“Ha ha ha! What a riot! I have a feeling this will go down as the funniest story of my life,” Dr. Goldman suddenly exclaimed with a bark of laughter, making me jump.
He slowly sat up and elegantly brushed the dust off his lab coat. He appeared to be wearing a fine suit under the coat. He straightened his necktie to perfection, the image of a sophisticated gentleman. Yet in contrast to his refined mannerisms, the look on his face was as much a mess as his hair.
“We may seem like polar opposites, but we’re kindred souls where it counts, my darling Selkie. I, too, intended to tell you something important today. But I was too embarrassed to straight up tell you how I love you when we always bicker like an old married couple,” he said.
Suddenly jumping to his feet, Dr. Goldman simply stood in a frozen daze like an abandoned scarecrow.
“So I decided to tease you a little with an innocent prank. I slipped your wedding ring into the sandwich… Would you get angry like always upon finding it? I love that fiery temper of yours. I was going to say that, hug you, and take our relationship a little further…” he said as if talking to himself, but loud enough I could hear every word.
Well, they certainly were made for each other. They just so happened to come here today with the exact same purpose in mind. But minor misunderstandings and accidents prevented their dreams from coming true. The gears slipped off track, failing to mesh…
No, something still felt off. It wasn’t adding up. If Dr. Goldman genuinely loved Dr. Selkie, there was no way he would have acted the way he portrayed himself in that explanation. It was hard to believe he pretended to enter the Intake booth and watched everything unfold from the shadows… Could he really play such a cruel prank on Dr. Selkie and then watch her panic the whole time?
That was actually unbelievably mean. If he cared for Dr. Selkie, he’d rush to show her he was okay and put her mind at ease. At the very least, he would have tried to stop her from entering the Intake booth, by force if necessary.
Would he pop up claiming she was so much fun to watch, that he missed his cue because he was too busy laughing? And after being so heartless, would he have the nerve to mope like a character from some tragedy now that it was all over? I’d question his sanity if all of that was true!
“Oh, you two… That’s right. I was supposed to supervise your work today,” Dr. Goldman said. As if finally noticing us, he flashed Iris and I a bright smile.
Neither of us were able to respond. Iris and I turned toward each other at a loss of what to do.
“I’m terribly sorry, but I’d appreciate if that could wait a bit. We need to clean this room first and fore—” I cut Dr. Goldman off with a shriek when I turned to look the researcher in the face. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Dr. Goldman had a handsome face, but his cheek was peeling off! The impact of Dr. Selkie’s slap was making chunks crumble from his face. It was reminiscent of paint slowly peeling away from a rickety old building. Normally muscle peaked out from under flayed skin. Dark-red muscle. But for some reason, his cheek was shining—shining golden. Was a layer of his flesh replaced with gold…?
“Oops. You’ll have to pardon me. Please pretend you didn’t see that,” Dr. Goldman said with a charming wink as he covered his cheek with one hand.
“I’m afraid Selkie would blame herself. She had no way of knowing The Clockworks would refine me into nothing more than gold retaining Dr. Goldman’s personality when I entered the Intake booth with that gold ring.
“It’s most fascinating. Much like in the old movie, The Fly, I’ve merged with the gold ring that was inside the Intake booth at the same time as me to create a hybrid. I’ve been reborn as organic gold capable of altering my own form at will,” he said and regrew the skin that peeled from his cheeks right before my eyes. It regained normal flesh tones, turning back to Dr. Goldman’s usual face. The flakes of flesh that peeled off turned into gold dust that danced around him.
“Although my psyche belongs to Dr. Goldman, I was fundamentally reborn. The lucky man who loved Selkie and was probably loved by her in return—that Dr. Goldman—has already died. As I am now, in this form, I cannot return her love,” he explained.
So he intentionally said all of those cruel things to push her away. She leapt toward sacrificing herself as atonement without a moment’s hesitation, so he did it to ensure she wouldn’t do anything else rash.
But this was love, too. It was a very human emotion filled with devotion and consideration. Dr. Goldman was a man who knew love. But that was precisely what made this such a tragedy.
If Dr. Selkie knew it was her fault Dr. Goldman changed, she would be overcome with regret. This time she really might leap into SCP-914’s booth again to change him back. Knowing how she would react, Dr. Goldman told that gentle lie and intentionally tried to make her hate him. It was all done out of love. Still lacking life experience, it was hard for a simple high school kid such as myself to comprehend such deep affection.
“Now, now! Don’t look so serious. I can’t stand when things get tense. I’ll have you know, the scientist in me is somewhat enjoying the situation,” Dr. Goldman said. He rubbed his finger along his body and barked an indomitable laugh. “The results for this test are most fascinating. This is what makes researching SCP objects so alluring.”
It sounded to me like he was putting on a show for us, but there was nothing I could say. It wasn’t my place as an ignorant kid to speak against him, not if this was what a mature adult had decided was best after careful consideration. I couldn’t explain how or why I thought it wasn’t right. So at the very least, I wanted to remember how he truly felt. I didn’t want to forget about his love, which shone as majestically as his golden body.
“Now then, let’s get busy cleaning up. Of course, you’re willing to help, aren’t you? I’m eager to finish our tasks so I can gently pacify Selkie and reconcile with her. So let’s clean this up in a jiffy. The possibility of being united with her has greatly decreased, but even so, I still want to be with her,” Dr. Goldman said with a somewhat forced smile. We both nodded in understanding.
I finally noticed I was still holding Iris’s hands, but somehow it felt right to keep holding them anyway… For a while, I couldn’t budge. I stared at what became of a man who knew what it was to love someone—or perhaps I should say, at the nonhuman organism that was filled with a love greater than any other.
In the back of the room, the countless springs and gears that created The Clockworks made a sound like an innocent baby laughing.