Dr. Murgatroyd told him before he killed himself, “The world would be better off if I was never born,” like some kind of modern-day George Bailey. Finch expected better of his mentor. It was trite and cliché, but he understood the old man. Finch felt sort of the same way. If Finch was gone the world wouldn’t be any different, but he would be much better off if he wasn’t around.
He originally got the idea sitting at his bus stop. Finch had an entertaining view of the alley cats across the street. They were well taken care of, rather, they took care of themselves and each other. Animal behavior was not his wheelhouse, but Finch used his years as a scientist to study their habits. They were damn near organized rationing food so none of the dozen or so strays went hungry. They defended each other against interlopers like dogs and other challengers to their little fiefdom. In the weeks of observations, Finch saw only one confrontation between the two biggest cats: A close coated charcoal grey female and a shaggy orange and white striped male with hair on his cheeks that stuck out to the sides like a cartoon character. Nothing got physical. They snarled and hissed at each other for a few seconds and then went their separate ways. Finch thought they looked like a couple of scientists bickering over some detail of banal minutiae.
They had shelter under the parking garage, food from the dumpster in the alley behind the restaurants, and safety in numbers. That’s where Finch would go.
He pushed his shopping cart through the aisles with slow deliberate speed leaning to make it move rather than using force to propel it. Finch had to concentrate on going straight. His muscles only obeyed half the time on a good day. The basket held and assortment of sandwich fixins and munchies. All his favorites that he couldn’t eat anymore under strict doctor’s orders. Pastrami, Havarti, sweet peppers, olives, ripe heirloom tomatoes, Jewish rye. Finch shuffled through the store working hard not to bend his knees or ankles. Every movement in his joint reminded him of how far gone he was. Pain. He was always in pain now. That would change.
Finch crossed his twisted fingers and held his shallow breath as he used his credit card to pay. He smiled and exhaled when the screen on the card reader said APPROVED. And if it hadn’t, so what. He didn’t want to skip his last meal, but he would have.
“Have a nice day.” The cashier said. Finch almost called the young man an asshole. Couldn’t he see Finch had no nice days? He strained to lift his groceries and walked out.
He ambled his way to the bench outside the parking lot taking frequent breaks. No one offered to help him. They side eyed him with pity. The children didn’t though. They stared enthralled by the spectacle of the crippled man until they were yanked along by their parents and admonished for daring to use their eyes to look at something.
He’d miss his research. He had no idea his last job would be his last job. Finch was ok with that. They knew nothing about what it meant to be truly cutting edge, what it meant to break barriers. “It goes against nature.” They said. “You’re insane.” They said. “Playing God”. They said. In principle, his discovery wasn’t any different than using peanut DNA to give zucchini a longer shelf life. Finch’s work had something that made the Board of Directors nervous: imagination. His only mistake was expecting them to be as visionary as he was. He was offering a solution to food insecurity and disease prevention. All they wanted was a cash cow. Seconds after his expletive laced tirade at the board, Finch was literally thrown out the front doors. Creativity and ambition led Finch straight into the arms of mad science and unemployment. Maybe he should have put that on his tax forms as a little joke to himself. “Mad Scientist.”
The bus ride home sometimes gave him enough time to recover. Not today. He leaned on the fence surrounding the perimeter of his property and reached in his coat pocket for his keys. The distance from the stop made his vision blurry and his legs ache. As recently as a week ago, a minute was all it took to recover. The week before that he was hardly winded. Now he could barely see straight for how exhausted he was from a quarter mile walk. It would be over soon.
The sun was just starting to set, but his house, which Finch used to maintain with the fastidiousness of someone that would make an obsessive compulsive jealous before he got sick, was dark and the yard was overgrown with brown weeds. He sighed at the sight of the oil stain in the driveway. He sold his car long ago. He missed driving.
A man stood on the porch of his house. An official looking man holding a leather satchel. The kind of man his mother used to call “a bad news man.” He wore a brown overcoat and a matching brown fedora. He handed Finch a manilla envelope which he took. “You’ve been served.” He said, tipped his hat, and walked away.
He tucked the envelope under his arm as an afterthought and held his keys in both hands aiming for the keyhole and missing. Aiming and missing. His hands vibrated like guitar strings. It wouldn’t be long before Finch didn’t have to worry about keys anymore, or hands. Finally, gathering the will to keep from shaking, Finch was able to get the door open. He picked up the bags containing ingredients for his last meal and walked inside.
All the lights were out. Finch dropped the keys on the sideboard in the foyer, and they slid off a pile of unopened letters with words like “Please Remit” and “Final Notice” onto the floor with a clatter. On instinct, he went to pick them up. Paused, and waved his quivering hand dismissively. He chuckled with a mirthless snort. It didn’t matter.
Finch opened the envelope under his arm full knowing what it was. His most recent ex-wife’s name was above his own with a small ‘v’ separating them. You are hearby notified that you are required to appear before the court… Finch stopped reading. He threw the pages on the floor next to his keys. Finch flipped through his mail one final time. Maybe a card or something. The letters were from his ex-wives’ lawyers seeking alimony payments and debt collectors. He smiled, this time with real pleasure. They’d never see another dime.
He held onto the wall as he made his way into the kitchen, half to keep his ailing body from collapsing, half because his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dimness of the house. The refrigerator, oven, dishwasher, the coffee maker were gone, sold weeks ago to help keep his human life going a little longer. Finch set the bag down on the counter and got out all the ingredients for a funny pages sized sandwich. The last people food he would ever eat. Opening packages of meat was a chore. Spreading mayonnaise without tearing through the bread took more mental strength than all the time spent on his research. Tomato slices were ragged and crushed after he was done cutting them. He tried to prepare for when his brain stopped communicating with his body, but losing motor skills didn’t follow the theory of training muscle memory.
He ate the sandwich in the dark staring at the wall. The only power in the house was reserved for the lab. He chomped and chewed with purpose, with conviction, getting through this last ritual. His appetite, like his ability to control his limbs, was not what it once was, but he ate all of it with no remnants. He washed the plate and the utensils and tilted his head at the drying rack where they sat, reminded of when he used to help his mother dry the dishes after dinner when he was a boy. Is it weird to miss washing dishes? He shook his head clearing it. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted. Finch was at his end.
He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and started his slow ambling descent to the lab in the basement. The light made him squint when he opened the door trudging down the stairs. Taking. Careful. Singular. Steps. So. He. Would. Not. Slip.
He patted himself on his deformed back for having the insight to expand his lab several years ago. It cost more than the house. Money well spent anyway. He leaned on the banister after the exertion of traversing the stairs. His schematics for his theriomorphosis machine festooned the room like decoupage. Tanks filled with vivisected animal parts simmered in the corner in blue liquid. A chamber straight out of a Jules Verne novel sat across from the tanks with tools on the floor in front of it and too many wires to count connected to computer monitors.
Finch was not an overly creative man despite the brilliance of his discovery. He decided he would follow in Murgatroyd’s footsteps and burn himself. The incendiary device and trigger were set under the bubbling tanks and was ready to go. Easy to operate with the push of a pedal. All mechanical. No power needed. If he missed something, or if his creations malfunctioned, Finch was resigned to it. Better than wasting away in a county hospital bed he couldn’t afford trapped in his mind for the remainder of his short life.
He flexed his hands trying and failing to relieve the cramping in his stiff fingers and readjusted the hoses on the back of his machine. All he had to do was hang on a little longer and he’d be free from debt. Free from disease. Free from pain. Free from the confines that made up and removed humanity. That’s what gave him the strength to keep going.
He stripped naked and deliberately avoided looking at his reflection in the glass tanks. The curved glass warped his appearance, but he was plenty warped as it was. He turned to his chamber, reclining at a sixty-degree angle, and opened the lid. A soft puff of steam escaped the cold inside and a cloud of condensation floated into the basement ceiling. Finch’s hands shook. It could equally have been a combination of fear and his neurodegenerative disorder.
He pressed a series of buttons on a computer keyboard and a timer appeared on the monitor. Finch moved, as fast as his crippled body would allow, into the tube that would be the end of life as he knew it. He barely got in before the actuators began humming and the door started to press shut. Memories of a life he hated flooded him as the tiny coffinesque chamber got dark. He thought of his wives (he checked himself), ex-wives, and how beautiful they looked on their wedding days. For the life of him, Finch couldn’t remember which dress belonged to which ex. He swallowed whatever guilt he might have had for mixing them up and replaced it with an eagerness to move on.
The door sealed shut with a sucking sound and he was in total blackness. Sensory deprivation until the ice needles of cold crawled over his fingers. The sensation elated him, feeling something other than tormenting soreness was a relief. But the frigidness slithered its way across his body over his feet and legs over his genitals. Finch tried to make his hands cover himself, but the chamber was like a casket. He was dying. All he could do was blink his eyes as the freezing hand of death wormed up his hips and over his stomach.
Finch twitched inside the can holding him fast banging his head weakly against the lid. He thrashed his head again, and again it was no more than a tap. The creeping chill reached his chest, and he brought in a bracing intake of air That froze his lungs and heart. His thrashing stopped, and what started as uncomfortable cold shifted to agony. Each atom that made up the density of his flesh was under attack. It penetrated his pores into his essence. Dr. Finch’s very identity was being scrubbed. It was like sandpaper smoothing his soul. He tried to scream, and the cold forced everything down. He held there for a microsecond in stasis. His mouth open in a silent cry of pain, his tongue drying from the hoarfrost air.
Not once during the process did he regret his decision, and he faded into a blackness that made the blackness in the transformation chamber jealous.
Finch had no idea how long he was out. At least days. Maybe a week. Rearranging DNA from one species to another isn’t as easy as the movies make it seem. It takes time. When he came to, he ate a pile of food he left for himself and got to the task of living his new life. He didn’t need a cup of coffee. He didn’t need a morning ritual. Triggering the incendiary chemicals went off without a hitch. Finch was a little nervous he wouldn’t make it out in time, but that was a needless worry. He jumped out an open window before the fire even started, a feat he would have had trouble with even before he was sick. It was as simple as blinking now.
He sat outside across the street watching his house burn. His home of over twenty years went up like flash paper. By the time the fire department got there, only a scorched skeleton remained. Finch smiled. It worked. They wouldn’t find a body, but the remnants of his life were there and the “goodbye cruel world” message on his social media pages would (more or less) put the issue to bed. When a sick man, behind on his bills, who’d just been ordered to court for non-payment of alimony leaves a suicide note, then his house goes up in flames, that tells anyone all they need to know.
He expected to need more time to adjust when he woke up, but again, that wasn’t the case. Just as his models predicted, the pain was gone, and his intellect was completely intact. His body responded like Finch always had it. He was a new man. Sort of.
The soreness and disobedience his body had over the past year were gone. In their place were loose joints, toned muscles and senses that allowed him to smell emotions and taste nearby food in the air with his tongue and see in the dark. All benefits he knew he would get, but finally experiencing it made him strut down the sidewalk.
A few people looked at him, but not like before. Not with pity for a decrepit broken man. They gave a passing glance and a quick smile if anything. One man had to pull his boy away who wanted to pet Finch. He would have let him, too. He’d only felt the clinical groping of doctors for the past twelve months. A scratch behind the ears would have been nice.
He prepared, through research of course, for his new form. Finch delighted in the fact that his findings proved correct. The problems of his previous life were so far away as to be alien. The world was lighter, simpler. Food, sex, warmth, companionship. That’s as far as his instincts took him now. Finch was sure there’d be challenges, but be real, what challenges does an animal who sleeps eighteen hours a day have?
He walked the familiar city streets making his way to the destination he studied so earnestly. His observations said the others would accept him, but until he was there, he wouldn’t know. If they didn’t, Finch would gather himself and move on to another place. Maybe he could find a boy like the one the man on the street wouldn’t let touch him and become a beloved family companion. He chuckled and a high pitch “mew” came out. He chuckled again, giddy with his new voice.
Black looked good on him. It always did. That’s why he chose it. Also, the idea of the devout scientist being part of the most superstitious cliché in the world was the kind of joke his ex-wives would never appreciate.
His feet made no sound. His breathing was silent too. Finch swished his tail back and forth, the feline equivalent of skipping as he approached the collection of alley cats stationed at the familiar spot between the parking garage and the restaurants.
The bushy orange fellow spotted him from the sidewalk and stood as if on sentry duty. He made a motion with his head that called over his cadre. Finch kept his tail up his ears forward and slow-blinked as he padded to the group to show them he wasn’t a threat. He would immediately be the smartest if accepted and he didn’t want to give any indication of a challenge.
“Reow.” He said. Translation: Hi. Nice to meet you.
“Meow-eow.” The big bushy orange one said back. Translation: Weatherford? Is that you?
Finch flicked his tail and scurried back like someone dropped a frying pan on the floor. The only people that called him by his first name were his ex-wives, who he hadn’t spoken to in years, his mother who was dead, and his mentor Dr. Herman R. Murgatroyd.
The shaggy cat took a few tentative steps toward him slow-blinking and tilting his head to the right. The cat version of putting one’s hands up asking for calm. “Take it easy Doctor. I know this seems odd.” The series of purrs and mews translated as clear as glass in Finch’s new ears.
“Odd?” Finch choked out. “Dr. Murgatroyd?” He started panting and hacking up hairballs he hadn’t swallowed yet, dry heaving at the panic in his new form.
“Consciousness transfer.” He said. “You know my work on AI and applying it to animals. Well,” He sat back on his hindquarters and puffed out his fluffy white chest. “It worked.”
“Hello Dr. Finch.” Another meow came from his rear. It was the charcoal grey female he witnessed having an argument with (he could not believe it) his former mentor.
“You remember Dr. Salahuddin, from the BIO International Convention? Her work on cloning and it’s applications?” Murgatroyd said.
“Of..of course.” Finch replied, barely able to stand.
“We know it’s a lot to take in.” Salahuddin said as she lifted her hind leg and licked herself without shame or embarrassment.
“A lot to take in!?” Finch hissed. “I went to your funeral. I cried on the couch next to your daughter who wouldn’t lift he face from her phone.”
Murgatroyd sidled up next to Finch and rubbed against him. If they were still human, he would have put his arm around Finch’s shoulder. “I was at my wits end, Weatherford. I had gambling debts. They were going to kill me. So, I did what anyone in my position would do. I embezzled from the University. I stole my children’s trust funds. The world would be better off without me. So, I used my research to leave.”
“I killed my husband.” Salahuddin said sitting up like royalty. “He was an abusive prick. I’d rather spend my life on the streets than in prison.”
The other cats joined them and told similar stories, and Finch, hearing from all these brilliant minds started to relax even though his change ended up being mildly anticlimactic. They talked about their various methods of metamorphosis for hours debating the details of the most incredible scientific breakthroughs imaginable. They showed Finch where the best morsels of leftover food were, and he ate his fill. Food, rotten and spoiled, never tasted so good. And they spent hours preening and grooming each other in the most communal and accepting group he’d ever been privileged to be a part of. Life was not just good. It was better than it had ever been.
As the weeks went by, Finch started a relationship with several of the female cats. Salahuddin never had children of her own. She explained how horrible that would have been for them considering who her husband was. Finch never had children either. He didn’t know how to be a father, but he didn’t need to know. Male cats didn’t have prominent roles as supportive fathers. Procreation without responsibility. Sex without attachment. It was paradise.
He positioned himself at the mouth of the alley. Being his first time on lookout duty he wouldn’t let them down. It was a big responsibility. The opening was the only way in or out of the small alleyway. Finch had to watch for threats in the form of dogs, animal control, and other city hazards.
The turtle shell colored cat wasn’t trying to hide when it walked around the corner and crossed the street making a beeline to Finch. He alerted his companions that someone was coming. The motley collection of the most brilliant minds on Earth gathered behind Finch in a show of strength and solidarity.
The black and brown mottled cat raised its tail, set its ears forward and slowly walked toward them blinking its eyes slower than Finch had ever seen from a cat. It meant no harm. Besides, what can one cat do against him and his crew.
Finch meowed expecting a normal cat response.
The visitor sat in front of them and licked its paws and rubbed it over his head. “Are you Dr. Weatherford Finch?” It said in what might have been a familiar way. Not a voice, but the cadence of the cat’s words gave Finch a mad case of déjà vu.
Finch tried to swallow but got stuck at the realization of who this cat was. He couldn’t stop himself from nodding in the affirmative.
The cat nodded back and slowly turned around, lifted its tail, and sprayed urine all over Finch. The cats behind him hissed and arched their back scurrying to safety or a defensive position.
Finch smelled the air and his stomach dropped. He could taste the legal jargon floating in the form of piss vapor. He could smell the calculated attack of jurisprudence dripping off the ends of his whiskers. It couldn’t be. How did they find him? How could they possibly know…
The multicolored cat dipped its head in gratitude as if it was wearing a brown fedora. “You’ve been served.” It said and quietly pranced away leaving Finch rolling on the pavement trying desperately to rid himself of a life he apparently couldn’t escape.