FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Madelynn drew in a long breath of air to cool her mind after having to keep up with Ian yapping on and on about his new friend. Fortunately for her a plump, saggy cloud all alone in the sky came to her rescue. She looked at Ian through the rearview mirror, watching his eyes follow the cloud's path, then listening to his amazement as they entered and exited the huge shadow it dragged across the land.

Ian nearly floated away with the cloud. His mind danced around hopes of rain, hoping for the cloud's dark, lumpy underbelly to shower him in a refreshing downpour. Just one more time, nature.

Madelynn still had her questions, but Ian had enough answers followed by questions followed by Madelynn's answers followed by saving some for her husband and so on, to go until the end of time.

At last, they made it home.

The knob ticked and clinked with a shove and twist of a key. Madelynn barely gave the knob a full turn when Ian slipped between her legs and burst through the door, making a mad dash upstairs nearly on all fours.

"Ian, don't forget to wipe your feet!" She pleaded.

The sea otter rasped as only a trail of dirty shoe prints were there listening to her.

Of course, on the rare occasion Ian showed he had the energy to power a city he made a mess. Madelynn could never hold it against him though. All she worried about were the days where she could no longer keep up with him. Like that'll ever happen.

Madelynn walked down the hall and retrieved the vacuum, as the task called for dust busting. On the way back, she ran into her husband Gerard, an anatolian shepherd with a coat that Ian, at many unnecessary times, had stated looks like stale white bread.

As usual with one's arrival home, they exchanged greetings and kisses.

Gerard followed Madelynn back to the source of Ian's mess, and checked to see if the door remained on its hinges.

"I ain't seen Ian run like that since he first saw lightning."

"Hoo... Don't remind me. My fur still has impressions from when he was clinging to me."

Gerard tittered behind her back. "'Least he knows better than to run out in the rain again."

The vacuum coughed and whirred to life, humming wildly with a ravenous hunger for anything within sucking range.

"I'll keep it brief," Madelynn raised her voice over the vacuum. "Ian made a new friend at school today! He talked my ears off on the way home."

Joy and pride swept over Gerard. He grinned and his tail kicked around some fuzz in the air.

Since the start of the school year, the couple had struggled coaxing Ian to socialize with kids his age, but because of his lack of interest in physical activity he thought it was best to only watch the others and stay out of their way. And their wonderful aid over this obstacle: One little kid, all Ian needed to yap endlessly about them. They only hoped that he didn't tell his friend too much...

While Madelynn vacuumed up the stairs Gerard followed. She finished outside Ian's room, where he left his shoes by the door.

Ian sat with his back against the side of his bed, surrounded by several tiny robots of varying colors, soaking in a warm patch of sunlight beaming through the window behind him. His shadow reached the other end of his room and the sun outlined him in a fluffy golden glow. He whipped his head up to see his parents standing in the doorway.

He lowered his head and looked at his mom with puppydog eyes. Never failed him before. "Sorry, mommy."

Madelynn carefully maneuvered past the foot hazards and crouched down and cupped Ian's cheek, giving him a forgiving smile. "It's okay, sweetie," She said. She followed up by snatching Ian up and squeezing him like a teddy bear. "I just can't have my baby running around making messes!"

Ian squealed and wiggled in his mom's clutches to slip free, an effort that has failed time and time again.

Madelynn settled down on the floor, sitting Ian on a comfy spot in the middle of her crossed legs. She wrapped her arms around his chest and stared down at his robots, but Gerard's approach peeled her attention away from them.

"Your mother told me you made a new friend at school today."

The gears rapidly ticked away inside Ian. "Yeah! He told me his name is Gallegos and his eyes are blue, but blue like ice, and his fur is black," He inhaled. "He was sad when I met him, and I asked him to play with me, and we played again at lunch!"

Ian slinged words like bullets at Gerard, practically holding his father captive in a one-side conversation about his new friend.

Gerard merely smiled and nodded along, shoving a "Mhm." there, and a "Oh, yeah?" here as he did his best to clear every hurdle of super important details Ian so carefully explained down to an atomic level about Gallegos.

After Ian finished his verbal marathon, Gerard scratched his scalp and processed everything the boy said. Madelynn looked away to hide a tiny chuckle at his mutual information overload.

Gerard cleared his throat. "Well... that's great! Sounds like you really like this boy. Maybe someday you can invite him on over."

Ian gasped. "Really?"

"Yes, really," Gerard instantly replied, saving himself from another wave of incessant yapping.

The coyote cheered. His tail rapidly whacked Madelynn's thigh.

"Ian, where'd your little green guy go? You didn't lose him at school, did you?"

"Nuh-uh! I gave it to Gallegos after we played."

"That's very sweet of you, Ian." Madelynn said, planting a fuzzy whiskered kiss between the coyote's ears.

She then set him back down and dusted off her thighs. After a quick stretch to unlock her legs she followed Gerard out of the room. She waved to Ian before they left, and he waved back.

Their voices became muffled:

"I'll take care of the vacuum..."

"You're both such sweethearts today... Maybe dinner will also sweet and make itself later..."

**

A black car parked in front of an aging home, with patches of smoothed stucco mottled across its rough walls. In areas where there are big cracks large enough to slip a nickel through spiders had set up base in flat, horizontal dusty sheets of webs.

The right rear side door popped open and Gallegos hopped out onto the cracked and sunbaked sidewalk. He closed the door, leaving a conjoined bird shaped paw print after using some extra oomph to ensure it shut securely.

Gallegos crept up to the passenger door, standing barely any taller on his tippy-toes to look inside at the woman driver. "I can ask if I can stay with you a little longer."

The woman inside shook her head apologetically. "I'm sorry baby, I'm just too busy today. Maybe next week."

She grabbed Gallegos's backpack and handed to him through the open, careful not to tap him on the head with it. Instead of a thanks, he gave her a pleading stare.

Gallegos hoped that if he stared hard enough, she'd freeze in place and stay there with him.

"You should be happy about your new friend! Don't forget to tell your mother."

Gallegos watched, hopelessly, as the woman drove away. It gnawed at him more than the sun beating down on his black fur, the slow speed she took down the road before she inevitably disappeared around a turn.

There he stood on the other side of the pale gray chain link fence and gate that sat between him and the house.

Gallegos hugged his backpack. His eyes darted left, right and all over for something-- anything, to keep him from going inside. Only his dread benefited from his stalling.

"What are you still doing inside?"

Gallegos turned stiffly to face the front door. He peered through a square in the fence that only served to frame his mother's face, forcing him to focus on her head sticking out around the door.

Had it not been for her authority, Gallegos would have stayed put and cooked on the sidewalk, but worse, he moved without a second thought.

He slipped past the child sized gap of the door and his mother, then ditched the deadweight of his backpack in the corner.

While the outside looked aged and unwashed, the inside looked stagnant and untouched for lord knows how long. Years without visitors to come and rile up the atmosphere had left it dormant and dusty. The couch and neighboring seats were still thick and full of comfort that it unfortunately could not give. Even a fake plant sitting on a small waist high table drooped from boredom. Hushed outside light trying to break through russet curtains encapsulated it all, keeping the true amount of dust in the air a secret that fluttered overhead.

"How was school?"

Gallegos stopped midstep, needing to shift backwards to keep his footing.

Her voice, unsurprisingly, carried itself easily through the air of the house, as much as it also had a dreadful emptiness to it. The subtle tone that supported her voice made his stomach roll. Gallegos couldn't bear to look at her, but he also couldn't look away. He didn't want to hurt her feelings.

Gallegos resorted to turning his head, catching an unclear glimpse of her in his peripheral vision. "I sat outside during recess."

"Good."

Her whole body shifted sideways, the top, midsection, and her feet in a delayed period of time. Gallegos thought she was going to fall over until she took a long, lazy stride and retreated in her bedroom.

Gallegos got out of there as soon as he heard her door lock.

After gathering some snacks, a boring bologna sandwich (The way he liked it), and apple juice he went outside to the backyard. He kicked a fallen snack across the cramped sunbleached patio while a breeze whispered in his stiletto ears and rustled his short black hair.

Gallegos laid a tore up old rag in a shady spot and sat down. He went through the process of organizing all his items: sandwich in front, juice on the left, and going from favorite to least favorite, he lined his snacks up on the right hand side.

Gallegos took a two-handed drink of juice, licked sweet droplets from his lips, then turned his attention down to another item he set on the floor.

Threatened by the gentle breeze, but remaining on its feet, the puny green robot he received from Ian stared up at him, hands on its hips, like it was his little protector.

Gallegos nibbled on the edges of circular meat sticking out from the flat sides of his sandwich. Meanwhile, Ian's name kept chiming to him over and over again, ringing in his mind.

Ian's sudden invitation to play was awfully intrusive, yet Gallegos felt like he didn't have the right to be upset even after he had to crack open so suddenly. He had fun playing with him.

Gallegos couldn't understand why he did it. Sitting there all on his own with nothing to disturb him or bother him and there he was. What did Ian want from him? Who was he to look at him like a book and try to understand him? Why did he want to come into his life so suddenly? Why him?

A bubbling cloud of mystery buzzed in Gallegos's head. It toiled and presented warped, inky pictures that he couldn't understand. How could Ian ever hope to do what he couldn't?

The cloud sat just out of Gallegos's reach. He just couldn't quite get there. It harassed him with muffled voices, threatening and helpless at the same time. There were zero footholds to climb up and grasp it. As if Ian could be of any help. He's just a child, just like himself.

Who was he? What did he want? Will he just come and go? What did Gallegos want from him? What did it all mean? Why does it hurt so badly?

Gallegos shook his head slowly and shut his eyes tight, retching a pathetic growl. His little claws scratched at his knees as frustration rushed through every inch of his body, the pressure pushing him to move without thinking. He couldn't make it hurt enough to forget about the storm brewing.

Gallegos could do nothing. All he could do was sit there and think about how he let Ian crawl inside his exit wound.

Unintelligible strings of half finished questions bumped into each other and formed greater messes that would take too much time trying to reorganize. Questions that Gallegos had no idea how to even ask, lacking the right words to form a decent combination.

There he sat, with nobody to come to his help, nobody to make him forget, nobody to call him a weirdo for wanting to stay in class during recess. Nobody...

Gallegos shriveled up and started crying. Hot tears raced down his cheeks and fell upon parched concrete. He choked and whimpered, chest rising and falling with shallow shaky breaths. His thoughts were a mess and his vision warped. It looked like his eyes were melting.

Eventually he had stuffed his face in the crooks of his elbows to soften his bawling, a familiar process he remembered all the steps to, though he hated how he sounded, and hated seeing himself like this equally as much.

Minutes crepts by. The shadow he sat in shifted a couple inches to his left.

By the end of it, Gallegos thoroughly soaked his arms with tears. He wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands and rubbed his nose clean on his shirt. He breathed in and out slowly, but his trembling lingered, nervous to leave.

Confusion still had him in a daze, but his crying had rinsed his other worries away for now.

After spending nearly an hour outside, Gallegos went back inside as if nothing had happened.

He dumped empty snack wrappers in the trash and they crinkled all the way down with a paper plate that carried a stay tear. He held on to his glass and filled it up with water.

Cool swigs rushed soothingly down his achy throat.

Gallegos hurried to the bathroom to wash his face. He didn't want his mother to see him after what had happened outside. He hoped she wouldn't notice his red eyes. He didn't want to let her see him in pain, fearing it'd hurt her just as much.

On his way to get his backpack, Gallegos rubbed his head. A slight headache always bugged him after he'd finish crying after a stressful event.

For once, the house being so dreary had an upside. No loud noises would bother him.

Gallegos took his backpack to his room with him. He tucked the robot in a pocket and threw the whole thing near his bed. He climbed on top, and, after journeying across the big mattress, curled up in the center. A quick wrap in some blankets and a peak at his closed door, and he was out like a light.

An hour later, Gallegos had awakened to his mother's friend returning to drop off a couple homemade meals for dinner. Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and greens filled his empty belly and helped him forget about earlier. He savoured every bite, every lick, and cleaned the crumbs off his plate.

Gallegos took a hot bath before bed and tucked himself in. Strangely enough his mother didn't ask to play any games during his wash. She also never returned after he settled himself in bed. He had no clue why, it made him restless, but only for a little while until he simply conked out, protected by a thick cocoon of blankets. Sometimes he wondered if he'd sleep better with his bed against the wall...