A Clean Start to the Year Written by Septia A streak of sparkles snuck their way through the interspace of my eyelid and the bags packed underneath them. I raised an arm to shield my vision, but in doing so capitulated to the consciousness, as the act kick started thought, action, and awareness, robbing me of further rest. I opened my eyes, to stare out acquainting myself with the sliver of moonlight peering though the window across the living room. The sparse illumination lit up the scrapyard; tell-tale signs of a party laid plastered across the room: cider kegs covered in glistening pools, laundry dispatched in the heat of the moment, along with patched carpet of foodstuffs, grime, and paper. Strewn along with it laid a few friends, some hugging another, others bundled up in a cocoon made up of their previously festive attire. All of them were snoring. That last part was overdoing it for my rudely awakened mind, though I wasn't falling asleep again either way. I stumbled onto the floor. -Chrsls- My hooves hit the actual ground – instead of scraps, cloth, or fluids – a choice few times… With a hoof over my forehead, I rubbed my senses to a functioning state. “Am I really starting off the year with cleaning?” I mumbled to myself -Dmmffpth- My hoof hit something soft, and a quake ruffled me unsteady. -Bhruraahhrrwlp- A gale of guttural humidity pelted my leg, making out he silhouette of the pegasus, partially hidden underneath a blanket of couch pillows. “On the other hoof, it is just another day.” ~ 1 ~ “Mfr, mrf…” I mumbled in, fumbling in the dark with the end of the hose – my motor skill diminished from the lack of sleep and abundance of partying… Eventually, I felt the plug align under my tail. Then it was just a matter of drawing it down along the canyon until… -Tscwljpf- I felt the plug slot into my trash chute. “Mmrf, haa…” I sighed, leaning against the vacuum shaft, gyrating my rear so the hose could find its proper fitting. -Chhrlgs- -Khfrplsht- A wrinkle of fluids trailed down the notches of the hose. I steadied myself with an inhale, and then let it all out in a sigh, as I switched on the apparatus. -Vrrrrhhhrf- It spun to life, an initial supply of air distending my abdomen, with a -Wpfffwp- low drumbeat. I patted my stomach. “Happy new year,” I mumbled. -Chhrnc- Rubber squealed across the floor, lubricated with spillage from plates and bottles alike. -Tthrofp- A paper plate flushed away into the hose leaving dented bulges through the ruffled tube before the hose and hind merged. -Chrlrps- It deposited with a growl from my gut, a quiver spiked through my spine. Though, my focus laid in honing in the oval nozzle of the vacuum towards the next bundle of trash on my path. -Chhttskp- -vrrtshwp- The starved implement gorging itself on the smörgasbord of trash spread out over the ground; the suctioning mimicked a flute, punctuated by a drumming as articles of trash rattled up the voluptuous pillar of polymer. -Chhrbl- -Krrgghshtwp- My gut deformed along ridges and pronounced bumps of trash, bundles of cloth packing away. I followed the outer perimeter, carving a path through the aftermath as I felt every chunk spring through the hose and deposited safely in through my backdoor. -bbffwthhrrr-. The nozzle jammed ahead of me. Peering down, I pulled It back, then pushed it forwards, into the pile cocoon of refuse. A sleepy drone filtered from the heap. A hoof sloughing out by the side, engaging in a reflex of pushing away the disturbance. “Scuse me,” I said bopping the hoof with the nozzle, “move over.” I added. They appeared – and were – unresponsive to my request. I ground a hoof underneath my cheek, sighing as the petulant cry of the stuffed hose wrung out through my spine to echo in my temple. “Fine then,” I mumbled, pulling the nozzle back, and thrusting it onto the path of pastel teal. -Vrrchtssmmwhpj- The hoof lodged into the gape, plugging the rubber to its brim, creating a vacuum further up the hose as the suction came to a standstill. -Until the pressure within surmounted the obstacle -Chhktpsh- The brim of polymer bloated around the appendage, suckling in the leg as I shuffled along behind it. -Chhglglsths- The hose swelled with the contours of the hoof, the maw of the cleaning implement trudging forwards in pace with my gait, enveloping the leg and warping over the thighs, its gape adjusting to drain in the stallion with patches of scraps and trash gummed to their frame. “Good, I'll have t deal with a clog too.” I mumbled. The muzzle distorted oblong at the hind, the peel of rubber bulldozing the plush meat to fit into its strained orifice. The other leg folding upwards along the pony as the brim -Shhvcllrprsth- sloughed over their hind. The warping mouth crawled along their torso, the hose distending in bulbous bloats, the furrows splaying, fanning out over the cresting droves worming their way up the tubing. The struggling equipment muted under the bulk of the task it had shouldered onto itself. “Yeah, you can stay asleep, less a hassle,” I mumbled, seeing his abdomen rolling up in bloats on the hose. The polymer moulded over his front legs, suckling down on the cheek and stretching to fit over muzzle, -Blgprssh- which protruded and shifted along the ridges along the hose. Eyes remained closed as their head -Chrlrlptsh- lodged through the pit. I hefted up the end of the nozzle and scoffed down the hooves, packing them into with the rest into the folds and screaming whistles of suctioned air until -Frrrshshh- -Brhrlgspths-… The lumps tumbled in, sloughing through the expanse of the rotund confinement and curling out of sight, just as I felt the -Chhrlrsrptsh- strain of meat, furrowed and wrinkling past my pucker. My rhind warping as much as it could, to accept the heap of trash left behind by the party. -Crrbhrts- The bloats drained up towards my flank, gradually depositing the whole of the pony clot into the confines of my body. His coat brushing a chill through my bowels that spiked out to my tail. “Had to sleep on the floor, ofmmfff, course,” I grumbled between huffs. The bulges clogging the hose depleting as my stomach contorted and inflated over the vague equine figure. My abdomen dipping below my knees, contributing a smoothed set of bulges with the rugged heaps jammed for the copious amounts of garbage. “You dare clog me I swear to the moon…” I scoffed as my pucker slimmed over the last lump in the tube, -Chrlrps- -Chsrhhspxch- creaking with soapy hinges as it spread the pursing bundle of flesh past the neck, warping over to engulf the muzzle -Shhfggmsmpths-. The lump slimmed out, sandwiched between juggling hams munching up the oblong heap of hooves, -Schplrtcs- smacking away into the temporary bin. “Phaa… there we go, least there are some positives to start the year off,” I muttered and refocused my efforts, dredging forward through the refuse swamp. I curved around the rim of the garbage heap my abdomen fluttered with bundles of trash depositing, and with each jostle of trash the surface domed smother, burying the trace of them under the expanding bulk of overindulgence. ~ 2 ~ “Huuua. Phaa…,” I sighed, clutching the shaft in both hooves, providing support as I gazed over the apartment. The whole room cast in a cool glow – with the floor freed from garbage it could reflect the beams of moonlight that descended from the window. Here and there still laid a friend of mine, mostly shoved into corners with an aura of grime marking them out, victims to a homicide case, an aura of dust… “Haa… -Bhuruaalldlrp-” I felt the peptide air rising through my gullet in and erupting into a boil of a belch, coughing up a hoof full of sediment and the remains of a scarf. -Chhslltsp- which I slurped back down. -Bhglrls- My stomach dilated onto the ground, a step beyond mere dipping as it showcased a desire to spread out and merge with the floor beneath me. The whole of it plump as a gratuitous batch of dough – alternatively similar to the stomach of one who would bake such an amount of batter. -Bhglrpss- Time and again a growl would coil through the depths, thrumming the surface and sending ripples down the lake of belly blubber. “Worth it,” I mumbled. ~ 3 ~ -Gbrhgs- -Cbvhrrslsh- My midriff churned out as I hauled it over the ground, -Slgptsh- dollops of chub lounging onto the stairs beneath me – moving as a viscous liquid I ferried towards its final destination. “Mfms worth it…” I grunted as I scootched off the steps, and aimed my hind over the ledge to the bin below. “Just… gotta get this, mean hose,” I couldn't get a good grasp of the plug again, struggling with the patch near my flank which had been ground flatter from the abuse it had endured, the first morning of the year. -Chltlst- Then it slipped free, as the cork to a bottle of berry-punch. “Oh there weffmmf. Wmfffmaaa…” My face locked into a grimace. My flank cleaved by the swelling bulb of a pucker, the flesh petals blooming open with a splatter of humid bowl phlegm -Slpbvttsh- and a knob of barrage congestion disgorged from my hindquarters. -Chrlrlsptsh- for a moment it held; a bale wrapped in tatters, glued with slime around cartons and soggy plates. -Chrkrs- As it curled from my cheeks fractures sprouted up through the surface, each object detaching itself from the hold, shirts unfurling to dispense a melange of debris -Chrlcht-tsh- clattering to the bottom of the bin. It was soon to be followed by dense clangs and -Thtbrrmsp- smacks of the avalanche as refuse exhumed from my frame. “Mfms, that is a big one, that is mffr…” I huffed, clutching over my abdomen. I felt a canyon form in my gut, breaching down the length of my stomach as the parade of trash hauled free. -Chrlrlsths- A plug jammed betwixt my cheeks, my tail standing on end in my strains, my brim concaving into a crater around a tip of a muzzle, before swelling and jutting out to apart agape with phlegm drippling down the crevasses of flesh. “Phha hfapaa, hwaa. Whas hafmmshwaahwss,” a voice mumbled behind me, muffled now and then as my rear trembled, tugging the blockage back and forth, till -Chslrrptsh- it peeled off of them in a broad gape. I felt my friend's head dislodge from my pit, as my hind crawled along their shoulders, matted satin straps were plastered along his frame, aiding his slope along with the rest of the compacted trash. Once our flanks nuzzled up together in this intimate embrace, my pucker unhinged around his weight, for a moment bending oblong around his legs, bending under the weight as they tobogganed off into the container. My hind lips smacked around the tip of their hooves with a -Chsrlrspt- flick of a lubed marinated belt. -Chsltltpsthbcsh- and the trashy friend landing bottom first with a clash of a brick in a bundle of soggy socks and pudding. “Phaaa…,” I sighed to myself, rubbing along my gut that steadily deflated in my grasp, reeling up with the waves of muscle contractions caressing along my frame, flushing out remnants of last year's party. I felt my pucker snap back, vibrating between the each egress of trash clumps, melded together in a manageable loaf to relinquish from my body, my attention, and my life. -Bfhrhrsptls- A putter warbled out my hind lips around the final chunks of junk, the mighty pillar of trash reduced to a scrambled porridge on the bottom of the bin, with the passenger lodged somewhere along it, hooves and head poking out of the mess. -Twmp- -Twwmp- I patted my stomach, slimmed and secure, though limbered and brimming with jolts of energy coursing through my nerves. “Haa… worth it,” I affirmed, sauntering my way back up the stairs. There was a comfort in the fact that whilst the start to the new year had been bogged down with strife, did not compare to how some were spending it… A petrichor breeze of hazel and fermented cider rose from the container below, as a tangerine glow crept over the horizon.