FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Something is wrong. What is wrong? Nothing is wrong, but you feel something is wrong. They know something is wrong, but you can't think of what's wrong, and so nothing is wrong. They're wrong, but since they think something's wrong with you, then something's wrong with you and they're right. There's nothing wrong with you--you're just irritated they think there's something wrong with you--and so now you're irritated and something's truly wrong with you, and that proves them right, which irritates you even more, and that pisses you off.

The puppy's going to be fine; you did what you had to do. You beat all the whiners, the hypochondriacs, the druggies, the middle-age women with mild depression. The puppy's seeing someone right now, even though you can't see him yourself. They'll let you know once they know, and they know what's wrong with him; they know everything, even though they know nothing about you. They just think you're a little angry, which is why they didn't let you see Spot with his mom. Well, they started it.

It's them, is what's wrong here. It's them, with their bloated bureaucratic medical insurance policies and self-preservationist methods that make it impossible to see someone quick unless someone's visibly bleeding, and not into a diaper. The boy needed help; you got him help. The boy needed help...you got him help.

All those middle-age hypochondriac whining druggies recognized Marcie immediately as she walked back into the waiting room--all fifty-seven or fifty-nine of them. They all looked at her when she reentered the waiting room, and her paw immediately went to her heart which thumped back against her paw. They all blamed her; they were all suffering a little longer because of her. They were the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe easy, but they were all muscled out by the girl with the loud mouth, who as far as they knew, was a college drop-out with no a job and a hundred boyfriends. That girl was all wrong.

The tips of Marcie's fingers and toes felt like raw defrosting meat, and when she scratched her arm it felt like her claws would flake off like cheap press-ons. There was a brick in her stomach and acid in her veins; her nose was dry and her pawpads were wet and these people, all these people, would not stop looking at her. One furry caught her quaking, who kept staring at her as he elbowed the female next to him, who then patted her five kids on the head and they started staring at the otter, at this otter who was just standing in place, paws clenched, her legs spread and stiff as bows, just standing there and glaring around the room at the furries who kept staring at her.

The room was silent, a lone wolf coughed and the sound vanished like a pawful of soot. They were waiting for her to speak, and she knew they were waiting for her, waiting for her to say something so someone would have an excuse to yell at her for cutting in line. How dare she cut in line. How dare she.

"Like you have it any worse," she said through gritted teeth, "like you have the right to talk. Like your chronic cough or your upset stomach or your little case of depression stands up in any way against that poor puppy's plight."

Marcie stepped out of the doorway and into the room, pointing at each furry staring at her like paper targets on a firing range.

"Did you even look at the poor scamp, did you see the fury in his eyes, did you hear the scared, confused anger in his voice, or did you just think he was throwing a stupid tantrum?"

She pointed at the female tiger with the five kittens, one footpaw on an empty chair. "Did your babies ever put up such a fight, clawing at their caretakers until they broke skin, biting at anything and everything that was restraining them until they ripped their own teeth out?"

Marcie's voice got louder and she stood fully on her chair. The mother pulled her kids close and moved down a seat. Most of the furries in the room, especially the ones close to her, began to shy away.

"I did what I had to, I did what any decent being would do, I saw there was a problem and by grace and by fortune I ran to save this puppy's life. I held him close to me while he was screaming in my ears, I pet him and I cleaned him while he was biting my arms, and I got him to a doctor while all of you were crying and moaning about your exaggerated, temporary ailments that could have been fixed just as easy tomorrow and could have been prevented if you'd just paid attention to your own abused body."

Marcie's audience was all perked ears and prickly hackles now, and anybody who had been within the farthest earshot was leaning around the corner, over the reception desk, or from the doorway. They made a wide circle around her like scared blades of grass, and two security guards with their paws around their belts walked across this naked patch.

The guard to speak was a plump fox with a faded company cap. "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to step down from there and wait like the rest of our guests. Yelling's not going to make the line move faster."

Marcie did not heed him, but instead raised her voice and put one footpaw on the top of her chair.

"This is what's wrong with this country; you're all too soft! Luck forbid that anything serious happens, like some actual pandemic. Hope they don't have to come to this hospital; they'll be dead in the waiting room before the doctor can finish up his next depressed housewife who's too fat to get out and too stupid to get herself a real hobby!"

Lucky for Marcie, there was a husky husky in the corner. She wasn't plump by any means, but her suit was a little tight on her.

"Ma'am," the security guard stressed, grabbing at her free paw, "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Get your paws off me!" she barked, "there's nothing wrong with me! Why don't you throw these fakers out, eh? And you, druggie! You not feeling so hot? Did we mix our uppers and downers, not enough government cheese in your tummy before your little bender? Why don't you go take it like an adult? You screwed up, you are screwed up, and you're not going to pay for your visit anyway. There's gotta be something in your stash that'll treat that tummy ache!"

The skunk she was placing on trial, a young male with a ratty hoodie and red eyes, doubled over and vomited, his head staying hung after he finished retching. The security fox's partner, a wiry old tabby, fumbled for his pepper spray as the fox grabbed her by the wrist.

"Ma'am, we're going to have to call the police if you don't step off that chair right now. This is your last warning."

It was this moment that Marcie howled and leapt at him, biting him on the shoulder. The fox yelped in pain as he fell backwards into a row of chairs, and before the tabby could aim his pepper spray Marcie pushed him onto the floor, grabbed him by the ears, and kept smacking his head against the tiles until the skunk in the hoodie shoulder-tackled her into the wall, throwing all his insignificant weight against her. Marcie, adrenaline and anger surging through her veins, pushed back against the floor and threw him off her, then dove at his torso and bit him in the side, then the arm that swiped at her, then his face and muzzle.

Her small, razor sharp teeth sank into his pink nose and he shrieked in pain, pushing away from her and coughing, crying, as he tripped over a row of chairs. Marcie leapt to follow him but the husky husky slugged her and pinned her to the ground, chunky paws around her throat. The skunk disappeared down the hallway and then the fox, who was carrying his unconscious partner.

It was at this point that four more security guards arrived, fine-looking fellows looking fresh from the military, and relieved the husky husky of Marcie as four paramedics came with a sturdy gurney and stood far, far back as security placed her upon it and bound her to it. Their radio chatter was short, quick, intense and impossible to hear over the avalanche of footsteps rushing her down the checkerboard hallway under lamp after lamp of fluorescent light.

A blur of black, white, and egg yolk flew past her and she wanted to shout out to her, but the words escaped her. Words escaped her altogether; thoughts were fast and fleeting and the only thought she could muster was that something was very, very wrong.

And soon, locked in a room with four nervous nurses and two security guards she thought nothing, she thought nothing as her arm pulled free of the hastily-bound cuff, she thought nothing as she struggled free of the gurney as it tipped and fell; she thought nothing as she tackled the nearest body and thought nothing as she bit his neck and thought nothing of the gushing, wheezing torrent of air and blood as she ripped at the flesh of his windpipe.

Delia awakes nude; Delia awakes with the straps of her dress dangling from her claws and a throw blanket entwined between her thighs and warm to the squeeze. The sun trickles through fuchsia curtains blowing with the summer breeze and it rustles her sleek, bristling coat with friendly puppy paws. Her nose twitches with the scents of the new day and she stretches her long legs, flexes her calf cleft in taut, fuzzy skin, and cracks her toes with a snippity-snap that drops Spot's blanket from her footpaw and begs a long, languid whine of her.

Her phone is silent, dumb with the same flower wallpaper smile with the time, yes, but no other updates of the day. Delia shifts her weight as she sits upright; her tail curls between and through her buttocks as she squeezes the plastic pill to life, sees nothing but what's normal on her phone, and chews her tongue with the trepidation that something is wrong, despite her phone which says that nothing is wrong.

Even so, she feels something is wrong. With careful attention to the stiff seams she pushes her footpaws through a set of overalls and her head through a pink shirt Father Time would have sworn used to be red. She goes to her garden and kneels, tail lively behind her, and caresses buttercup petals that align the bottom of her house like ankle bracelets, like patterned socks as she grips her trowel in another paw. Delia speaks softly to them as the sun rubs her dark ears; clouds move in formation and roll over themselves dumbly as a bedazzling black car stops short of her yard.

Delia looks up, the tiny shovel hits her knee as her floppy ears perk best they can. Two proper furries, posture precise in every pawfall they place in her grassy yard, regard Mother Dalmatian in the mutest manner. One is Doctor Dalmatian and his fur is a mess; his glasses are smudged and his shirt is only buttoned to the second top button. He pulls his coat tightly around him even though it is quite warm. The other is a bat, a fierce little fellow at four foot five whose fur is perfect; his sunglasses spotless and his shirt starched and ironed to the oxford collar which is tight about his cyan tie. The bat adjusts his glasses closer to his eyes even though it isn't that bright.

Doctor Dalmatian speaks first; he is unsure of himself even though he has done this a fit pawful of times. His words burble out of him as though he doubts his own practice; they drip over his chin and Delia cocks her head in amazement. This was her debonair savior, but now he is reduced to a dolphin with a whale's tongue. The bat smacks his wide wing against the bumbling doctor and hisses--a kiss of admonition--before turning to Delia and snapping his chin with a curt nod.

"I am sorry," he says as he pulls a pair of tiny overalls from his wing's leathery folds, "We all are."

He then offers hospital services--counseling and support groups--but she only takes the pants. She takes the pants and the piss of this pugnacious yammering and pulls them in, falling to her knees and freezing. It's all blabber and Doctor Dalmatian keeps tripping on his lips; the bat keeps terse and offers the same paltry pawful of generic condolences she'd expect of a professional. It's just a wonder, her mind remarks as it tumbles dumbly over itself, that Doctor Dalmatian can't. This sort of thing happens more often than they--anyone--would like, the bat curtly states, and she should know that they did everything in their power to prevent it.

They're out of her fur before she musters a single sniffle. They're soon gone; the car pulls away and she's still there, and she looks at her buttercups, daisies and daffodils as her thumbs thrumb his tiny brass buttons--he's dead, they said--and that's it. A single monkey with a single typewriter stands from his desk in the back of her head, verdict in hand.

Delia shares a quiet moment in her garden, squeezing Spot's well-worn dirt-stained denim as her posture wilts into her garden, head level with healthy brown soil that is warm to the touch. Her mind boggles and her heart races at something so startlingly new. Delia shrieks loudly and with a large grimace, she rips flowers from the ground and shoves them into the sky.

Mother Dalmatian--dear Delia--throws these flowers aside and rips up new ones, thinking nothing as she plunges her paws into a tangle of soil and roots, nothing as she tears petal from sepal and stems by the dozen, and she thinks nothing of the gushing, wheezing torrent of spit and scream that ruptures from her throat and bounces across the yard like a falcon shot in flight.