Ioki the Furbaby
I’m standing in an ornately decorated casino/hotel that’s been ripped straight off the Vegas strip. I’m watching my buddy, Chris, attempt to balance a Jeep on his chin from the opposite end of a long hallway blanketed by a rich red paisley pattern. Yes, a Jeep, a Wrangler soft-top. He is very determined to pull off this feat and he’s assured me that he’s done this many times before.
He is surrounded by three or four puny little drunk frat boys trying their damnedest to hoist this Jeep upon his willing chin. I watch them struggle for a bit and then decide to help. As I’m slowly walking my way towards the fray, I hear the DJ at the nearby bar announce my appearance to the Jeep-chin-balancing act. He proclaims the enormousness of, well, me in general. I’m flattered. I look to my sides and my arms have more than doubled in size. I’m ready for this shit.
I promptly plop the Jeep upon his chin and he balances that heap, by God; I’m impressed. Chris and another group of friends wave goodbye and head off to bet on sports games in front of the seemingly hundreds of large TVs smothering the rear wall. I’m left alone by the bar, my arms have deflated back to normal. I hear a baby cry. A sweet looking little blond girl. Her hair is bright yellow and shiny, twisted into cylindrical curls. She’s probably just shy of a year old, still in diapers. Suddenly it’s a ghost town in the hotel and it’s just me and the baby, Ioki.
I learned her name telepathically, she never actually speaks. We walk into a room to the side to get away from the main casino floor. It’s quiet and there are tables and chairs stacked up near the right wall. It smells musty like a crawlspace. There’s a TV on the wall and I turn it on to break the silence. I sprawl out on a couple of chairs positioned side-by-side to allow me to put my feet up. I drift off to sleep with baby Ioki in my lap.
I am rudely awakened by a foul stench and a wet feeling in my lap. Ioki took a huge, rank, liquid shit all over me. I look around and I’m covered in this viscous, molasses colored diarrhea. I decide that we need to get cleaned up. Ioki is no longer a cute little blond girl. She more resembles some sort of mutant baby like the one from Eraserhead. She’s mostly motionless, has no hair and no clothing; just a bursting-with-shit diaper. I respect my charge as keeper of Ioki and decide that we need a shower.
We walk through the corridor to the rear into another room, much like the last, but with an awkwardly positioned luxury shower to my immediate right. How convenient. I begin to remove the diaper from Ioki as she hangs limply in my arms. There’s still dripping molasses excrement all over my forearms. I pry off the diaper like an old band-aid from her bottom and notice that from roughly the belly button down, she’s covered in dense fur. We enter the shower and get cleaned up nicely. The room has opened up since we entered the shower and the color pallet has shifted from deep red to bright blue.
We are now inside of some random family’s mansion and proceed to meander aimlessly through a never ending series of rooms until we reach an enormous great room. Ioki has her pretty blond curls back. And apparently, Ioki has her family back too as she jumps from my arms, now able to walk (and jump and run), and scurries off to her family waiting conveniently for her by their plush blue sectional. I try to make eye contact with the family without success. I am nothing but a shadow to them. I inspect some additional rooms of the house in wonderment and then wake up.
