Flesh From My Flesh

Posted on 27 Nov 2012 @ 9:40pm by Commander Andreus Kohl

398 words; about a 2 minute read

Andreus Kohl's Personal Log

It's finished.

This tumour -- cut from my flesh. This, my monster, has been birthed. Looking at it now, now that it's done, I can't say that I'm entirely satisfied. Two of its arms look-- they look ridiculous, frankly. Hardly an accurate depiction of a muscular hydrostat. I want to shape them further, but that wouldn't be allowed. It's already done. Can't turn back.

Catharsis.

Lightning-blue eyes open wide, lips slightly parted, Andreus Kohl looked upward. Standing barefoot in his quarters, the late-twenty-something Argelian was clad in a disheveled uniform. It wasn't neatly tucked nor trim, and the black and grey material was mottled with splotches of purple. Kohl's skin was particularly pale this evening, drawing attention to the severe cut of his honey-brown hair. He tilted his head to the right. His lips moved.

I started drawing it when my father died. At the time, I didn't know why I was doing it. That thing, it looked like it matched the shape of my loss. It was like I was staring at my grief, there on the PADD. After we went hiding in the nebula, it was harder to sleep. I started to design the skeleton underneath when I should have been sleeping, and between patients. After Galileo crashed... that's when I began. That beautiful physiotherapist, the Betazoid Edias, invited me to a bar after my shifts at Central Hospital, but I had to refuse. I needed to begin. I replicated sculpting ceramics, and I began. I used my hands for creation.

Suckered to the place in Kohl's quarters where the ceiling met two walls was a giant space cephalopod. Although it was inspired by genuine marine life, this hand-sculpted cephalopod existed nowhere in the natural universe. Its prominent, fleshy head was shaded violet and deep plum. Its texture alternated between smooth and glassy ceramics to shimmering metallic scales. Its eight arms were splayed out across the ceiling and walls.

It was formed precisely into the shape of Kohl's anxieties, by Kohl's own hands. Weeks of his free time had been devoted to the cephalopod's design and construction. Having it out of him, having it excised, it made him feel stronger.

Maybe now... Maybe now that it's finished, I can-- I can let--

Oh, who am I kidding? Nothing's ever finished. End log.

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