Scrumpy-Flop Forgets to Go to the Toilet - an ANTHROPOMORPHISM story for Fairy Tale Friday, 17th October 2014

Scrumpy-Flop bent low over his writing desk and scribbled furiously. He'd been responding to fan/hate mail for hours and his sagging eyes were bloodshot in the weak light of his standard lamp. Scrumpy-Flop was an obscure demigod, responsible for the maintenance of the plumper forest creatures that inhabited his particular plane of reality. But to almost everyone besides himself, he was a rabbit. A slightly chubby, moth-eaten rabbit, in fact, and not a polytheistic deity at all. To all intents and purposes, he was a crap lagomorph. He tried his best to dispel these distressing thoughts though, as the letters he currently pored over contained quite enough allegations to this effect to rob him of any shred of self-esteem he may have left. It seemed having one's own religion wasn't enough for some pan-dimensional beings. They wanted mind-bending miracle-work or some such. Looking after overweight mustelids didn't cut it. Scrumpy threw down his half-moon spectacles and rubbed his eyes in frustration. Occasionally he might receive a note of encouragement, scrawled on a leaf from a Planck-badger or similar multiverse-straddling organism, but it scarcely made up for the amount of disbelieving bile he had to wade through. Just then, a clicking sound heralded the arrival of Dr. Jacobs, Scrumpy-Flop's personal physician. Scrumpy turned, ears drooping, expecting the worst.
'What's up, Doc?' he mumbled.
'Nothing much,' said the Doc nonchalantly, 'but something you might want to bear in mind, you haven't had a bowel movement for several weeks.'
Scrumpy-Flop's eyes bulged.
'Really?' he said incredulously.
'Afraid so' said the Doc in his infuriatingly dulcet tones.
'But I went just the other…' Scrumpy tailed off as he frantically flicked through his desk calendar.
'Month' finished the Doc helpfully.
'Shit' said Scrumpy, replacing the calendar.
'Or not, as the case may be,' said the Doc, not so helpfully.
'Thought I was feeling bloated,' said Scrumpy, ignoring the Doc's attempt at humour, 'so, what do I do now? Wouldn't have thought I'd have much luck forcing the blighter out at this stage. I'd need an arse the size of a gas giant.'
The Doc ignored this. Too easy.
'Quite,' he said curtly, 'in fact your options are fairly limited.'
'Oh?' said Scrumpy, intrigued, and now that the Doc had drawn his attention to it, in an immense amount of pain.
'Indeed,' redoubled the Doc, 'in my professional opinion you've about thirty seconds before you die of septic shock.'
Scrumpy-Flop's eyes bulged ever wider, making his head appear shrunken by comparison.
'And you failed to mention this sooner because…?'
'You expect me to monitor your toilet-frequenting activities?' said the Doc indignantly, 'It's a miracle we found out at all. Someone at the Water Board flagged it up. Noticed a dearth of flushing.'
Scrumpy-Flop, now rock-solid in more ways than one, and with eye threatening to breech socket, merely looked aghast at his ineffectual health professional, and marvelled at his own ability to carelessly neglect something so fundamental to his continued existence.

Then he died.

The End

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