FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

----I'm not going to lie--I had pretty much everything a guy like me could want. I had a cool little job as a waiter at the closest coffee shop, I was already able to afford a quaint house not long after graduating from college, and I kept my family close in touch. Seriously, I would think that I've had it pretty well.

And yet, something seemed missing. Not missing, actually--right in front of me, but just out of reach. Every now and again I'd see her, the tigress. Kyla was her name, so I was told from a friend. She was incredible, stunning. Even though she was a macro, she frequented the town. Really nice. Just from seeing her walk by I doubted she could hurt a fly. At times, our eyes would meet, and some of those times she would smile that perfect smile where her cheeks puffed out a bit, but not a thing would be said. I know that it's cheesy, but it leaves a bit of a mark after a couple months.

But I was a micro, a fox, and a guy with the most common name ever: Alex. The odds of anything happening between us were abysmal at best, right? As much as I tried not to worry about it, the stupid thoughts kept coming back. "Say something," my brain would say. My mouth just sealed itself shut but managed to speak a refusal every single time. It wouldn't be far-fetched to say that one of my major flaws is talking to people.

I tried to stuff these inane thoughts into the back of my mind again as I walked to work at around 9:00 in the morning. No time for much sleep, but people like me need a boost this early after all. Guess you could say I was doing my part. Besides, it's not much of a big deal when where you work is a short few blocks away from your house.

At every crosswalk I would see massive paws bigger than the size of automobiles tiptoe with trained care through the busy streets, lumbering lithe bodies above looking down at dark concrete lines filled with ants. Macros liked to frequent micro cities, if only to use them as shortcuts to get elsewhere, but it wasn't uncommon for them to just hang out in public parks either. It was incredible that people so large and powerful could be so...consistently peaceful.

Although I was literally one street across from work, all at once my thoughts screeched to a halt as I bumped into something very large, very furry, and very orange. In the middle of the crosswalk. I couldn't believe my own lack of attention to where I was going--it wasn't exactly common for me to bump into the footpaw of a macro, but I guess I picked today to make myself look like an idiot.

"Oh, excuse me," I shouted above. Surely I could normally just apologize and keep going. That's what I'd normally do. Of course, today it wasn't just the foot of any macro. It had to be her. Kyla. She looked down, directly at me, from probably over 100 feet in the air. The striking green eyes of the tigress bore through me, even though her faced showed no sign of anger or annoyance. It was just a flat, curious expression. She recognized me, clearly, and she seemed to be studying me a little. I couldn't tell if those were good things or terrible things.

Time slowed due to a combination of complete humiliation at my inability to say or do anything after being halted in the middle of the street, and my nervousness at Kyla's presence. The honking of various cars brought me back into reality, and I unhesitatingly weaved through Kyla's legs and scurried like a moron across the road and through the double doors of the coffee shop. The sign across the handle greeted me flatly with its single word and title: "Jumpstart".

I brushed a bit of sweat from my brown forehead and looked around. Only one customer was situated at a table, typing nonchalantly upon an aged laptop and sipping from a container so blatantly labeled with its contents' manufacturer. As embarrassing as the incident was on the outside, nobody here cared at all.

I assumed my position behind the counter as per usual. Business today was as slow as it was when I first arrived, but that was probably because it was, in fact, a holiday. I didn't get the day off for whatever reason, but half of the other employees, apparently along with the majority of our consumer base, did. I do enjoy the quiet days, though.

Kyla immediately thrust herself back into my head as I crossed me arms and leaned upon the counter out of boredom. This time I didn't try to stop it. There was nothing to stop me from indulging after all. What would I do about the whole situation? Couldn't I just man the hell up and say something? I was the reason nothing was happening, of course, so maybe that had to be the route to take. But then, what about her? Was she even interested in me? She could say something too if she was. Maybe she had much better things to do than talk to me? Of course she did. She was a macro and was passing through as most of them do.

It wasn't long before the options in my mental game of interactive storytelling were exhausted and I had no drive to continue lingering on something so pointless. No work to be done in my current situation, I picked up a wet cloth and swept back and forth across the already-spotless counter to accomplish nothing in particular except look like I was doing work of some kind. Nothing wrong with that, I supposed.

Time seemed to go on for hours, but in reality, only fifteen minutes passed before I checked the clock that hung commandingly from the wall opposite me, above the doorway. My eyes drifted just a bit lower, through the glass windows that had been cleaned to a sparkling sheen, noting the various activities of people outside.

Cars halted and sped as they needed to, nothing special there. A mother ferret and her three children passed by the doorway for but a moment, as though contemplating entering, and then just continued their walk. So much activity was happening at once as was the norm. So much, in fact, that I almost didn't notice the twin pillars of bright fur blockade the sidewalk and halt just in front of the door.

Before I even registered the fact that a macro was standing right in front of Jumpstart for what seemed to be no reason, a loud crash came from above, forcing me to jump at least five feet in the air before scuttling and hiding below the edge of the counter I had come to know just so damn intimately. After a few seconds I poked my head out to find the entire ceiling was gone, replaced by a heavenly scene of both the sky and an orange face that dominated the view.

"The ceiling is gone," I repeated mentally to myself over and over. Believe it or not, this wasn't necessarily an uncommon thing for a macro to do to acquire goods or other things from micro stores for the sake of convenience and accessibility--they could fix it quite easily--but it was definitely the first time it had happened to me. I slowly stood up and looked around for a quick second before looking back up, noting that the single customer from before hadn't given it much attention.

The face above...was none other than Kyla's. I was breathless. Her amazingly cute grin, the puffed-out cheeks, that gorgeous face, those drooping black bangs, the piercing green eyes--they were all there. A million thoughts ran through my head, more than a couple about how I would go about getting her what she needed and what I should say to her. All of them, however, were utterly smashed when I noticed that her sharp gaze was locked on none other than me, and only me. The cute smile remained and it shortly became obvious that the subject of interest was not what she wanted to purchase. The one word she uttered told me everything.

"Hey."----