Flops E. Bunny (Patreon)

This is the Story of Flops E Bunny

And the little girl named Freddy.

Freddy loved Battle axes and Dolls

Soccer and every flavor of music,

Coloring and computer parts,

Sitting in the deep woods behind her house

While attempting to understand existence

The model of which, in her mind,

was not unlike her catastrophically curly hair

Freddy loved all of these equally

But what Freddy loved most of all

Besides her family

Was Flops E Bunny

Now Flops was not just any bunny

For Flops was an Heirloom

Flops had been stitched into existence

for Freddy’s Grandmother

Who in turn gave it to Freddy’s mother

And now Flops belonged to Freddy

All had been well

All had been right

Since the first moment

Since the first stitch

Until this very moment

When Flops found itself

In the imperious care

Of Freddy

Freddy fell deep into sleep each night

With the patchwork pet

In her matchstick arms

Each morning

Freddy would awaken

With Flops somewhere in the bed

Some mornings Flops would be in Freddy’s arms

some mornings Flops would be in all

Manner of locations about the room

Some mornings Flops would be as he had been

Some mornings Flops had a wear or a tear

So

Without a care Freddy would merely think nothing of it

Skip or snake slither downstairs to find her mother

Giving Flops to her mother

Who would in turn

Turn her over

To her grandmother

Who would fix Flops up in moments

For when working on Flops

Time did not stick to Grandma

The way it did at all other times

At the very end of their brief reunion

Grandma would

Inspect Flops

Running her care slowed fingers over Flops

Stopping specifically on the ever unchanged

Black Velvet Heart Patch

At the center of Flops chest

Giving it a knowing squeeze

Feeling the bump

Confirming that it was still there

Many days passed

Many nights went uneventful

Until that night

The night after Flops got left at Tabitha’s house

After the cartoon themed birthday had run it’s sugar coated course

Freddy was not concerned about Flop’s absence

She was capable of sleeping

Flops would be returned tomorrow at school

So no need to concern herself

With that rationality

Freddy slipped into slumber

Not giving it another thought

Her brain shutting down

Amidst thoughts of a cataloging system for fish in an aquatic library

The next thing Freddy knew she was awake with a gasp

The sound of a blade sinking into melon still ringing in her ear

So as she got ready that morning she told her mother of the tale

Of what had happened

In the realm of dreams that night

All the while her mother spun around the house throwing life into some kind of order

half hearing her daughter

The whole time

After having fallen asleep

Freddy found herself pulled under the bed by a myriad of grotesque stuffed animals

Those lost unwanted things who had forgotten the joys of being cuddled

Too consumed by spite to find new humans

They resigned themselves to taking unprotected ones

Keeping them until they were used up

Somewhere in the charred forests of nightmare

They would cast the bodies

Never to be seen or heard from again

Freddy found herself pulled though worlds that were threaded together

By doors that led from one dream scape to the other

Portals from

City to space

Cathedral to Sewer

Cave to Seaside

Freddy fought but found herself bound

Freddy said mean things to the smelly bears

Freddy kicked perpetually soaked dragons

nothing stopped them

All of them urged on by their leader

A stuffed Pig they called Petunia

With an eye hanging from a string

Half seared but still able,

Limping all the while

It was when they came to find themselves in the belly of a bare metal cargo plane

That they all heard the tin bell ring of a playskool phone

Which somehow rang out above the uninsulated cabin of the aircraft

All the stuffs in the plane searched high and low

Until finally a frog found the phone

Who listened to it

Then shakily held it out

for Petunia to take from his shaky spaghetti like arm

Freddy couldn’t hear the call

Merely saw the color pale out of the neon pink of the pig

Petunia hung up the phone with a slam

Breathed a moment

“Flops found us,”

Screamed Petunia

all the stuffed animals

Began to run about hysterically

Seeking out a door

Not expecting the cabin door to open from the outside

Or the lights to go out when it did

There were little cartoonish cries of pain then

Gurgles like mouths full of soda pop

Thuds of plush bodies hitting the steel floor

One of the plushes

An otter

Yelled he found the door

Just in time to thump against it’s frame

Blubbering about God

Sobbing about not wanting to go out like this

Petunia and the remaining stuffs

Dragged Freddy through the door

Over the Otter who had been split down the middle vertically

It’s stuffing still oozing out in a slow tickle

Petunia and the stuffs

Staggered through the streets of New York in the 1920’s

A Killer Whale stuff’s head exploding

a spray of polyester fiber fluff

Flitting on the air while Petunia piled them into a bus

The bus flew through the streets as the passengers screamed

Petunia not knowing how to drive

The swirving getting worse

Once the windshield shattered

Forcing Freddy to curl up and cover her face

Finally emerging to see three stuffs done in

A Velociraptor whose head had been run through on the glass in the windshield Fram

A Gorilla who arms had been torn off and it’s head caved in

The frog who had answered the Phone screaming outside the bus as the back tires rolled over it

Petunia drove the Bus into the Washington Square Arch

Emerging in the woods of Fantastica,

Bringing the vehicle to an abrupt stop

In the forest shared a border with any number of magical lands

Petunia took an inventory of his remaining stuffs

Freddy heard it but did not see them all call out until it got to the Squid stuff

That got half way through but then inhaled hard and went silent

Freddy turned over to watch

The Rhino get strung up into the canopy of the tress

A stuffed reindeer with no nose disappear with a yelp behind an oak tree

Memory foam rolling out near it’s roots

Some children’s animated show monster freaked out and tried to run

Only for a sharpened stick to impale him in his tracks

The point sticking in the grass

White tready stuffing gushing down the knotty spear

It was only Petunia , An oversized Bear, and Freddy now

Petunia knew where to go

Running with Freddy over his shoulder

The Bear close behind

Until they reached a great waterfall

Which Petunia threw Freddy off of

Jumping in himself after Freddy hit the water

The bear close behind

Freddy and Petunia tumbled up onto the valley floor

The Valley Petunia knew all too well

This Valley of Torn Pages, said Petunia,

It’s smooth onyx walls lead up beyond contemplation

Each day it rains acid,

beneath a sun so bright it scorches and stains even squeezed closed eyes

each night

it snows ashes that smell of the those whose stories that have been burned, never to be read again.

Each day

the eyes of the ravenous ones watch you from above the edges of the valley

Each night

The Ravenous seek to feed, pray you are not to slow to get caught

Freddy heard the words and thought Petunia a gloomy gus

Which was a phrase she had used all her life,

That she had learned from her mother

That she had learned from her mother

It was a phrase that all at once she heard from behind her

In a voice so gravely that Freddy could not believe it came from

The patchwork Bunny

That ripped the head off the oversized bear

Tossing it to the ground

You had to know this would happen, Petunia,

Flops strode slow at the Pig, Poly fill dripping off his paws,

You knew I would come for you.

If we don’t deserve to be loved,

Petunia pulled a human femur out from amongst the rocks,

Then they don’t deserve to be loved either.

Never once thinking you could simply find the ones who were without,

Flops said,

It’s time for you to show the others why you don’t take from me.

Freddy watched as the two danced about the valley

Petunia swinging repeatedly

Some making contact

Others flying wildly

All the while Flops waited

Until Flops caught the bone

Snapped it over his corduroy knee

Flops proceeded to stab Petunia repeatedly

Flop’s paws moving in blurred fury

Until at last Flops drove the two pieces into Petunias knees

Headbutting the Pig

Leaving Petunia broken and gushing fluff from the dozens of wounds

“I shall leave you here until the Universe swallows itself whimpering its way out of existence”

Flops stood over the semi conscious pig,

“Broken and bleeding but never unconscious

Torn apart but always right here for all too see

A memorial to any foolish enough to ever think about touching my Freddy and her family.

And do you know why, Petunia?”

Petunia merely coughed up fluff

“ Because you’re a big dumb stupid face.”

Of all the things Freddy had bore witness too, this made Freddy gasp.

“Time to go, Freddy”, Flops turned towards the girl, “Time to wake up for Waffles”.

Flops kissed the girls forehead and all at once,

Freddy was awake.

In the hour or two after, Freddy told the story to her mother.

Within three, Freddy was at school

In those moments before circle time,

When Tabitha returned Flops to Freddy

Freddy couldn’t help but notice the scratches and tears

That had happened in her dream last night.

The implausible nature of it did nothing to effect our young Freddy

However,

Instead she hugged Flops tight

Feeling the little orb deep inside of Flops

Knowing that somehow it was hugging her back

Before putting him in her backpack