FSE

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Here I am, far enough past middle age to know with dread certainty that my life is more than half over, and, unexpectedly, I discover that my greatest desire is within my reach. Paradoxically, instead of filling me with joy, I find it has turned into my paramount fear. Am I someone special to be afforded this singular opportunity and have this fantastic dream laid before me? No. I am just an average American leading a routine life. I reside in northwest Washington State on the northern coast of the Olympic Peninsula. It is a lonely and densely forested place that suits my desire for open spaces, scenic beauty and a sizeable amount of personal privacy. Use Google Maps to find 'Crescent Bay, Washington,' and you will understand a little better exactly how isolated this place is. A trail in the woods near my house leads to a park where I take walks to think and relax. Not far off the established trail is an unusual rock formation that I discovered soon after I first moved here over a decade ago. I have returned to it often, as if compelled by some will other than my own to do so. I tell myself that it is a private sanctuary, or temple if you will, but the truth is that I do not feel right or at ease if I don't go there at least several times a week. I have stood among the rocks in the pouring rain completely soaked through to my skin, unable to leave despite shivering from the cold and wet weather that is typical of much of the year here.

This geologic shrine is a collection of standing stones of hexagonally shaped columnar basalt that look as though the columns had been arranged by humans into a rough, circular temple similar to Stonehenge except without the lintels and much smaller in scale. Unlike the stone temple in England, this formation is completely natural. At least that is what the county geologist said when I showed it to him. Natural or contrived, it does not matter. There is something singular and unique about this place, and that distinctiveness was demonstrated quite theatrically to me this morning.

Before I continue, I should explain myself to give you some understanding of why the astounding event that recently occurred here vexes me so. Ever since I was a small boy, I have felt an attraction towards depictions of anthropomorphic animals. I know the following sounds cliché, but it is true nonetheless. When Disney's Robin Hood first aired when I was about sixteen years old, I fell in love with Maid Marian, who was depicted as an anthropomorphic fox. That feeling never left me even as I progressed into adulthood. I remember drawing pictures of anthropomorphized animals as a teenager for my own amusement, and it just seemed more natural to give the people I drew animal ears and tails.

Fearing I was an isolated freak to have this fetish, I hid this obsession from others. Please realize that these were the days before the internet, when the only culture you were exposed to was what was made available by a centralized, normalized and sterilized mass media that only produced what the ruling elite wanted you to see. There was no room for minority interests in that forum and certainly no space for furries. It wasn't until after I was married and had children of my own that I discovered underground comics and finally met some other furries at science fiction conventions. By then, it was too late for me to join this growing minority culture. The routine and demands of career and raising a family dominated my time and energy for decades.

It was not until recently, as I draw ever nearer to retirement with my children all grown up and moved away, that I have even begun to investigate the on-line furry culture. Though it has been pleasant to find others who share my peculiar interest, the camaraderie feels like too little too late. How can I possibly make up for all of that lost time alone and isolated from my natural inclinations? Now, with the appearance of these strangers, this furry fellowship seems too much too soon.

They appeared to me in the middle of the stone circle at a fallen column whose serendipitous placement made a crude altar. Three anthropomorphic beings, who looked just as I always imagined they would, stood there. Unlike the visions of my imagination, they were real. I won't bore you with my doubts concerning their reality that included thoughts of hallucinations and dreams. They were real and delivered abundant proof to me of their existence; that is all you need know. Two were female, and one was male. It was difficult to tell how old they were. Fur and scales hide well the wrinkles and other tell-tale signs of age, but one of the females, the still lithe and beautiful cat-like one, had flecks of gray in her otherwise orange, tabby striped fur. She also spoke the most, which made me think of her as older and in command.

The male was reptilian, and, though handsome, he was frighteningly demonic looking with his red eyes, shiny black scales, horns and folded leather wings. A gazelle was my best guess for the earthly species that corresponded to the second female. Neither of the latter two anthros spoke much. They simply smiled and stared at me with an intensity that made me feel that they somehow knew me already. None of the three wore much clothing. Their torsos were bare, except for fur, of course. I was guilty of doing a bit of staring myself.

The tabby female confirmed my suspicions about the uniqueness of this spot and why I had been drawn to it. Whatever it is at some fundamental level that makes me who I am - I don't know what word to use for it: soul? essence? psyche? - was not meant to be here on earth. I was one of their own she claimed, lost to them before my birth across the boundary that separates their universe from ours. She explained that the partition between our two universes is more like a pervious membrane than a barrier. It doesn't stop everything from crossing back and forth, and it is particularly weak at certain fixed localities like my private rock formation sanctuary. Occasionally the inner essence that makes us who we are can pass through the membrane and be trapped on the other side.

"You were not meant to be human," she said to me. I belong to their race. She spoke its name, but I can neither pronounce it nor hope to put it to paper. "We have come for you to bring you back and assume your rightful form and live among us for the rest of your life. Your absence has been a sore trial to us for all of these years."

You would think that my reaction would have been one of wonder and joy, but instead I asked, "Why did you wait so long?" If this seems to have been a rude question, consider my age. I was well into the second half of my life already. This was not a promise of youth restored but of a revised end of life. I felt cheated by time and circumstance.

"The opening of this nexus does not obey our commands or desires. It was a dangerous and difficult journey that brought us here to you. The timing of access through this point is beyond our control; we can only seize the opportunities to do so as they arise. When this will happen is unpredictable. We can only forecast how long it will stay open. There is but one more hour before it closes to us and to you again for an indeterminate amount of time." She handed me an odd-looking fruit about the size of a small apple but blue in color and shaped like a raspberry. "Eat this before the hour expires while standing here among these stones. You will assume your intended form, be translated to our universe to assume your true destiny and live among the love and affection of your own kind. We will welcome you joyously."

"What form will I take? Will I have fur or scales?"

"I cannot say. No one can say, but it will be what is right for you." She turned her head slightly as if hearing, or receiving through some other sense, a summons. "We may not tarry here any longer. We shall not return before the hour has passed. To ensure you know the precise moment that this opportunity expires, I am leaving this." From a pouch hanging across her shoulders and chest she removed a small device similar in form to the internal partitioned spiral of a nautilus shell. As she set it down on the fallen stone, the first chamber at the entrance to the spiral began to fill with a shimmering, pearlescent luminescence.

"When all of the chambers are full, this device will return across the boundary. You must consume the fruit before then to join us." She said no more. Instead, she hugged me briefly but lovingly before turning and walking away to fade from my sight as if she had walked into a dense fog. The scaled male and antlered female also embraced me in turn with similar affection and disappeared in the same manner as the tabby. I was left alone to suffer with this dilemma. A million questions roiled in my head like a furiously boiling cauldron.

Now I have returned to my current conundrum, I ask myself, how can any of this be bad? Why does fear grip my soul and paralyze me into inaction? I think it is because this feels like death. If I consume this fruit, I will be dead here on earth. There may or may not be a body left behind, but I will be gone to everyone who ever knew me and that I ever knew. It is true that I will be reborn elsewhere, maybe even to a better life, but it is like death nonetheless. How strange to find oneself able to mourn one's own death. Without conscious knowledge of it, I had already begun working my way through the stages of this grief.

Upon first meeting my furry benefactors, I experienced shock and disbelief. How could such a thing happen except in my imagination? If they hadn't been so beautiful and exactingly crafted to match everything I had ever longed to see in a modified human form, I would have run away screaming, thinking that they were monsters. Suffice to say that this first stage of the grieving process was short lived, as was the second stage of denial. The visitors had touched me. They left me this unearthly device that moment by moment erased my ability to make a decision. If this was not real, then nothing was real. I would not pursue a solipsistic or nihilistic philosophy. It is pointless. I believe in objective reality, and what I had witnessed was adequate proof for me.

Now that I am beyond denial, I find myself furious. How could they do this to me? How dare they come to me so late in life and offer me this choice after I had worked so hard and for so long against my natural instincts to build a meaningful life here on earth. They leave me with just a tantalizing glimpse of what I might yet have without enough details to make an informed decision. I know everything I need to know about my present life. I am nearly sixty years old, and this is all I have ever known. A change this radical - can I adapt? I have a family that loves me and would, I hope, miss me dearly. My career is not yet over and there is still much I can do even after I retire, if I ever decide to do so. I feel that I have made significant contributions to society and still have much to contribute. I have friends. I have a community in which I am a part. In response to these thoughts, I storm about the limited space within the standing stone circle kicking at loose stones and breaking fallen branches against the sacred rock columns.

*Deep inside I feel that what these visitors have told me is true. It certainly plays to a desire that I have always had; a feeling that I was not what I was pretending to be. Ever the outsider among an alien species with which I could never fully relate, somehow I had found a way to coexist with humanity. I now have the chance to live a completely new, possibly better and more fulfilling life. In order to cross between universes as they obviously did, they must command technology far beyond ours. Living with a greater understanding of the universe and knowing such wonders was equally compelling to me. There is, however, the possibility that everything I was told by these strange yet seemingly familiar visitors is a lie. It could be some kind of trap to lure me to an evil end. Is the scaled one's appearance an indication of some kind of demonic evil influence at work? *

There is no way to answer these questions in the time I have, which is nearly half absent already. The chambers of the nautilus clock are filling relentlessly. It is too late for me to return home and discuss this with my wife with any hope to make it back before the timer is gone. She is in town today anyway. Cell reception is non-existent here. I am utterly alone to grapple with the single most important decision of my life.

My rage spent, I curl up into a ball on the fallen stone altar and beg for the nautilus to slow its relentless progression of filling chambers, each one of which represents another lost slice of my ability to control my own destiny. Since it is the only physical expression of the alternate universe I have, I talk to the timepiece and implore it to help me. "Give this decision to my loved ones, please," I bargain. "I will abide by whatever they collectively decide. Let them decree if my potential happiness outweighs their need for me to remain here on earth. I cannot know the depth of pain they will feel at my disappearance." The clock is remorselessly silent. Another chamber begins to fill before my eyes as if a malignant spirit is at work accentuating the pointlessness of trying to defer this decision to others.

I sob openly as I lie upon that cold and unforgiving stone. What right do I have to force this decision upon them? What right do I have to leave them? My absence can only cause them pain. I am being selfish even considering putting this fruit in my mouth. Can I hope to live with the remorse of leaving everyone that I know and loved behind without any word or explanation? And yet, what of the others? What of my furry benefactors who had made a presumably difficult and dangerous journey across the boundary between two universes to find me? They did it out of love, or so they claimed. Can I deny them their hope and dream of having me returned to them while I still live and breathe? I am going to hurt many people today. My conscience aches from bearing this burden.

*There is no hope for me. I cannot avoid this decision. If I walk away and leave the blue berry on the fallen stone, I have decided to forsake the others. If I consume this fruit, I am abandoning my earthly existence and all of those close to me. I lie there for I don't know how long in a despondent and completely immobile state. Hopelessness grips me and paralyzes my body. Any person or animal who may chance by would think me dead, and that is the only escape from the paralyzing fear that this decision presents me - death. I can run to the coast and throw myself off a cliff onto the rocks and the cold waters of the strait. For a moment, this route holds great appeal. It allows me to choose neither alternative while simultaneously escaping having to live with the consequences of either. *

While glancing at the last two empty chambers of the alien clock, I resolve the logical fallacy of suicide. It may relieve me of living with the consequences, but it more than doubles the overall tragedy of the situation. Everyone who might love me has to live without me, and I get to experience the joy of neither outcome. It is a fool's choice.

Does this choice to stay human or become furry seem easy to you? I assure you that it is the hardest decision I have ever been forced to consider in my life. How do I balance one life against another? How do I casually discard something that I have spent a lifetime building, even it was the wrong lifetime? I can add up the pros and cons of both sides of this dilemma and place them on the scales of justice to weigh the better course, but how can that help? How does one assign weights to factors like love and family against hope and desire? It is a pointless exercise that I refuse to attempt.

*A not unpleasant lassitude and languor has now overcome me. I have reached a state of acceptance. I understand my problem. I am afraid of change. I fear making this irrevocable decision, but I have no choice. If I do nothing, I have decided just the same as if I throw this fruit in the ocean or eat of it and move on to a new life. The key to my acceptance is knowing that in addition to what I lose, something will be gained by either choice. I still have many years left to live, and both paths offer the promise of great joy. *

The last nautilus chamber is nearly full; the luminescent filling is beautiful to me now rather than terrifying. I am setting my fears aside and replacing them with hope. I no longer dwell on what I will lose, but what I will reap from this decision. With startling clarity, the choice now becomes obvious.

[End]