Pogo sat on his bed after the day in the fields with Mori. He would do this nearly every day after work. Just sit on the edge of his bed and look out into the empty room. He wondered how the people of the village were content with this kind of life. There was nothing in the room other than beds. No chairs. No tables. No art. Nothing but beds.

Each bed had its own small chest at the foot. The single point of privacy that they were allowed. Pogo stood up with a sigh and opened his chest. His four eyes rolled as he pulled out a small container full of white powder that was nearly empty. He put the container into his bag and left the house.

He made his way to the small market district that they had. The Mallow community didn’t do much trade. They were focused on sharing what they had, but that didn’t mean that some Mallows didn’t have things others wanted. It was a bartering economy mostly among the scouting parties that would travel the farthest from the village. Their official duty was to keep an eye out for any potential threats, but many of them had taken to the hobby of bringing back strange relics of human life.

As Pogo walked down Market Street there were numerous stalls where Mallows sat under the shade. Most of them siblings or close friends of the Mallows in the scouting corps. Pogo and learned from his time here that the scouting teams worked differently than the farming teams. While farmers were expected to do work year-round, the scouting members had off and on seasons. They would go out for a few weeks or months and then be given the same time off. They would form bonds with someone that worked the opposite seasons to ensure the shop was always open.

Any of the foodstuffs that they brought back went to the storage facility. An old Styrofoam cooler that had been retrieved with great effort from one of the scouting teams a few years back. Most of the things on Market Street were simple odds and ends that they could drag back with them without much hassle. There were some dead batteries, paper clips, crinkled paper, tossed away toothpicks, popsicle sticks. It was amazing what some of these scouting teams could bring back with them.

Pogo knew the truth, though. It was all just trash. It was what the humans didn’t want anymore. One of the reasons Pogo liked going down Market Street so much was the creativity some would have with the trash. Many Mallows would actually use their free time to create art with the materials brought back by the scouting teams. Using the creation itself to pay for more material to make more art. The shop keeper would then sell the piece of art for whatever anyone would be willing to barter with.

He wondered how it all got started in the first place. This strange economy of buying, creating and selling. It seemed like the creators were only truly getting the joy of creating out of the process. Maybe that was enough for them.

That wasn’t why Pogo was here, though. He enjoyed seeing people being creative. It brought some life to the otherwise dreary village, but Pogo was here for a reason. He needed a refill. He came across the stand he was searching for. They didn’t change places much, but sometimes they all switched things around. When Pogo had asked why he was told to make sure no one gets comfortable with where things are. He was told it was for the sake of equality. To ensure that every stall got looked at when someone walked through. Pogo suspected it was because some of them were dealing in material or information that would get them kicked out.

Pogo greeted the shopkeep with a warm smile across his belly. He would come about once a month for the same thing. He never greeted the shop keeper by name until they spoke. This particular shop was run by a pair of twins that looked nearly identical, and Pogo never knew who he was speaking to until they spoke. Bap had a deeper voice that Pab while Pab had a bit of a lisp when he spoke.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite customer back again!” It was Bap.

“Glad you still remember me.” Pogo teased.

Bap and Pab were a year older than Pogo. He insisted that a year is a large age difference in human years. Bap thought this was silly. Mallows often lived for 200 years without any issue, so the idea of a single year is a large difference seemed absurd.

“Shut it. I’m not old no matter what you say.” Bap shot back with a hint of snark. “Need a refill already?”

“Yeah.” Pogo said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Well, if you’ve got the regular stuff Pab just brought back a piece of chalk with his last batch.” Bap says as he eyes the satchel around Pogo’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I got it.” Pogo said as he pulled out a small bag full of pollen.

Bap laughed and rubbed his hands together as he saw Pogo produce the bag from his pouch. He opened the small bag, shoving his finger that was wet with spit into the contents. Bap moaned as he licked the pollen off of his finger and stuffed the bag into his own pouch.

“I’ll be right back.” Bap said.  He disappeared under the desk of his stand. A few moments later he reappeared with two small chunks of white chalk in either hand.

“What do you do with that pollen anyway?” Pogo asked as he took the chalk chunks and deposited them into his satchel.

“What’s it to you? I don’t ask about why you want the chalk. Best to just let everyone worry about themselves for this.”

“Sure.” Pogo nodded in answer. He closed his satchel and thanked Bap for the chalk before leaving his stall. Pogo made his way down the rest of Market Street, taking in all of the shops and the various odds and ends they had for sale.

He was making his way towards the water jugs. Four, gallon jugs, each filled with clean drinking water. They had small taps on the bottom where Mallows collected their water. Three of the jugs were full the fourth a little over half gone. Once it was empty they would start to crack down on the water rations, but for now, Pogo had no problem collecting water.

Pogo put waterskin into his satchel. He went off towards an open field with tall grass near the water jugs. There were plans to build more housing here when the village gathered enough materials. The goal was to allow everyone to have their own space to call their own.

It was a nice dream for the village to work towards. Pogo wasn’t sure if it was a real goal or just something Grand told everyone so they would work harder. It didn’t really matter to him either way.

He sat down in the tall grass. His entire off-white body concealed within the grass. Pogo pulled the water and chalk out of his satchel along with a small pestle and mortar that he had carved out of some rocks himself.  He splashed some water into the mortar, then broke off a chunk of the chalk and put it in as well. Then he proceeded to grind the chalk and water into a paste-like mixture.

Pogo dipped his hand into the paste once it was mixed up well enough. A thick coating of it covered his hands and fingers as he reached behind him and began to smear it across his back. The scar on his back had begun to show as the paste he used this morning faded.

Pogo always hated when he had to reapply the white chalky paste to his back. When he touched the scar, he was plagued with the memories of the person who had burnt their initials onto his back, but he had to cover it up. He didn’t want others asking about it. Some people in the village didn’t know about how humans actually treated Mallows, and if they saw the brand on his back, they would look to him for answers he didn’t have. Most importantly, though, Pogo wanted to put the memories of his interactions with humans as far behind him as he could.

He always tried to clear his mind, but it never worked. It always came back to Jamie and his years under her tyranny. Unlike those in the village, Pogo wasn’t born free. He was born in a pet shop. Breed for the express purpose of being owned. He was kept in a glass container with a community of other Mallows alongside other small animals.

Every time he touched the scar on his back memories flooded back from the day his life became a living hell. The day had started out normal enough. He was woken, along with the other ten or so residents of the glass terrarium, when the lights were turned on in the shop.

The opener was a teenager that worked weekends for spending money. After he turned the lights on he turned the sign on the door to show that they were open. He did his rounds and made sure none of the pets were dead. He neglected to feed any of them before he went behind the front desk.

Pogo was used to it. It always depended on who opened the doors in the morning if they could expect more food or not, so everyone in the terrarium had an agreement to ration the food pellets they were given. The day carried on normally after that. People came and went. Small children begging their parents for fish or hamsters or mallows. Some gave in others didn’t.

By the time the sun was setting, the person behind the desk had changed from the young man to a woman about the same age.  She was sitting at the desk with her eyes glued to her phone when the door rang.  Pogo didn’t pay much attention, and neither did the girl on her phone until she glanced up and saw it was her friend.

“Jamie!!” The girl behind the counter yelled out in excitement as she jumped off the stool she was sitting on. She rushed around to the front and gave her friend a tight hug. “I haven’t seen you since you graduated! How’s life?”

Jamie returned the hug with a wide smile, embracing her friend for a few seconds before letting go. “It’s good! College is honestly a lot more difficult than I expected. Just. Balancing all the classes and the parties takes a lot of planning.”

“You’re getting invited to parties as a freshman? That’s so cool! I heard that freshman didn’t get invited to things like that a lot.”

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of a legacy at my sorority so a lot of the rules don’t apply to me.”

Jamie smirked. Her shoulders lifted with a small shrug as she tried to play it off casually.

“You should totally invite me to a party sometime!” The girl whined.

The loud conversation had gotten Pogo’s attention.  He didn’t know why, but he always found himself interested in human lives. Their culture and words were so foreign and strange to him. He simply had a desire to understand and learn. That desire had him pressed up against the cold glass listening to the conversation of the two teenage titans.

“I totally would, but they’re kind of strict about only students going to most of them, sorry!” Jamie said. She had already moved on from the conversation. Her eyes scanning the shop. “You have mallows here, right?”

“Oh! Yeah! Right over here!” She still seemed excited to see her friend as she led her over to the glass terrarium that held the mallows. There had been about 12 this morning. Only 5 were left.

Pogo often wondered if something was wrong with him when so many others got picked out of the groups and he was left to watch time and time again. The truth was he didn’t know how lucky he had been up until this point.

As the two made their way over to the glass terrarium Pogo ran for cover. There was a hamster wheel, a food tray, and a small log that they used to sleep inside. Everyone else had already cowered inside of the log the moment a customer came in. Pogo was pushed out by his own curiosity to watch and listen to the conversation between the two teens.

Jamie saw him scurrying for cover and smirked. She knew she wanted that one. It was so cute how it scurried away from her. It made her feel strong and powerful just by approaching him.

“Did you see that one that ran under the log?” she asked her friend. “I want that one.”

“They’re all pretty much the same.” The shop worker said as she opened the door at the top of the cage. Her hand reached down and picked up the log. She turned it up and shook until she was sure there weren’t any others hiding. “Do you even know what one it was?”

Jamie smirked as she watched the casual way her friend handled the mallows. She squatted down to get eye level with the cowering little humanoid creatures. They were all scared, but one stood out as more scared than the others.

Pogo’s four eyes shifted about. His knees were buckling as he tried to avoid eye contact with the girl that was examining all of the remaining mallows in search of the one she wanted. The others were worried, but Pogo knew that she wanted him.

“That one. Near the center.” Jaime said as she pointed right at Pogo.

The worker dropped the log and replaced it with Pogo. She locked the cage and held him out for Jamie to look at. “You sure you want this one?”

Jamie smiled down; her face loomed over his little cowering body. “Positive.”

“Alright!” Jamie’s friend answered, excited to help her friend get a mallow of her own. She walked back towards the counter, still holding Pogo. Her fingers had wrapped around him in a fist as she typed the transaction into the computer. “So, we have a special where you can get a collar, but personally I like to brand mine. It costs a little extra but it makes sure they know they belong to you forever.”

“Branding? Like with cows?” Jamie asked. Her head tilted to the side a bit as she glanced between the Mallow in her friends’ fist, back up to her face.

“Pretty much, yeah! You can pick out a bunch of different styles of lettering and get your initials burnt into his back. That way if anyone finds them, they can’t take them for themselves.” The worker smiled as she suddenly got an idea. “Here…” She reached down with her free hand and pulled off her shoe, putting it on the counter.

“Gross! Your feet reek!” Jamie half complained; half-joked as the scent of her feet wafted up from the well-worn flats.

Pogo was still held tight in the worker's fist. His four eyes watching the scene unfold as his mouth on his belly was smashed against her fingers keeping him silent.

“I need to show you off. Come out for a second.” The worker said as she rolled her eyes at her friends’ comment.

Pogo and Jamie were both equally puzzled by what the girl had said until they saw the nearly flattened mallow crawl out from the shoe. He was drenched in sweat. The mouth on his belly was open wide, gasping for air. He crawled over the edge of the shoe and fell down onto the counter with a wet splat. With every gasp of air, his body seemed to grow and expand as it recovered from being flattened and trampled under the girls’ foot.

 “Oh my God. You keep it in your shoe?” Jamie asked in disbelief as she looked down at the pale, gasping mallow boy that glistened in the fluorescent lights of the pet shop.

“Oh yeah! You basically can’t crush them no matter what so you can stuff em anywhere. They have these weird mouths on their tummies that are the perfect size to stretch around a toe too. Feels really good to have him pamper my feet after a long day.” Pogo had never heard anyone talk about how they use their mallow before. He began to squirm in the workers grasp.

The Mallow that had been in her shoe was still lying on his back, gasping for air. His body kept the sheen of sweat that covered him, the four eyes on his face seemed distant and almost lifeless as he stared up at the ceiling.

“Show her your brand.” The worker commanded. The mallow on the desk rolled over onto his front without a moment of hesitation. His back had two large letters burnt into them. “They can’t be crushed, but they’re like, super sensitive to heat. So, you can burn em real easy.” The worker explained as she reached down and gently traced her fingers across the scared back.

Jamie nodded with pursed lips. “Hm. How much is it to brand them versus a collar?”

“It’s only fifteen extra to get them branded, and you can pick from a bunch of different lettering designs to really customize your mallow. We have flowery designs, tribal, bubble letters, stuff that looks cyber, or a typewriter, there’s just a bunch. We have a catalog if you’re interested.”

“Hm.” Jamie bobbed her head side to side. Her eyes shifted from the small mallow on the table up to the one in her friends’ hand. She spoke again with a shrug. “yeah alright. Let’s see what the options are.”  

Pogo took a deep breath as he finally finished applying the cream to his back. The scar that was there finally covered up enough that he felt comfortable heading off to the community dinner. It had taken longer than he expected, because he got so lost in thought and memories of how Jamie would abuse him at her feet and make him pamper her while she relaxed. He did his best to clear his mind and focus on the now as he walked through the now empty Market Street to get in line for dinner.