FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Lenny's progress through the house was very much following suit of how he started. To his own amusement, he found it easy to work faster fixing sink after sink, and toilet after toilet. He hooked pipes together this way and that way, moved pipes between rooms to see if he could get interesting shapes. He wanted to see if he could get pipes as short as possible, mix differently shaped pipes, use as many pipes as possible, and try other assorted tricks to make the job interesting and creative.

Toilets were a trickier problem. They were all in salle de bains, as Bevers had called them, and not bathrooms as Lenny was used to. They sure seemed like bathrooms, though. Lenny had a wonderful time flushing each of the toilets repeatedly. He noticed that they all seemed to flush at a slightly different pitch. Because of this, Lenny flushed one toilet, then ran desperately to the next bathroom, flushing another toilet for its different timbre. He repeated this exhaustive exercise in the hopes he could play out the "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" tune. He gave up when he ran out of breath and forgot what note he was on, however.

Having to get back to work, Lenny decided to check if the toilets were clogged. Because he couldn't easily get at the pipes, he decided to see if things would fit down the potty. Many things, balls, books, lamps, even whole rolls of toilet paper managed to go down with plenty of encouragement from Lenny's trusty plunger, a tool no plumber leaves home without. Lenny then decided to see if he could get the flushing potty to pull down the toilet paper right off the roll. It took a few tries, but eventually he got this to work, laughing hysterically as the toilet paper whizzed clear off the roll and down into the porcelain bowl. Lenny felt a little sad afterward. That toilet paper would never be seen again now.

Lenny finally entered the room with the giant bathtub. This room was enormous, and had a humungous pool-like bathtub in the middle of the floor, with 33 different taps. Lenny knew he would have to try each and every one out to make sure they worked. Lenny flicked on a random tap, and yellow water flowed out, smelling of chamomile and daffodils. Lenny giggled at the color of the water, then shut the tap off. The second tap he tried revealed water of such a rich, blue color, and it smelled of fresh air and fruit. Lenny of course was unable to resist turning on both the yellow and blue taps together to make green water swirling around, the bizarrely scented fragrancies assaulting his nose so he could barely breath. Lenny gave his trademark smile, and then ran around the entire circumference of the bathtub, turning on every bath faucet there was, including the one with jewels gushing forth from it.

Lenny smiled as he stared at all 33 faucets spurning out their contents in an endless stream. He danced and waved his arms like a conductor, listening to the cacophonous mix of thirty-three streams all emptying forth into one body, creating a discolored grey mass, with a pile of jewels displacing the water mad, the water churning and frotching and bubbling and swirling. The bubbles floated up throat the air, the froth careened over the edges of the floor tub like the surf crashing upon the beach, and it wasn't until his shoes became soaked that Lenny realized something was amiss.

Lenny stared at the overflowing water, his eyes wide with fear, feeling like a dog that was being chased down by an angry man with a stick not for fetching, but for beating. Rather than end up like so many seals, Lenny found he was already shutting off faucets left and right, accidentally missing several on his first pass through, darting back and forth as the water splashed upwards, even soaking the ankles of his plumbing overalls. Lenny didn't realize when he had finally shut off all the taps, but when he did his panic started to subside when he had no more rushing left to do. He grabbed his hair as he looked over the mess in a daze. He wanted to cry. He wanted to fight his way through throngs of angry people he expected would be waiting to string him up.

Lenny walked around the bath, his mouth turned down in a freakish, pained frown of fear, his lower lips starting to tremble and wobble. "Noooooooo," he whined feebly. The water was not draining down. All the precious, shiny, coloriffic jewels had blogged the drain. Lenny's mind desperately tried to console him so that he could cope with the situation he barely even understood. The water level should go DOWN! It's got a DRAIN! That's where water GOES AWAY!

Lenny slumped down to his knees, his arms jutting out awkwardly as the front of his overall's shins became soaked in an instant. "Ahhhhhh," he started to cry, but couldn't muster the strength required. Well, you win some you lose some, he once would have thought. But this was the REAL WORLD now. He had a JOB. He had to win ALL THE TIME or be FIRED and homeless. Mrs. Sow would be very angry that her son had failed again in the world of employment, and he would lose all of his utilitarian value. He just wanted to play Sudoku, a desire that hung heavy in his heart like that aching vacuum that would cause his chest to collapse upon the entropy of his soul. A tear streaked down Lenny's face like a leaky faucet.

"Huh, wha?" Lenny blubbered suddenly, picking his head up as he thought he had heard someone entering. There was nobody there, of course, and Lenny panicked again, rushing out of the room. Bevers was there, scowling at him, and looking to be on the verge of rage about Lenny's appearance.

"Are you quite through?" asked Bevershnide, the butler placing his hands on his hips and tapping his foot impatiently on the floor because Lenny had not answered in the next few milliseconds.

"Yep, all done!" Lenny replied, his voice shaking like a blustery wind. He waved his arms, gesturing with his toolbox as if that meant something.

"Here is your pay. You'll notice it's very generous. It's probably more than your species ever see in your whole lives." Bevershnide handed Lenny exactly one shiny new dime. "Maybe you can show it to all of your friends down below in the gutter. It's not like you...'people' would know what to do with it."

Lenny stared down at the dime he had accepted onto his open palm. He could feel that heavy sense of dread drip back into his chest as though it had been dropped into the blood of his heart to sink like a stone. The ripples rising higher from the displacement until they choked his own heart. "No," he said in the tiniest voice possible, so that Bevershnide could never have heard him. Well, he certainly couldn't have been able to buy a new sudoku book with this. But at least Mrs. Sow would be content that he had had job he was getting paid for, even if the pay was not very much. His mother would have told him he would simply have to work harder and not be so lazy because life was not fair and it wasn't going to take care of him. A tear rolled down his other cheek now.

Bevershnide slipped out his handkerchief now, and Lenny looked at it, then up at Bevers. Maybe Bevers wasn't so bad after all, if he was going to console Lenny by letting him wipe his tears. He knew Bevers was alright after all.

Bevershnide grabbed Lenny by the arm, the butler's hand protected from touching Lenny's prole germs by clutching him with the handkerchief to avoid any direct contact. Bevers lead Lenny out to the main hall to the front door where he would be escorted out. Lenny realized by the presence of dozens of people, including Lady Jigglebottom, that he had taken so long and worked so late that her evening party had started.

"Ordinarily we would have you use the guest-servant's entrance, but this is a special occasion," explained Bevershnide.

"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Lady Jigglebottom, catching the attention of her droll, amused-looking guests. "It is my astounded thanks to you all that I should be selected with verisimilitude this enchanted evening to be gifted most honorable and amicably with the Generosity's Uniqueness Award for Outstanding Excellence in Achievement in my particular field of employment, Being Rich.

"Yes, being rich is a glorious and wonderful thing, and I can do anything in the world that I want to because I am the Chosen Few. Yes, my important job of Being Rich is clearly accented by what I think may all shock and astound you, maybe even horrify you. But I have, in my captivity, a genuine proletariat working class poor person with no~ money!" The crowd gasped in horror, then oohed and ahhed at Lenny. Lenny smiled at all the attention. But then some phantasmagorical phenomenon deemed to steal the show right then and there.

Lenny's dimly aware smile faded with a subliminal premonition that everyone in the room felt. Something had gone dreadfully wrong. There was a creak and a churn, a gurgle and a groan, and the ominous din of rushing waters as yet unseen was rumbling all about them. Just then, chaos broke through the reef. Literally, as the walls were made partly out of endangered coral. Filthy, murky water exploding in droves from the walls, the ceilings, and up from the walls. Toilets erupted in Vesuvian choir, carrying with them the very beings of their septic bellies. And when the SMELL hit the crowd...

The aftermath. Crying, moaning, retching. Guests in once-fancy dresses, fancy-no-longer, straining to pull themselves up from the disaster that had once been a fabulously wealthy abode. The structure still stood, but at a slight angle, and with much damage. There was only one square inch in the attic now which was not soaked.

"Why I've never, I have never never, oh I've never been so shocked... oh I've never been--" blubbered Lady Jigglebottom, desperate to stand up. Her hairy dog now resembled a stick insect, and it jumped up and bit her on her behind, causing her to help and fall down all over again after the intense struggle she had trying to stand up.

It was just then that Donald Trump came out of the crowd of onlookers, his toupeeat a rakish tilt and dripping water down his head. "YOU'RE FIRED!" he bellowed at Lenny, striking a disco pose as he pointed menacingly.

"But I don't work for you," said Lenny.

"YOU'RE FIRED!" repeated Mr. Trump, doing his trademark pose.

Lenny hung his head forlornly. He had disappointed everyone. He had disappointed himself. But most of all he had disappointed his mother. Mrs. Sow would hate him all over again. As Lenny slumped off, his shoes squelching along the pavement, head hanging low past his shoulders, he remembered how praiseful she had been when he had announced he had gotten a job as a plumber.

Lenny had failed again. But tomorrow would be another day.

Lenny's dimly aware smile faded with a subliminal premonition that everyone in the room felt. Something had gone dreadfully wrong. There was a creak and a churn, a gurgle and a groan, and the ominous din of rushing waters as yet unseen were rumbling all about them.