//------------------------------// // "I'm Not Known for my Compassion" // Story: Look Out Ponyville, Here Comes Garfield! // by Seraphic Borealis //------------------------------// The beginning of a splendid day was previewed by its usual messengers. The chlorophyll in the trees showed their vitality and their life. The trees’ relatives, the grass, showed their quality of vivid life. The brightest star of the blue sky arose to give the inhabitants of the third rock from itself its brilliance. The first of the inhabitants flew across the cool sky to bask in warmth as they scoured for worms for their young. Some of them did not bore young, so they would perch themselves on the houses of a neighborhood to watch, to chirp or to rest. One bird returned to his usual spot: the windowsill of a house. As he landed, he began to chirp. This chirp defined itself with a quality no children could ignore. They would gather around the bird and gaze upon in awe. But that was only for children. Not for one inhabitant of the house. As the bird chirped, fueled by the morning, a hand emerged out from the inhabitant’s blue blanket. The hand scoured across the floor in search of a noise. A tick-tock noise. Five attempts to find the object creating the mechanical noise were fruitless. But the hand tipped the metal siding of the object and soon, the object was grasped into its hand. Shut up, you annoying bird, the inhabitant sleeping in a box thought. With a flicker of the wrist that could that could be personified into the emotion of irritation, the being flung the alarm clock onto the bird. “AUGH!” The bird yelped as the clock forced it though the window with shattering glass. The face on the bird showed he could take a hint. He pushed the clock on top of him away and flew away from the house. With the grating voice gone, the inhabitant felt it safe to come out from his bed. A pair of round eyes came out under the blanket, followed by a yawn from his orange mouth. He smoothed out the bent whiskers on his face and fluffed out his stiff tail. “Mmmmmm…Ah!” The cat stretched out his arms with a euphoric force. “And now for the most exciting part of the day.” The cat thought as he made his way into the second revered place in the house. The kitchen. “Time for a well-balanced breakfast.” The cat opened the refrigerator and reached out for the necessities of a morning meal. It took around a minute to gather the supplies, but nothing was too good for this cat. And so, he began his morning meal. At the same time, the human of the household walked into the kitchen, sporting his usual red-and-white striped pajamas. And his… Bunny slippers. “I think I’ll have some toast with butter and jelly today.” He pondered aloud while trying to wake up. He believed drinking coffee would jolt his energy, but what was on the table surprised him and gave him an excess amount of energy. “Garfield! Is this all the food from the fridge?!” He walked over next to Garfield “Exact-a-mundo, owner of mine.” Garfield consumed a bagel topped with whipped cream. “For the love of- Now what am I supposed to have to eat?!” The owner, Jon, raised his hands in the air in annoyance. Garfield’s response was handing him a half-eaten piece of bread with a nearly empty jar of jelly and a piece of butter. “By all means, knock yourself out.” Garfield thought as chomped though a box full of a dozen donuts. He spit out the box away from Jon. “Garfield, this doesn’t qualify as a full breakfast meal.” Jon dryly pointed out. “And I’m suppose to know what this ‘full’ is?” Garfield pondered. Jon let out a disappointed sigh as he walked towards his room. “Now I’m going to have to take another trip down to the groceries-” Not even a second did Jon finished his sentence with the ‘s’ did Garfield bolt to him and hugged his leg. “Garfield, you know full well that you can’t enter the supermarket for another ten months.” “Geez Louise, pull the bottommost cereal box from a pyramid from itself and you pay for it. Or rather Jon, you paid for it.” Garfield looked at him. With a wiggle from his leg, Jon threw Garfield away from him. “I’m going to get dressed and head out. Behave yourself while I’m gone Garfield.” Jon instructed the cat. “And this does not mean while I’m getting dressed. It also applies to while I’m out.” Jon took wind of Garfield’s tendency to twist his words. “Rats.” Garfield’s ears folded back in defeat. Jon walked away and closed his door to make himself presentable. With a sigh, Garfield walked to the living room. “I wonder where Odie is? I haven’t seen him for a while now. Usually he’d slurp my face or stand stupidly at the edge of the table by this time of day. Oh… what to do now?” Garfield placed himself on the purple recliner and grasped the television remote to begin his daily round of viewing odd or humorous shows. Garfield had to make sure he actually was holding the remote. A few years ago, he had a chocolate bar by his side. As he tried to see the other channels, Jon had asked him why he was trying to change the channels with a candy bar. Garfield eyes widened with a nerve-wrecking realization as he burped. “Let’s see what’s on TV.” Garfield started his channel flipping through a myriad of TV shows. “And now welcome back to World’s Most Amazing Idiotic Stunts! I’m Werner Bogzwart and today we have five lucky contestants with us today! Stuart Belser from Ohio will now be playing ‘We Wish you a Merry Christmas’ by stepping on these assorted mousetraps. Ready Stuart?” “Ready- Whoa, who left water on this floor?” *Snap* *Snap* Snap* “Aaaaahhhh!” *Snap* *Snap* “We’ll be right back after these messages!” “But Stuart won’t.” Garfield thought. He changed the channel. “Welcome back to Cooking at the Funny Farm. I’m Martha Smith and our next guest will show us how to prepare a duck flambé. Now where is our guest?” “Uh… Martha, we just got word that we weren’t suppose to remove the straightjacket from him.” “What? Well, where is-” “HAHAHAHAHAHA! Now I’ll show you all how to prepare a TV show flambé!” “Someone take that flamethrower away from him and put him back into his straightjacket!” “Personally, I would’ve preferred a T-Bone steak.” Garfield flipped to another channel. He hadn’t noticed Jon had left the house. “Why look Sharing Rabbit, here comes Mr. Sneaky Fox with the Happy Gem to restore FunfunWorld to its bright state!” “Now all our problems will be solved, Helping Hedgehog!” “Mr. Sneaky Fox, are you going to bring the light back to FunfunWorld?” “Yeah…no, Helping Hedgehog.” “Really? Because I thought…” “Helping Hedgehog, where’d you get the mace?” “that you would bring the light back…” “Hey, what’s with your eyes? They look scary.” “You are going to bring the light back. Aren’t. You?” “Stop doing that sharp teeth thing! Of course I’m going to bring the light back!” “Good!” “If only Mr. Sneaky Fox had seen what Helping Hedgehog did to Bargaining Bear when he didn’t want to share his honey with her.” Garfield recalled before flipping to another channel. “Thank you all for helping me get the cake safely on the dessert car.” “Thank you for inviting us all to go with you to Canterlot for the National Desert Competition.” “Oh great. Not this show.” Garfield facepawed at the ‘pony show.’ He was about to flip to another channel when something caught his attention. Something yellow. And it wasn’t the pony with the pink mane. “Odie?” Garfield leaned in closer to the tube to see his beagle friend. Yes, indeed it was Odie, far into the background the dog was but Garfield also noticed something wrong with the TV. The episode of the show was playing, but as Odie moved, the TV flickered and the episode became slightly transparent. What struck Garfield as odd was the colors of these ponies were faded, but Odie’s colors were the brightest. “How in the world did he get inside the television set?” Garfield jumped out of the recliner and walked to the screen. “Oh right. I forget: Nothing makes sense with Odie.” Garfield reminded himself as he tapped onto the TV screen a few times. Garfield’s eyes widened when a peculiar event struck him. He let his finger move to the TV. But it didn’t hit the screen. It went through it. “Gah!” Garfield jumped back and cringed. “Wait a minute. Why am I scared of the TV set? It’s not a horror movie or anything.” Garfield frowned at the show on the TV. “… the Cakes' Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness. All that rich creamy goodness of the marzipan, combined with the tart tanginess of the mascarpone, blended perfectly with the smooth, silky sweetness of the meringue.” As the lovely and sublime cake took up most of the screen, Garfield’s mouth began to water. His tongue drooped over his mouth as he salivated over the delectable snack. Well, snack to him. He shook his head to bring himself back to reality. “No, no, no! I am not going to go gaga over food on TV. Not unless I want it ending up in my mouth again.” Garfield thought with his arms crossed. Unfortunately, Garfield’s mind was taken control over the succeeding deserts. The chocolate éclairs made Garfield forget where he was. “No…” The sprinkles on the ‘Donut-Topia’ made Garfield’s eye twitch and teeth chatter. Finally, the chocolate ‘mousse’ forced Garfield into his breaking point. “Hahaha ha!” With a maniacal look on his face, Garfield ran into the TV set, ignoring the possibility of crashing through it. Except he didn’t. Garfield warped inside the TV and into the show. ><><><>< “Cake! Éclairs! Donuts! Mousse! Gimmegimmegimmegimmegimmegimmiegimmiegimmiegimme!” Garfield was still in his Food Crazed state and he failed to notice he was no longer in the living room anymore. Even in his twisted mindset, part of him expected to end up in the train car of the show. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t even on solid ground. “Ok.” Garfield’s mood reverted back to normal at both the deserts not being here and wondering where the heck he was. He looked down. He found himself over a lake. About 50 feet over the lake. And as the rule goes, the laws of gravity do not apply unless one is painfully aware of it. “Oh, Garfield. You know what happens when you’re up in the air and look dowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnn…!” Garfield yelled as he dropped down. Miraculously, he landed into the lake without any injuries, though one question remained: “Where’s the water?” A shadow loomed over Garfield, giving him the answer. The water slammed on top of Garfield, drenching his fur. Garfield pulled himself out of the lake and laid himself out on all fours. With the same repetitive motion as normal for his kind, Garfield shook his body as strong as he could to rid himself of a wet and heavy fur. Garfield was disappointed that there weren’t any deserts around here. “Wherever here is.” He looked around. Nothing but the lake, a few benches and some bushes. “Bright. And colorful here too.” He took note. “Straight from a TV show.” Garfield started to walk, hoping to find some form of civilization. Garfield traveled over a bridge, thoughts intact. “Just what I needed. First my owner doesn’t have enough food in the fridge, then I’m denied the opportunity to travel to one of my favorite places in the world. And now I’m in whoever-knows-where, denied deserts and I have to find Odie. What more could I ask for?!” Garfield yelled to the heavens. What he did not expect was for the heavens to send raindrops on his head. “Thanks. I needed that. How is it raining when it’s sunny all around?” Garfield noticed. “Oops! Sorry!” Garfield heard a female voice before the rain moved away from. Before it was out of his eyesight, Garfield looked up to see where the voice came from. It had come from a grey, flying horse. “What? A flying horse? Oh, yippee. I’m in that pony show. All of shows Odie had to be in, why this one?” Garfield thought grumpily. He would’ve thought more, but has nose had taken hold of a smell. A tasty smell. The smell of pie. “Is that…Oh yes it is! Pie! Sweet, blueberry pie!” Through some convoluted way, Garfield levitated himself off the ground and let his nose follow the delicious scent. He found himself standing at a windowsill, where the scent in question did come from a pie. Without a second thought, Garfield mentally prepared how he was going to snatch the pie. “Nothing a smart cat like me can’t figure out.” Garfield placed his hands on the metal plate of the pie. “Place hands, set eyes on pie, grab plate, and run like Jon like the time he went jogging in his bunny pajamas-” But Garfield never even made it seven feet from the house, because a white fluffball launched itself at him and had him by his chest, sending the pie splat onto the grass. “And mess up and have another great opportunity taken away.” Garfield finished. “How dare you try and steal my owner’s pie!” Garfield could see it was a cat, a white one that had assaulted him. “Ah, buzz off, pipsqueak.” Garfield leered at the cat. But his attitude started to fade when the other cat’s claws popped out. “First, ‘pipsqueak’ is the name of one of the colts here. Second, you will not speak to me that way.” “What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a failure to communicate.” Garfield thought. “Opal! Where are youuuuu!” Garfield heard another female voice, but in singsong. This one coming from the house. Sadly, his distraction lessened his guard and the cat proceeded to engage him in a claw-sharp cat fight. Tried as he did, Garfield could not get the cat off of him. During the fight, he heard a gasp. “Opal, my dear! You! Get away from my cat, you brute!” The white cat found herself levitated off of Garfield and onto the side of the owner. Garfield recollected himself and tried to brush off any claw marks he could. He looked at the owner: A white pony with a regal purple mane. “Yay. A pony.” Garfield didn’t like the sight of it. “And what is that supposed to mean?” The pony inquired, but she did give Garfield a chance to answer. Her gaze flowed away from the orange, bipedal feline and onto a most horrific sight. “M-M-My pie!” Tension and fury rose through her blood veins and reached to her eyes. With all her energy, she unleashed her indignation through stare at the cat, hoping it would give any indication it was sorry. “Sorry for dropping your pie, but you ever think about keeping that furball of yours inside? Or on a leash” Garfield asked the pony. “Why, how rude! And very uncouth!” She frowned at the cat. “I’m not known for my compassion.” He smirked. “Come along Opal. Let’s get you back inside and I’ll whip up another pie.” The pony walked back inside with her cat behind her. “Hopefully, the next one won’t attract such boorish creatures.” As soon as the two were inside, the pony with all her might slammed the door shut. “I might be offended if I knew what ‘boorish’ meant. Now with that being over, time to find Odie.” Garfield proceeded to walk away.