It wasn’t until my sophomore year I first met Mr. Fluffles. I was drunk in a dorm room talking to a pretty boy wearing a woman’s jacket two sizes too small for him. As I studied his petite chiseled build, I saw outside down from a large air conditioner unit (the giant thing was always humming), something strange swoop down and scurry past, most shaggily yet friendly.
It was Mr. Fluffles.
Not exactly dog nor bunny, Mr. Fluffles had a magical phosphorescent sheen about him. The way certain sunsets can look in mild coital May. When you almost swear the clouds are CGI. Pink-vermillion coattails of cotton candy. He was friendly, calming. Full of happy-go-lucky energy. I didn’t know how much I longed for that in my life. But I did. An attractive girl smoked her cigarette below. I thought of her as a sexual zero. I’m sure she thought the same of me as I peered out the window.
Mr. Fluffles approached, getting smaller and smaller, more life-sized. From a construction truck to the size of a carry-on designer leather handbag. Yet there he was, and so I named him in that instant: Mr. Fluffles.