A Dog Named Travis: Chapter Two
Chapter Two:
After a long two weeks of waiting while Doctor Franksten was in Connecticut, apparently working on another patient of this crazy scheme, I was finally in his office. It was still rather cold, and despite my previous boast I was wrapped warmly in a coat and scarf. Alex was with me, pushing me along despite my insistence on denying myself a wheelchair. I could still walk a short ways, and my pride prevented me from resigning to my fate, but alas, I still knew I would become short of breath after the walk up the street to the doctor's apartment from where we would have had to park, amd so had to grit my teeth and deal with the wheelchair
Once there, Alex helped me up the steps, and I tried to catch my breath as she rang the doorbell. After a moment, there was a stir and the sound of footsteps on a hardwood floor, before the door's locks were being worked from the inside.
The man who opened the door was in his early fifties, with graying hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He was the model of the archetypical beatnik-dark glasses, warm sweater, dark pants-and he carried himself in a dignified way. But upon closer inspection, his sweater and pants both had some animal hair caught in them, as if he'd just been wrestling with dogs.
"Hello?" he asked, a smile on his slightly aged face, as he looked from Alex to me and back again. "You must be the Shiloh couple my agent told me about. Come in; it's freezing!" he invited us, as he threw open the door and stepped aside. He then led us to his den, warmly lit with lamps and a dimmed ceiling light. One wall was concealed by a book shelf, which on it held the works of various authors, none of which seemed to be particularly united by subject or topic.
The doctor, despite his climbing age, had a spring in his step as he rushed to the back of his house. There was the sound of a door shutting gently, and the flick of a light switch before the doctor returned to the front room.
Alex had wheeled me to a spot next to the end of the doctor's shorter couch, and sat beside me. She was uncomfortable in Doctor Franksten's house, and was uncomfortable with the absurdity of the deal she'd heard about. She was also confused; how was this even possible? What were the implications?
The grey doctor, however, had sat himself in the overstuffed recliner across from us. He was enthusiastically leaning over the edge of the chair, with his elbows on his knees, and his hands clasped tightly to each other.
"So, Mr. Shiloh, I trust you've considered my offer?" He said, smiling. I just nodded, and weakly replied the affirmative. I couldn't find my voice at the moment.
"Good, well, assuming you're here because you've decided to go through with it, we can go into the details with you." The doctor leaned back into his recliner, but his body language showed that he was still enthusiastic about the promise of a new patient. "The truth is, Mr. Shiloh, that this is as miraculous as it sounds. It's also far ahead of its time, and I have to inform you of the unique status of this operation."
I shifted uneasily. There was this feeling in my stomach that this wouldn't be as idealistic as I thought it would.
"Now, Mr. Shiloh, human cloning is illegal in this great country, right? So I cannot make a clone of your body. Even if I did, it would take at least eighteen years to be of proper proportion for me to transplant your brain into, and in that time, this clone would have developed its own life and personality. So not only would it be illegal, it would be philosophical murder, and would establish... Unfortunate precedents..."
I nodded, and looked at Alex. We both had the same thought; this doctor had a lot of time on his hands.
"Secondly, I can't transfer your brain to another person. Like I said, philosophically, it's murder, and there's no one alive who would willingly give up a good body for the hell of it. Beyond that, the legal implications are too big, as we would have to deal with an identity crisis, and legal status, and on top of that, whatever medical conditions the donor had."
I looked at the doctor, confused, trying to figure out where this was going. After a long silence, I asked, "So what does that leave me?"
Doctor Franksten jumped out of his seat in excitement. "An animal, Mr. Shiloh, an animal! Until I can get out of this legal limbo that the laws put me in, and find a good source of impeccable donors, you'll have the opportunity to experience something unique."
I was shocked, and looked at Alex again. Her look of disbelief and utter shock must have mirrored my own.
The doctor just kept on smiling. "Don't worry, I get that look a lot."
"Wait, so let me get this straight." Alex finally interjected, "It's more legal trouble to change a person's identity than to redefine 'human'?"
"Technically, Missus Shiloh, assuming I can call you that, Mr. Shiloh will retain all his rights and his identity. He'll just need to go down to the DMV and have his ID photo retaken."
"Surely it can't be that simple!"
The doctor laughed, "My name's not Shirley, ma'am." Alex and I glared at him, and he scoffed, "Bad time for a joke, sorry. Anyways," He added specific emphasis on the word, "I have all the paperwork for changing his identity, and have worked with the city, police, and the state government in Sacramento to ensure my patients' legal status. I leave no stone unturned for those who trust me."
Alex frowned. It was obvious she didn't like the sound of this. She leaned over to me, and whispered to me, "This whole thing stinks, we should go."
But I couldn't. There was something that kept me there, something like fate, something like an urge. To leave would be paramount to suicide, and I couldn't just give up. This was my best hope, and even though it was obscure, risky, and new, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to live. I looked Doctor Franksten in the eye, and an energy passed between us. I looked at him as if to say, 'You better be right about this,' and he nodded back ever so slightly, as if he was thinking, 'I never let a patient down.'
"What animal would you use?" I asked bravely. Alex was shocked, and pulled away from my arm, looking at me incredulously. She couldn't believe I was considering it.
"A dog, Mr. Shiloh, I would use a dog."
"Why a dog?"
"Simple, because a dog is easy to acquire, friendly, aesthetic, and would go unnoticed on the street. I can't use any of the great apes; they stick out too much. I can't use ungulates, as they not only stick out, but have too small a cranium for the human brain. I can't use elephants or tigers or anything like that, as they're protected and hard to procure. Cats are just too small, as are almost everything else. You see, Mr. Shiloh, that the human brain is actually very large."
"And a dog has a large enough cranium?"
"Not just any dog, Mr. Shiloh. Most dogs, even the big ones, would usually be too small for a human brain. But even for the largest breeds, I'd have to shave off some tissue to make it fit. Nothing important, of course... But I've specially bred dogs for this purpose since the eighties, when I first formulated the theory."
I didn't know how to respond to that. There was an awkward, thick silence, during which Alex and I thought hard about this.
"I can show you the dog if you want, Mr. Shiloh."
"Alright, Doc." I responded after a pause, and the doctor once again started for the back of his house. "Follow me," he said politely, prompting Alex to stand up, and wheel me after him.
We went to the back, and peers out the door he had opened. For a town house, this place had a large backyard, and inhabiting it were six or seven of the largest German Shepherds a person would ever see.
"Those are big dogs, Doc."
"They are, aren't they? I love these rascals to death, and it pains me to have to end their lives. But their sacrifice makes for a human's life to continue."
I looked over them, noticing that each one was different, and had different markings and different behavior. I had never studied a group of dogs so closely.
"Which one would I be?"
"Oh, I'll have to go pick one, won't I? I'm sorry, I should have earlier, but I forgot. When you showed up, I was back here wrestling with Jack."
The doctor opened his screen door, and walked out. Most of the dogs were busy with each other, probably tuckered out from the day of play. But one ran up, and nearly jumped on the doctor, putting its paws on his chest and licking his face. The dog was almost the size of a tiger.
After a short exchange of affection, Doctor Franksten led the dog back to the house, and introduced me to him. I learned his name was Rintintin, and he was Jack's brother. The dog was around two and a half years old, optimal age for the operation, was intact, unbred, and in immaculate healthy. The doctor showed me the features of his unique breed, derived, ironically, from a pair of Shiloh Shepherds he'd bought in 1987. He'd bred them carefully, to encourage a larger braincase, higher bone density, a stronger heart, and more flexible forepaws. Also, he added, he'd worked from the beginning to try and reverse that squat-legged posture that had been bred into Shiloh Shepherds and German Shepherds for over a century, to prevent hip dysplasia in his patients. At the time, very little of that seemed relevant to me, but it was nice to know that this was a healthy dog, no matter how strange the whole situation was.
Also, the doctor thought it would be good to introduce the dog to Alex, to see if she would get a liking to it. It was as awkward as you would imagine, thinking that the dog that was licking her face so happily would soon be me. Of course, I didn't let myself think too hard about it; otherwise I might make myself sick. Well, even sicker than I was.
**** *** ****
The visit was wrapped up soon afterwards, as Doctor Franksten told me that in three days he'd have the paperwork filled out on his end, and all I would need to do would be to sign all the dotted lines and checkmark a few boxes. As you could guess, those three hellish days of hiatus were difficult and stressful, as I went through my whole spectrum of emotions on the matter, from sadness to happiness, to disappointment, to anger, to resignation, to passive aggression, and finally to real acceptance. Alex took it equally hard, but tried not to show it. I truthfully didn't know what she thought about it. She neither denied nor supported it, and her sorrowful, wistful glances over my face were nerve wracking.
One day I tried to talk to her about it, but there wasn't really much to say. She just told me, as long as I was alive, she'd love me. We left it at that, and we didn't speak again until the next day, my last day as a human.
Mr. Sohare brought me the paperwork, and his beaming smile made the dreary walls around me even drearier in contrast. He walked me through the paperwork, and explained what each box meant, as fully as he could, whether or not I asked. I didn't ask about any boxes.
Luckily, the liability contract let me keep my soul, my left testicle, and my firstborn son, even though the lattermost I would not likely be able to acquire after the operation and the middle one I wouldn't be able to keep. The soul part was suspiciously ambiguous however; there was no mention of a soul in the contract.
With the closure of the paperwork, Mr. Sohare promised that tonight he would file everything, and the next day, the surgery would be performed. Doctor Franksten was in the operating room which he had acquired from the hospital for the next three days, preparing his special equipment, and would leave preparation instructions with the nurses, to make sure my physicality would be ready for the intensive surgery.
**** *** ****
Inevitably, I had to fast for twenty-four hours before the operation. What I didn't foresee was that I had to be taken off my medicine. It was a shock, and I was in general pain the whole time, but Doctor Franksten had to make sure I wasn't taking anything in the twenty-four hours leading up to the surgery.
The prospect of the new lease on life was exciting, and worrisome. I was thinking myself to death, and imagining all the outcomes of this. It was pessimistic at first, but my thoughts slowly grew in optimism. The thing that most worried me was how Alex would react. For the first time in a long while, I felt a stirring in my heart, and I knew that I would have to do my best to help her through this.
Doctor Franksten came to me in the morning, and asked how I felt. I told him about how I felt a little nauseated, and weak, and how my nose was itching. He said not to worry about it, that I'd feel great after the surgery was over.
By noon, it was time to start. Franksten oversaw the assistants transferring me to a wheeled operating table, and I was taken to the doctor's special surgery room. The instruments were numerous, sharp, and shiny, and the overhead rig looked like something out of Star Wars with all of its mechanical arms and the single high-intensity light in the middle of it. I felt my empty stomach sink as I was wheeled within its reach, upon the cold table. I looked concernedly at the Doctor, who smiled and nodded back, holding up a mask from which the slight mist of ether rolled. He held it to my face, and repeatedly told me to relax, and that I would be pleasantly surprised.
I woke up several times, I think. Each time was hazy, and I could feel nothing, like I was out of my body. During those times, I heard the doctor commenting about how my skull was wearing out his saw, and heard the soft buzz of a rotary tool. I could see nothing, and I was too groggy to understand what was going on at the time.
Eventually this haziness subsided, and there was a huge, black gap in my memory. Much like a deep sleep, there was nothing between the last fuzzy echoing of the doctor's voice and the next sensation; a huge jolt of unbearable sharpness, shocking me back to life, summoning me back from the deathly embrace of unconsciousness. The electric pain lasted a long time, but by the time it had ebbed into a dull ache, I had begun to feel more oriented. I was unable to move, and for a moment I felt the indescribable feeling of not knowing up from down, before I was able to process the table underneath me.
But there was enormous pain in my head, all around my head; a great throbbing pain much worse than that which I first felt...
And then, again, blackness came.
**** *** ****
When I next awoke, the pain had mostly subsided, save for a soft omnipresent ache, and a pain in my throat. After several minutes in the dark, I realized what had happened, and it slowly donned on me that I was in the dog's body. It was strange, awkward at first, not possessing of my fine motor functions.
I possessed my hearing though. All of my sensations except sight; the sharp, shocking, sterile smell of the hospital bedsheets upon which I rested; the soft buzz of the long halogen bulbs in the ceiling; the taste of my mouth; this feeling of warmth given to me by my new fur, and the gently pressure of it against the hospital bed.
The door opened, and I could not yet see it, but I heard it, and smelled a gentle waft of cologne. I heard the shuffling of his pantlegs against one another as he walked, and also the squeak of his shoes' soles against the tile.
"Travis, you're awake." He said. "It'll be awhile before you adapt enough to move, but so far the operation is a success. We need to keep you here until we're sure there are no short-term complications and until your physical therapy is done..."
**** *** ****
During the long hospital stay, Alex came to visit me several times. The pleasant, flowery scent of her perfume intrigued me; the soft and gentle feeling of her gently smoothing out my fur with her soft hands was relaxing. Her voice sounded crisp and clear, and beautiful, and sonorous.
She would talk to me calmly, and pet my flank, and hold my paws. It was strange at first, and set off many mental alarms in my head, and triggered many fears, but the first few times she did, I was unable to protest. I quickly grew used to it, and learned to enjoy the feeling.
Between Alex's visits, Doctor Franksten worked on habilitating me to my new body. I had to learn to walk on four legs, to lap from a bowl, to eat, to work my satellite-dish ears so I could hear, and to pant. These were all things that came to me mostly from instinct and muscle memory, the two things his lessons focused on. It was all very strange, and I had mixed feelings about it at first, but I was able to eventually convince myself that this wasn't all too terrible after all. Eventually, I ended up regaining semi-fine motor skills, and learning enough to not be terribly crippled.
Doctor Franksten had gone the extra mile for me; and explained his work. First, he had removed my brain from the body, and after a mad-dash to the technology room, removed the nonessential sections. While he put the dog donor under the knife, he had an assistant implant the necessary electronic nervous stimulators; small diodes and wires that would connect my human brain to my new canine spinal cord, and encourage nerve splicing. Then, he attached the human brain core to the canine spinal cord and glands, with a lot of precision instruments. He wasn't done yet, though. Standard procedure dictated that he install a kind of voice chip and speaker in my neck, wired to my brain, which would allow for human speech. I didn't understand the mechanics of it, but it was a design he commissioned from a Japanese engineer and he was so very proud of it.
Of course, learning to work this was the hardest part. At first I could only bark, and the implant would make strange white noise, and it would make me sound like a Tourette's victim. Eventually, though I learned how to speak through it, and how to control its pitch, volume, and tone. It was a marvel really, and the Doctor, though guiding me, seemed just as much in wonder of it as I was. It still took some getting used to, though, as even though it nearly had the full range of English sounds, it was nonetheless hollow-sounding.
At first, also, my head was usually fully wrapped in thick bandages and gauze, which had to be changed twice a day. This was kept up for most of my physical therapy, and I supposed it was due to the incision in my skull. Having absolutely no sense of time, being stuck inside, I didn't know how long it took them to unwrap my head.
On the last day, they brought in a veterinarian to give me a thorough check up, and determined that, as far as dogs go, I was the healthiest dog of this stature that he'd ever seen. Being satisfied with that, and after making him sign a bunch of papers releasing Dr. Franksten from liability, the nurses skillfully checked the healing of my incisions, and then guided me out down the hall opposite from the way I went to the yard. There, Franksten and Alex awaited me.
Alex hugged me, and I felt my tail begin to wag. By this time, it was only slightly humiliating, and I just nuzzled her back. Doctor Franksten smiled.
"There's just one last thing you need to do before you leave, Mr. Shiloh." He said kindly. I could tell from his voice that he was proud of his work.
"What's that?" I replied. I still couldn't get over how strange this new voice sounded.
"Look in the mirror, Travis..."
I looked around the room, first to the left, over Alex's shoulder. But the mirror was on the right, near the door, and when I ran my eyes over it, I was startled, and looked away. Doctor Franksten still insisted that I look though, as did Alex, and eventually I was able to stare myself down.
The imagine in the mirror was foreign. There was Alex, her arms around the neck of one of the huge German Shepherds from Doctor Franksten's townhouse. But instead of the caramel eyes belonging to the dog, my blue eyes stared back at me. I moved my hand, and the dog moved its paw, and I swept my strange new tail, and so did the dog. At first I couldn't accept it, but I was finally able to tell myself; that's me now, this is who I am. A dog named Travis Shiloh...
While I stared, Alex left her embrace and went with Doctor Franksten to the nearby desk, to sign the release papers. I didn't listen to a word they said, I was transfixed. This was just so shocking, my heart pounded in my chest, and I was beyond disbelief as I looked in the mirror, and saw my new self.