I took a drink from my flask and then exited my car, making way to Dave's house to pick up my smurfs. It had not been a good day at work. After many hours of being yelled at by my boss and having my coworkers sabotaging my every move, I pulled up to my apartment complex in the late hours of the night. When I was at work, I had received a text from him that caught my attention. While it was not out of the ordinary for him to give me updates through the day, this one had been concerning me. Apparently, Gus had started to develop a rebellious streak, refusing to come to meals, sit with the others, or even share a sink for a bath. When picked up he would yip and squirm, trying to bite the hands of his holder. If anyone of his siblings tried to comfort him or share food with him, they would be scared away by his frantic barking and chirping. As if that wasn't bad enough, Leo had started to develop a deformity which was not uncommon to captive smurfs. Since he was so young and was separated from his parents and therefore had to rely on his sister and siblings, his little legs had barely developed any muscle. He would try to stand, sometimes getting maybe a couple seconds at a time before he toddled over or grabbed for something. Thusly, he preferred to cling to the back of his siblings or to stay on one of the plush structured in the playpen. This would cause problems in his adulthood if he never gets it corrected.
Despite not being in the best shape for company, I did manage to entertain Dave for our customary amount of time. The hours felt long and I constantly had my eye on the clock. When the time came for me to leave, I ushered my smurf babies into their travel cage and stood at the door as we all waved goodbye to Dave. Gus put up some resistance at first but quieted down when he saw my face. He stood aside from the others while they waved, lazily waving while clutching one of the metal bars which made the cage wall. Afterwards, I covered the cage with their blanket and walked briskly through the concrete hallway to my home.
I flicked the light on and threw my keys on the table. I was not exactly in the best of moods so I decided that I would cook dinner and try to call it an early night. I removed the blanket from the cage and placed my smurfs where I could see them. I put a pot of water on to boil and searched my cabinet for something to make a meal out of. After starting to run out of options, I looked through what I had in the refrigerator and was pleased to discover a lone egg which would grace my palette tonight. My joy was cut short, however which a shrill squeak pierced the air, causing me to drop my egg. Looking around in a manic state, I found the source to be my baby smurf Gus biting the arm of his dear sister Daisy. She must have gotten too close, perhaps seeking comfort in her brother, only to have found the pain of his teeth now piercing her blue skin. She writhed around in pain, flailing her head and legs, as she tried to pull away from Gus. The older, stronger brother, kept her with a firm grip on her ear. By the time I had opened the cage and pried him off of her, he had pulled her down and was pushing her face into the metal floor of the cage. The poor young smurfling, covered in blood and bite marks, had large tears falling down her face as she lay curled into a ball on the floor. She screamed and flinched when Lucy and Leo came over to comfort her, cooing softly at her and looking at me for reassurance.
My mood was already sour but this had put me into a spiral. I took Gus and immediately put him into a cage by himself in another room. He must have known he was in trouble because he did not try to escape from my grasp as I roughly pulled him out of the cage. I then quickly went to Daisy and did my best to tend to her wounds. I pulled out my homes emergency kit and began to clean her wounds before bandaging her. She winched as I cleaned her with an alcohol damp towel, but was lulled by me constantly petting her and talking to her out loud in a soft voice. Daisy was a very, very good girl as I put on her final bandage and held her in my arms while I gave her a bottle. Not wanting her to suffer any more tonight, I gave her some medicine to help her sleep through the pain. She quickly fell into a deep slumber and did not stir as I gave her to Lucy. I fed the twins their dinner and then put the three of them to sleep in their room. I could hear Gus stir, hooting and calling out from the covered cage he was in. I did my best to calm the twins, who were still awake, by moving Daisy to be in between them and then making their blankets and pillows like a den for them. They were out within minutes. I smiled at them as I turned the lights off, taking Gus and his cage with me.
I downed the rest of my flask, to get me in the state of mind that would be required for what I was about to do. I took Gus, still in his cage and placed it down roughly onto the table, the sound of the wooden table being hit reverberating throughout the room. Breathing heavily, I ripped the cover of the cage off, shining the interior with the bright light of the dining room. Gus, startled by his treatment, looked around rapidly as he tried to process what was happening.
"You little brat! I feed you, I give you a home, I love you, and this is how you repay me!" I yelled as I rapped a coin through the bars of the cage. Gus quickly backed up to the corner of the cage, his little chest taking quick breaths as the tired to make himself as small as possible.
"You are the eldest, you are supposed to set an example for the others. What is the matter with you, huh! You are acting worse than those two that I took up off the street!" I continued, trying to open the lock on his cage.
My hands fumbled around with it for several seconds before I found purchase. Once I did, the door clicked and swung open, clearing a path between the cowering baby smurfling. He was shivering and starting to cry as I started to bend down and reach my hand forward to him. Maybe it was some deep instinct in him that was activated, but before I grabbed him, he threw himself down on the floor spread eagle and purred submissively at me. Despite his charms and his struggle, it was to no avail, as I grabbed him tightly around the waist and pulled him out of his cage. Once a prison, now a heaven away from the hell which awaited him.
I took a pot from the stove and put it on the table before placing Gus in it as a temporary holding place. Its walls were too high for the little smurf to climb, not that did not stop him. I ran into the kitchen quickly to get somethings before returning to him trying to escape. I pried his pathetic little grip from the edge and picked up. He squeaked and cried out loudly as I forced his arms to the side of his body, and slid him into a small sized oven mitt. He struggled as soon as I released him to the table, only to realize that he was completely trapped. I then took some towels and pot holders and placed them inside the pot. I then turned back to my smurfling Gus and snatched the hat from the top of his head. He was too shocked to react, just laid there with his mouth open and his eyes bugging out. I slid a hand under him and then put him into the pot. He managed to get a quick look at me before he was sealed within the darkness of the nonstick cookware. After a couple of seconds, he started to squeak loudly.
"Shut up," I said coldly as I grabbed the pot and then shook it a couple of times, cutting off his complaints mid-cry. I heard him inside make a sound resembling something like "oook" before going silent. I put the pot down and opened it to see him face down in an awkward position along the wall. He was upside down with his legs in the air above him, the oven mitt folding in where his legs bent. I turned him over to see that he had turned a green shade and his eyes were becoming blood shot. I grabbed him and held him up, shaking him lightly so he would vomit on the towels under him. He had not eaten yet so it was not that much. I dropped him down onto the puddle of sick face first and listened to the bubbles of him trying to breath. I picked him up and then roughly cleaned his face. Once I did, I set him down to sit and let him rest for a couple seconds. He was breathing rapidly but could take more. I held his legs down and slapped his head in both directions, twice I think, before grabbing a tuft of his hair and holding his body so I couldn't slouch over.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" I said, looking down at him with disappointment. He tried to mutter something, smacking his lips and giving me a soft hoot before I tossed him back abruptly. His little head was saved from being hurt by the plush towel underneath.
"Didn't think so," I said as I wiped my hand on my shirt. I let him lay there as I went into the kitchen to fix him his bottle for the night. While I was going to have to punish him, I was not going to send him to bed hungry. He lay there on the table, only trying to wiggle worm himself away before I caught him. After yelling at him some more, I took out a magnetic chip clip and stuck him to the refrigerator. He hung there in the oven mitt, completely unable to do anything as I fixed his dinner. Gus screamed a couple of times but I just tugged on his ear a couple times till he stopped. He then quieted down for the remaining time it took me to finish his bottle. I then took the bewildered lilliputian into my arms and attempted to feed him.
"Eat up, this stuff I feed you guys is expensive, so you better not waste it," I said as I pushed the bottle at Gus's lips, "Not that you deserve it with the way you act sometimes."
He coughed and spluttered a couple of times, making me realign myself to find the perfect angle. After a couple tries, I found the perfect one, despite how much I was swaying. He finally accepted the bottle and began to drink down the fluid, his tears subsiding as he found comfort in it. I laid my head back and took a second to catch my breath. All the activity had drained what was left of me from work. I thought I would be sleeping by now but instead I was stuck discipling Gus. I could almost feel myself slipping into sleep before a new sound caught my attention.
Looking down, I saw that Gus was coughing on his smurfberry milk. I took the bottle out from his mouth and turned him over so I could pat his back. Because of the padding from the mitt, I put some extra power in my hits so that he would feel it through the material. After a couple seconds, Gus proceeded to burp, wait for several seconds, and proceed to throw up a full scoop worth of mixture. I could only stand there as I felt the anger brew with in me. I took a deep breath and planned my next steps, carefully.
After an hour, I returned Gus to the smurf room, placing him in a cage close to his siblings. The smurfling, clutching himself tightly and shivering still, lay in a ball amongst the blankets as I removed my hand from him. He was still recovering from the treatment I subjected him to. I then took a finger and scratched at his head and began to massage at his shoulders. After getting him to relax a little, I placed his hat back on his head. This caused him to stir and to grab onto my hand. I removed him from the cage and hugged him close. He cooed a little as I slowly pet his soft little back.
"I know, you're sorry. Its ok, mistakes happen, I just hate it when you are mean to the rest of them. I expect a lot from you, it just hurts when I don't see you live up to your potential. You are a big boy ok, I love you," I told him as I clutched him to me, holding him close.
He pulled his arms up from beside him and hugged and kissed me, letting me know he understood. Feeling glad, I put him back in to his cage and watched as he settled himself for the night. I left the room, tired beyond belief.
Laying back on my bed, I knew it would be hell to pay in the morning for how late I have stayed up. However, at this moment I could not afford to let it get to me, instead I opted to drink from a bottle in my bedside until I felt my eyes get heavy. I knew I had more problems to deal with, work stress and finding something to do for poor Leo, but that would have to be another day's problems. I felt the room begin to spin around me. Then I fell back onto the bed, finally falling into a slumber which took me from the here and now and into a landscape far from my own.