Dr. Selkie told us what had happened as if making a confession. Even the way she spoke was childish, her thoughts bouncing every which way without rhyme or reason, making her rather hard to understand. Every now and then, Iris would provide clear and concise summaries, allowing me to just barely grasp what Dr. Selkie was trying to convey.
It was a strange story. It all began first thing this morning. For some time now, Dr. Selkie had been planning a certain magnificent and personal experiment (that was her bizarre way of describing it), so she was up earlier than usual to work on the preparations here, in this research cell dominated by the giant SCP-914.
“I practiced several dry runs of the experiment, and got so caught up in them that I completely forgot to eat breakfast. That was when my tummy began to get the rumblies. ‘Goodness me, this isn’t very elegant,’ I said to myself, and started debating about heading over to the canteen,” Dr. Selkie said. She was more of a talker than I first suspected; once she got going, there was no stopping her. Although her internal organs were damaged, that didn’t seem to slow her down.
“But it’d be pretty stupid if I did that, you know? I’d have to make drastic changes in my plans if I went to go get food at that point. The schedule I spent all night devising for this experiment was so perfect and precise, there wasn’t room for a single second delay.”
“By experiment…do you mean the one we’re supposed to participate in, or the preparations for it?” Iris asked.
“No, I told you this is unrelated… It’s my…personal experiment,” Dr. Selkie grumbled, embarrassed for some reason. “At any rate, while I was wondering what to do, that nasty Dr. Goldman suddenly popped up with a sandwich in hand. Acting as confident as ever, he said to me, ‘My darling Selkie, aren’t you hungry?’”
Having never met Dr. Goldman before, I couldn’t really picture the man, but I got the impression he was quite the gentleman.
“He could really ruffle my feathers with that smug face of his. Acted like he knew everything about me… But he never noticed what really mattered. It wasn’t like he knew and played dumb. I think he really was too oblivious to catch on,” Dr. Selkie said, puffing up her cheeks in an immature display of annoyance before looking into the distance.
“He was aware that I have a tendency to get so absorbed in my experiments that I forget all about eating. Knowing we were supposed to use the highly valuable Clockworks in our tests with you today, he likely made a highly accurate prediction that I would be famished after dwelling over what experiments we should conduct.”
“Isn’t eating and drinking generally prohibited in research cells?”
“Yes, so please keep this between us. Every now and then, Dr. Goldman and I would sneak off to the corner for a quick bite to eat. See, we attended college together. So this was a little ritual carried over from those days. Those brief moments meant the world to us,” Dr. Selkie continued, looking somewhat heavy-hearted.
“Anyway, every single word out of Dr. Goldman’s mouth grated on me like you wouldn’t believe. To be fair, I guess there was nothing unusual about that… I was super annoyed at myself for being stupid and forgetting to eat and at him for patronizing me when he foresaw I’d do just that,” Dr. Selkie said. Her mood was growing increasingly sour, as if the memory still irked her.
“I’m not the only one at fault here. I’ll admit that I can be emotionally unstable, a little childish, and extremely temperamental, but Dr. Goldman would go out of his way to poke fun and tease me… It was like he poured oil on my fiery temper every time he opened his mouth. I’d get so mad, I’d blow up like a bomb,” she explained, almost desperately. But eventually a look of sadness washed over her and she dropped her gaze.
“Dr. Goldman knew well and good how I’d react, but just had to go and play a prank on me anyway. After a lengthy fight, the hunger became too great, and I accepted the sandwich he offered me.” Dr. Selkie smacked her lips, as if reliving the memories as she told us…
“The second I bit into it, I thought he tricked me again! My teeth hit something hard. A strange sound and pain rang through my head. Instinctively recognizing the object wasn’t edible, I quickly spat out the sandwich,” Dr. Selkie said, thrusting the hand held to her mouth out and flapping it in front of her.
The researcher’s face grew serious as she continued, “That was when I noticed Dr. Goldman laughing so hard at me coughing up the sandwich that he was doubled over. I was red as a bull as I rounded on the idiot, demanding, ‘You put something in the sandwich, didn’t you? What was it? What were you thinking?’”
That was certainly uh, well, a childish prank. He had slipped something inside the sandwich he pretended to give out of kindness. Iris isn’t too different. During my life with her, she’s pranked me on more than one occasion. For instance, when we got into an argument over how to handle the laundry, she slipped some super spicy mustard into my food as a form of silent protest or punishment. When I ate the dish, I bounced around shouting about how my tongue was on fire. Feeling better after seeing that, Iris apologized for the prank and was willing to commence peace negotiations. It seemed like the sort of lighthearted prank you could only pull on someone you felt truly comfortable with.
“True, we played pranks like this on each other all the time. But today wasn’t the day for it…” Dr. Selkie murmured. She crossed her arms and turned her head away in a pout.
“I was already hangry as it was, plus there was something super important I wanted to tell him… It felt like he was trampling all over my resolve and making light of my feelings. As you can imagine, I royally exploded at the man,” she confessed with tears starting to form in her eyes.
“Of course, I realize I’m being extremely unfair. Dr. Goldman had no way of knowing what was going through my head. I’m sure he thought it was just another little prank like always… But it was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Dr. Selkie whimpered, fighting back tears as she clutched the hem of her blood-soaked lab coat.
“When I realized the thing that I coughed up—the thing he stuck into the sandwich—was his beloved golden ring…I grew little devil horns. I snatched it up and threw it into The Clockworks’ booth without a giving it a second thought. Then I wound the key to activate it.”
“What were you thinking, Dr. Selkie?!” Iris exclaimed, making a full-body gesture to express her disbelief.
I still didn’t know what exactly The Clockworks did, so I was having a hard time following the conversation. I was just getting the general picture that Dr. Selkie did something outrageous.
“Believe me, I know. I’m well aware of how foolish I am… But I wanted to teach Dr. Goldman a lesson. I wanted him to know what would happen if he didn’t treat me right. No, I probably just wanted to get back at him,” Dr. Selkie groaned crestfallen like a little girl who just got scolded by her parents. “But my rash actions led to the worst possible outcome. I suspect Dr. Goldman was hoping to retrieve his gold ring before The Clockworks initiated its process and jumped into the booth after it.”
“That course of action was highly problematic and careless in its own right,” Iris said with a sigh, looking utterly flabbergasted. “I’m starting to see the gravity of the situation.”
“Yes, well, unfortunately, the process initiated the moment he jumped in, refining everything in the booth. I raced to look inside, but Dr. Goldman was no longer there,” Dr. Selkie said and buried her face in her hands. She began sniffling as she cried, “He vanished! No, he was ‘refined’ to the point I can’t even recognize him anymore. Ah, this truly is a disaster.”