fluttershy up with the costume she was previously observing. They stared at me with a quizzical look for a few seconds and then went back to their business. I was about to proceed to the checkout line when I noticed a warm puddle of tears forming on my shirt. Fluttershy was sniffling inside my jacket, crying because of my actions earlier. “Aw sweet heart,” I whispered in a nurturing tone, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I was only trying to keep you safe.” She looked up at me with a few tears still in her eyes. “Look,” I said, “why don’t we get you your costume and we can go home. You can say “yay” as loud as you want at home.” Her tears started to fade away as she calmed down. I zipped my jacket up, purchased the clown costume, and walked home.
I heard a muffled yay as I triple locked my door, and then a string of repeated “yays” as she scrambled around in my jacket. “Alright, alright. I’ll let you out!” I said chuckling as she squirmed out of my coat screaming yay the entire time. Once she had gotten out completely I realized what all the random kicks in the gut were about. She was standing in the middle of the living room staring up at me, wearing the clown costume inside out. “Couldn’t have waited till we got home could you?” I said jokingly. She shook her head in reply with a wide grin on her face. I was taken aback at the strange sign of communication she knew what I had asked her!
I stared at her in wonder for a few moments. I had always looked at her as more of a daughter than a pet, but this just showed that she could no longer be considered a pet either. That meant that I was her adopted father, and she was my daughter. This brought on a lot of questions, “how do I raise her?”, “was I ready for this?”, “what if I’m a bad dad?” All of these questions raced through my head as I continued to stare at her. I almost didn’t notice her start to frown and cringe at my glare.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” I said as I snapped out of my trance, “I was just thinking that’s all. Here, let me help you get that on.” I got up and helped her out of the inside out costume, she had started to feel better after seeing me help her with her predicament. After fifteen minutes, a tickle fight, and a lot of wriggling, she was ready to go. “You know,” I began, “You’d make a good clown. In fact If didn’t know any better I’d say you’re a real clown pony!” She beamed at my remark and let out a loud whinny and a yay. “Loud enough to!” I joked. Suddenly she became more timid at my remark and hid behind her long hair. “Oh no,” I said apologetically, “I didn’t mean it that way, it was just a joke!” I walked over to her and patted her on the back softly. She seemed to feel a bit better at my warm touch, even starting to get a bit drowsy. Soon she was yawning, which had become our signal to go to bed.
I had tucked Fluttershy in (not bothering to put her in the dog bed anymore) and gave her a goodnight kiss on the forehead. As she fell asleep nuzzling my shoulder I had been thinking. Fluttershy was already turning out to be a bit emotional, and raising her was already going to be tough! Honestly I didn’t know what to do, but I knew worrying about it all night wasn’t going to do any good. I had finally come to the conclusion that I should just keep doing what I’m doing, living life one day at a time. Almost as if by magic, Fluttershy started nodding her head in her sleep in agreement.