Mason Dixson was only beginning to realize the curse being placed on his entire family by the sloppy management of the Foundation's research project. His easy going manner had eased him into accepting the equine form he was now and must remain.
The sight and thoughts of seeing his children degraded down to meer animals, grovelling for the daily sustance. The thought of his heirs being pruged from the human world was even now hitting him between the eyes.
As Mason was shut into his large box stall, Mr. Hopper came to tell his ole' friend just how things were going to be in the future.
"Mason my good friend, I want you to understande how your families' sacrfice is helping the Foundation. Why in years to come the state will not need to house criminals, they can simply use the Flux method. The many insane people which the state now manages their poor lives can place them through the Flux process and whala'! Then take as a possible the huge number of unsatisfied humans which would find animal life a wonderful enhancement compared to their own human tragedy. Then there are other fools who for a lark would pay good money for a week, month, year, or permanantly to become an animal. Why the possibilities are out of this world!"
Mason listened since he could do nothing else.
At last Mr. Hopper left Mason to ingest the mental thoughts of his family and himself now in the vile hands of his friend. It was late that very night when he heard the soft voice of his almost forgotten wife calling his name. Then coming down the isle was his now pretty wife accompanied by Mr. Hopper.
As they stepped to his stall the view of the two came into focus. Only his wife was showing signs of beastial form. Her ears stuck out of her black hair, pointed and hairy themselves. Her blouse collar showed the brushed up black hairs of a animal. As he oggled first with one eye and then the other he saw more facial changes.
"Mason, your dear wife is coming to join you here as a Morgan horse. She recently aided your mare in the birth of a fine colt. It seems she too has somehow ingested some of the Flux' and even now she in becoming a Morgan horse, and a stallion too!"
As Mason's wife burst into tears Mr. Hopper smiled his grin of evil intent at Mason. It was then that Mason summed his equine strength and wheeled around giving the stall door a double hoofed kick.
The door was ripped from it's morrings and fell atop Mr. Hopper's chest. As Mason bolted out the stall his dear wife jumped on his broad back and the two of the galloped to the far end of the barn.
At last together it was the Misses who suggested a plan to destroy their cursed family in one clean swipe of fate. Standing on Mason's back she swung a pipe wrench at the natural gas line causing it to rupture. The hissing sound of explosive gas was now filling the area where her son's now trod on cloven hooves.
The sounds of angry men and Mr. Hopper swearing he was going to kill Mason and his wife no matter what! Mason and his wife stepped into the light of a ceiling bulb and stood their ground.
Four Orderly's and Hopper stepped close. One Orderly had a shotgun and pointed it at Mason's square head.
"You might have killed me Mason, and for trying that stunt you will have the joy of watching first hand your dear wife's change. I thought at first of having you shot, but now I think it would be more fun to see the two of you working as stallions pulling a tourist wagon in the state park. George give Mason the sound of one good blast just so he could remember the shot I plan to kill him with some day!"
The gun went off but to the wide eyed surprised look of the Orderly and Mr. Hopper, the barn's roof area was suddenly ablaze. The engulfing blast leveled the barn and everything in a hundred yards was in deadly flames.
In those last seconds of life Mason thought back to better and loving days when he would sit on the front porch and listed to clasical music. The rythum of paul McCartney's Standing Stone symphony still ran through his mind. The words of the poem which ended "I want to be with you!" now seemed so right.
The local Gazette had a story about the fire at the Foundation's research department. "It is to those who died in the gas explosion we offer these few words. It was a good life they spent with family and friends. It is to our most Friendly of friend Mason Andrew Dixson who is now gone to a better place we bid a fond Good Bye."