Sassafrass was lying in a beautiful oasis. There were birds of paradise fluttering around whispering to eachother sweet profanities. There was a babbling brook, though what it was babbling made not much sense at all, seeming to be something meaningless about seizing the means of construction or thereabouts. The grass was long and thicc and it tickled his hooves pleasantly, as if he were walking amongst a vast patch of soft green tongues. Sassafrass was, in a word, at peace.

And then it began. It being the flatulence. First it was soft, just one or two toots. Normal. Nothing to worry about.

And then there was a third. And a fourth. Four farts in a row was almost unheard of, even for an ass as gassy as Sassafrass. Then a fifth, and after that a sixth. On the farts went, building into a varitable flatulence crescendo climaxing at a total of thirty booming bouts.

By the time he had finished emptying his bowels of gas Sassafrass noticed that his oasis was gone. Now he was in the desert. Not just any desert, either. He was in a desert made entirely of rugs. The clouds were rugs. The dunes were piles and piles of ill kempt rugs. The cacti were piles of narrow green rugs. The grains of sand were actually just microscopic rugs. Even Sassafrass’ own saliva was actually wet rugs. It was rugs all the way down.

Sassafrass’ eyes flew open as he let out three fearful hee haws, seeing with relief that he was lying in the soft, ornate bed that the muttonchopped nobleman had provided for him. His stomache grumbled. Sassafrass immediately craved trash, but noticed that there was absolutely no trash in this cockless room. Instead there were plenty of jewels, which he immediately ate but also immediately regretted eating, and some dog food, that smelled terrible and he refused to touch.

Hamn. You really will eat anything, won’t you? Dumbass.

Sassafrass jumped. Where had this disturbing mind voice come from?

I don’t know, where do you think I’m coming from?

Sassafrass barfed up all the jewels and slammed his head into the saliva covered floor.

Nice. Real nice. Lord Raul is gonna love the mess you’ve made.

Lord Raul? Who’s that? Sassafrass imaginarily thought, doing his best to direct it at the disembodied voice.

Look at you. Eating and barfing up all those jewels, sleeping in that high thred count bed and not even knowing who Lord Raul is. Typical. You know I know you’re not a dog, right? And soon everybody is going to know. Most people aren’t half as thicc as Lord Raul.

Who are you? mind-whined Sassafrass, feeling violated, bullied and terribly gassy.

Wouldn’t you like to know. Here’s a hint—I’m crawling through your intestines.

Sassafrass considered this but was never able to discern what exactly it meant, for before he had much time to at all the door swung open and the magickal candle lights flickered on.

“Waell haere wae arae! Oah daear mae, swaeet waolfhound oaf maine, whay havaen’t yaou eataen yaour dainner? Dao Ia naeed tao havae yaou faed? Ia havae maost waonderful bautlers whao waould bae plaesed tao assaist, laet mae gaive oane aa raing.”

Lord Raul whipped out a small golden bell and jingled it thrice. A slim butler dressed to the twelves scurried up with a shining silver spoon.

“Yaes, Laord Raaul?”

“Plaease faeed may waolfhound.”

“Indaeed sairrah, raight awaay!” the butler dropped to their knees, scooted the shimmering guilded dog food bowl over to Sassafrass’ side and scooped up a small helping of it up with the spoon, “Alraighty, oapen yaour maouth, haere caomes thae airplaiane!”

Sassafrass kept his mouth shut.

“Caome oan naow, yaou’ve gaot tao eaat yaour braeakfast oar yaou’ll gaet iandigestion! Oapen uap! Haere caomes thae chaoo chaoo traian!”

Sassafrass snorted.

“Oakay, thaat’s iat, iat’s taime foar yaou tao eaat yaour braekky!” growled the butler, grabbing Sassafrass’ lips, yanking them open and forcefully shoving spoonfulls of the food down his throat.

“Thaank yaou sao mauch Jaeevenders, Ia waas waorried hae’d naever eaat!”

“Anay taime, Laord Raaul,” Jeevenders replied, pouring the rest of the contents of the food bowl into Sassafrass’ mouth, gripping either side of his jaw and mashing them together to force him to chew and swallow it. Jeevenders’ twerk complete, he shot up and zoomed out of the room in a flash.

“Iat’s aa gaood thaing wae araen’t paoor oar soamething, oar yaou miaght havae baeen laeft tao mauch oan garbagae aall naight ianstead oaf thais faine daoggie chaow. Naow, laook alaive, paup, faor sooan thae gooad daog daoctor waill bae haere tao eansure yaou arae ian thae praime oaf physaical coandition, aas aall gaood daoggies maust bae iaf thaey arae tao waalk aat thae glaorious Caldaonian Kaennel Claub Daog Baall.”

In response to this, Sassafrass hacked up a couple liquified blobs of dog food and hee hawed in shame. Lord Raul tut tutted and called Jeevenders back into the room with rings of his bell, demanding the vomit be cleaned and additional dog food be fed to Sassafrass to account for the descrepancy, as he did not want the dog doctor to think his pooch malnourished. After this hennish round of torture Sassafrass was left to lie in agony for an hour or so by himself, wherein the disembodied voice haunting his imagination teased him relentlessly for everything that had occurred.

That soulless hour ended with a knock on the door, followed by the silent creek of the door opening, for it was a rich person door and thus did not creek at all. In fact, the knock on the door was not actually anyone knocking but an expensive courtesy enchantment that automatically activated when it detected someone walking up to the door.

That someone was none other than Doctor Magoglenfoglen, a small, crinkly old lady with kind eyes that were made absolutely enormous by the extreme magnification of her heavy handed glasses, which she wore simply for style and stubbornness. She could’ve easily gotten any and all eye issues magicked away by a wizard for a nominal fee.

“Waell waell waell, whao dao wae havae heare? Hellao theare, pauppy! Ia’m Daoctor Magaoglenfoglen, aand Ia’ll bae saure tao takae gaood carae oaf you. Naow thaen, leat’s gaet aa gaood laook aat thaat anaus oaf yaours, eah?”

Getting used to the accent, Sassafrass could tell that this lady was going to inspect is butt, and that was discouraging, as was the thicc rubber glove she promptly snapped over her right hand before she just stuck it right in there.

HEE HAW HEE HEE HAW

Sassafrass could feel his eyes watering and could’ve sworn he also heard the disembodied voice in his imagination laughing at him maniacally. If only he could escape.

“Waell Ia’ll bae hamnaed, yaou’re laike noa daog Ia’ve eaver saeen! Ia knaow yaou’ve gaot gaoat thaongation aand thraoat laascerations aand spaear aintonation baut Ia’m naot eantirely saure whaat anay oaf thaose thaings maean. Haowever, saeeing aas Ia gaet paaid vaery weall tao saay thaat indaeed whateaver Ia aam toald ias traue, thaen iat muast bae thae casae.”

Sassafrass wished he was home, and by home of course he meant being ridden by Sir Broderick to numerous dive bars. Left tied up by the horses to snort and covort while his ass master got in arguments with bar patrons for hours on end. Resting his head in soft piles of mud, urine and feces. Lapping from polluted puddles and eating stray apple cores and discarded taco filling. That was a kind of suffering he was used to, hen, it was the kind of suffering he reveled in. Having rich doctors probe his anus while describing all of the different ways he was in fact a mutated dog and not at all a donkey was just degrading.

Oh, perk up chuppy. Could be worse. Check this out! the imaginary voice in Sassafrass’ head let loose thundrous guffaws.

Sassafrass suddenly farted, and then he farted again. Except instead of like in his dream, wherein as he farted everything had slowly changed into rugs, he began to hover into the air. By the time his bowels were released from their gas laden torment Sassafrass was bobbing along over Doctor Magoglenfoglen’s head, hee hawing in shock and flailing around maddeningly.

“Waell, Ia saay! Iaf thias iasn’t thae maost reamarkable daog Ia’ve eaver seean, Ia daon’t knoaw whaat ias!” warbled Doctor Magoglenfoglen before falling on her back and fainting in revelry.

Having fun yet, chup? smugly echoed the voice.

What in the flying cluck is going on?! Sassafrass imaginarily blathered.

I’ll level with you, the voice replied, and Sassafrass was brought down level with the ground, Hah! See what I did there?

Please stop teasing me and just tell me what’s going on.

I had figured you might have figured out by now, but fine. I’m the rug, you clucking imbecile!

A rug is talking to me in my mind?

I’m an enchanted rug, you absolute dumbass—er, pardon, I see that could be offensive. Still though, you ate me, you asshole—shit, that was probably offensive too. Err, look, what’s important is, I’m an enchanted rug, and one of my many enchantments is that I can fly! And since you ate me I guess that means you can fly, too. At least until you digest me, however long that takes. Your stomache acid is fairly weak in my opinion. Just saying.

Hey come on don’t knock my stomache acid. That stuff has eaten through more scrap metal than you’ve ever seen.

More scrap metal than I, an echanted rug, have ever seen? You absolute buffoon. I was woven with recycled bits of scrap metal, you clucking fool. That’s right, I’m so high class that I’m made out of things that used to be other things. Beat that, you worthless lump of garbage.

You know, you didn’t taste very hood. And I’ve eaten a lot of rugs. You were possibly the third grossest rug I’d ever eaten. All the other rugs even close to that level were soiled with all kinds of fluids, and yet you were impervious to that.

Who cares what you think, you useless animal? You had an identity crisis when your ‘ass master’ called you a wolfhound!

Well, uh, you had an identity crisis when you started existing, because you thought you were cool, you, you pile of overpriced overenchanted overblown fiber.

Fiber?! Why you’ve been absolutely clogged up since you ate me, there isn’t a speck of fiber on my rugged body! Trust me, I’m the one in your intestines. Or did you think all the flatulence was purely gratuitous?

Are you telling me fiber makes it easier, not harder, for everything to get going in that area?

Wow, you really are a dumbass.

Okay cut out the ass talk, it’s pissing me off.

Doctor Magoglenfoglen eventually came to whilst the rug and Sassafrass were bickering, and scurried out of the room, muttering wildly to herself about magickal flying wolfhounds.

Before anything else could happen, one of the room’s beautiful stained glass windows shattered to bits as a brick soared through it and bounced against the wall. In climbed another noble, wearing a dark, shimmering cloak and looking indescribably devious. They chuckled to themself, tied Sassafrass’ legs together in a bundle, and whispered into his ears.

“Laord Raaul thainks hae’s sao greaat, waith hias moaney aand hais weaalth. Baut jaust waait tail hae saees thae greatneass oaf may maoney aand may weaalth, aand alsao may naew flaying waolfhound!”

The nobleman then cackled maniacally and slung Sassafrass over his shoulder, clambered out the window, slid down a tightly woven rope yet managed to evade ropeburn due to some very nice and quite expensive gloves, and hopped into a stealthy horsedrawn carriage that promptly bolted down the street below to cock knew where. All the while, the rug’s smug voice’s laughs echoed in Sassafrass’ head.