This is Life

by plaid_fuzzle

Chias love to smile. It's a fact of life. We smile because we're supposed to be consistently happy. I never knew what it felt like to smile. Not until a few weeks ago. I didn't even have a name until a few weeks ago.

My name...that should come later. I'm a yellow Chia, perhaps just like any other yellow Chia there is, except my story is different. Most Chias I know were adopted from the Neopian Pound or raised by their loving owners. I don't remember ever coming from a pound or being cared for by an owner. You don't remember so much when you live in the streets.

I was homeless. I would walk around Mystery Island, combing the beach for what pieces of food I could find, avoiding stray Lupes who would definitely attack me on sight. I was terrified. Rich pets would turn a blind eye, and owners would either turn up their noses or look on in pity, never doing anything to actually help me. It's not my fault that I wasn't wanted.

You make very few friends on the streets, mostly homeless NeoPets. We banded together and counted on each other for what strength we could still muster. What friends I had didn't really care much for me, either. It's only the feeling of having someone to be with, having someone to keep you warm when it rains, that actually kept us still tolerating each other.

It was inevitable that I fell in with the wrong crowd. I cannot, and would rather not remember the names of my old 'friends'. Since I didn't have any name, they labeled me Fathead. I wasn't flattered, but when these pets are all you have to call family, there's no point in resisting. We would stay out late to pester owners and their pampered pets, calling them names and pelting them with rotten Neggs (only when the Neggs were too rotten to eat; you should never waste food). We dreamed about the mysterious Money Tree that we heard so much about, where pets would donate so that other pets could benefit from them. But that was supposed to be in a far-off place called Central Neopia. We could never go there.

One night we stumbled upon an open case of Neocola. None of us had ever tasted the stuff before, but we tried it, and it was beautiful. Too beautiful, that we finished the entire case in under 15 minutes, which meant I drank about six cans of Neocola. I felt very, very sick afterwards. I don't know why, but I fainted.

I woke up to find myself lying in a clutter of Neocola cans. It was morning, and my 'friends' were all gone. They had abandoned me. It was raining. I could do nothing but cry and take refuge in the cardboard box the drinks came in. The rain went away after a while, and the sun came beating down. My condition only got worse. I was cold and hot at the same time, sweaty and freezing. I thought I would die. Then he came.

An eccentric young man, carrying shopping bags simply bursting with Fuzzles. Fuzzles of every color and kind. I looked away, not expecting such a rich, well-off Neopian to take notice of me. He probably had some pet to love at home anyway. But he came over. He approached me, lifted me in his arms, and took me away, me, and all those Fuzzles. The last thing I remembered was the sight of the soggy cardboard box flopping uselessly onto the floor. I fainted again, only feeling his warm hands around my belly.

He took me home. His name was plaid_fuzzle, he said, and this was so because he loved Fuzzles so much, too much that people considered him strange and shied away from him. And so we realized that we were two of a kind: outcasts, who could maybe find meaning and understanding in each other.

plaid_fuzzle took me around Mystery Island, showing me everything that there was to see. He showed me the sunset, let me taste a coconut fresh off a tree, let me listen to the sound of the waves from the ocean, let me feel the grit and powder of sand between my toes. He took me to discos where we would dance until we almost passed out from exhaustion, and then we would go to a coffee shop and drink Java Juppies to our mutual content. We would sit by the beach, draw in our sketchpads, and then compare work, laughing when we realized that we both really needed to take art classes.

He never once asked me for my name.

I was cared for very well. He nursed me back to my health, and soon I understood that plaid_fuzzle was someone to be trusted, to be loved, even, as a friend. One late afternoon, we sat contemplating the sunset, samba tunes floating through the cool sea breeze. He turned to me, and said, "Po na na." I raised a quizzical eyebrow. "This is life," he continued. And then I understood.

This is life. Sitting among the coconut trees, burying your fists and feet into painful-soft sand, eating of the free bounty of the earth and the sea. Spending time with someone you care for, who cares for you back, and just...living. No conversation is necessary. Silence can sometimes be the best conversation.

And so it came that I found an owner, or rather, my owner found me. I took Po_Na_Na as my permanent name, and now, some weeks later, every time someone calls me by it, I feel goosebumps crawl all over me. To have a name. To have family. To finally be able to smile.

I smile more often now. I have reason to smile. Life, love, happiness.

Po Na Na. This is life.

The End