Call Me Pony

On the way out of apartment 231 Carl notices a bag of the special-order cat food Donut eats sitting on Marjory's counter, a small unexplained wrongness he has no time for. The last gate clears in the hallway of apartment 130, where Prepotente is sitting against the leg of a piano listening to a version of his mother who never stayed home to care for her parents — a concert pianist alone in a New York apartment with a broken wineglass on the floor and a row of prescription bottles on the counter. Carl drinks a full cup of splooge, crosses the toxic air on foot, and argues him out of it: the what-if is a dead end, she was not lonelier at home, and he will always be welcome. Prepotente hugs him, sobs, and tells Carl he may call him Pony. Osvaldo turns out to have lied about his position, which is what saved him, and the sixth heat closes with Team Sparkles first, the Royal Court second, Team Flamengo third, and Team Free Love eliminated.

First appearances (2)

• Splooge (Item) — Drink it and the environment stops mattering for a while
• Heat Six Results (Notification) — Team Sparkles first · the Royal Court second · Free Love struck out

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