[BACKPOST] Sharp Enough To Make Me

Posted on 01 Jul 2014 @ 3:21pm by Commander Andreus Kohl

1,450 words; about a 7 minute read

Previously on The Second Cut . . .

I used my right hand, then, to take a long swig from the carafe. And another. And one more for good luck. I wiped my lips with the back of my right hand and then I reached for the hilt of the shah'fa. I raised it from the plinth and I drove the serrated edge of the blade into my useless, aching forearm. Almost immediately, blood pooled and rose up around the edge of the blade buried in my flesh, but all I could do was sigh in guttural relief.

It's difficult to remember what happened next. As Darzyn eased me back on the biobed, I assumed shock was setting in. It felt an awful lot like what the textbooks describe shock to be like. The synthehol had turned harmless in my system, and that gnawing pain in my left forearm was gone. It was gone for good; I could feel it. That only left shock behind. It had to be shock making me feel like there was a forcefield between my mind and my body. The way Doctor Sefton handled the situation, already calling out orders and examining the gash in my arm, it impressed me. I didn't want to interrupt her emergency protocols.

That's when Doctor Sefton started making demands. She wanted to know more about how I cut myself; wanted to know if this was connected to the pain I was feeling from the healed shrapnel wound. And she started threatening to relieve me of duty. The painkiller was kicking in right about then. It dulled her words in my ears as much as any other pain. All I said to her was, "What do you want me to say? It doesn't hurt anymore. My arm. My arm doesn't hurt the way it used to. Even now, it doesn't hurt."

And now, the conclusion . . .


Timeline: Circa 2389 (One month before Andreus Kohl's transfer to USS Galileo)
Location: Bactricia - Starfleet Medical Base Camp


[ON]

Ensign Andreus Kohl's Personal Log, supplemental entry:

Most days, I try to be mindful of ergonomics. I try to bring my body, and my joints, back to neutral postures as often as I can. I wouldn't say I'm old enough to feel stubborn aches and pains, but I'm starting to notice it when I don't treat my body right. A twinge in the knees or the back if I've been contorting myself for hours on end.

Today, though, in the Counselor's office, ergonomics was the furthest thing from my mind. I made myself entirely comfortable on the sofa. I leaned heavily into it, with my head lolled back onto the padding. One boot was planted firmly on the floor, and my other leg was draped over the armrest of the sofa. My hands were folded neatly in my lap. My arms appeared flawless; to look at my left arm, you would never know...

I said, "Counselor. Thank you. Thank you for meeting me at this early hour. You must only be settling... This is your, what? Second day? First day? I can appreciate that, but time is a pressing factor in my life." Tonelessly, I told him, "If you don't assess my psychological fitness right now, our Chief Medical Officer will relieve me of duty."

It surprised me that Counselor Kylo didn't take a softer approach. Counselors have a reputation -both for good and for bad, oddly- for being soft. But Kylo didn't give me a moment to dip my toe in the water. He dropped me in the deep end. Kylo told me he wasn't surprised by the Chief Medical Officer's decision. He agreed a psychological assessment was most certainly required. He looked at me hard, and told me that self-harm was a scary thing for superior officers and Doctor Sefton was acting in my best interest by sending me to him before I be allowed anywhere near patients again.

Ten heartbeats of silence passed between us, and then Kylo asked me, "Would you care to tell me why you decided to plunge a 14 inch blade into your forearm?"

I met Kylo's questioning gaze as if the look alone were a challenge. I folded my hands behind my head, but I wouldn't be the first one to look away. I maintained eye-contact resolutely. I asked Kylo "Do you know anything of the Great Awakening in Argelian culture?"

Kylo admitted that he didn't; that he knew very little of Argelian culture.

I told him, "Centuries ago, my people came to see violence as the antithesis of all life. It became a widespread fear that violence, any act of violence, would become the extinction event for all Argelians. The people turned their backs on violence, and within a generation, it ceased to be. It was no longer an option. At all. For anyone. Dating back to even before the Great Awakening, there was a spiritual sub-culture known as the astralkind. To this day, they orate about how violence can leave an intrinsic mark in the flesh of beings. The very act of violence causes a change of state, not only in the wounded, but in the aggressor as well.

"I never believed it. Not once. I didn't believe it until my arm began to hurt for no discernible reason."

Kylo listened to me. He considered my words; I really believe he considered what I said. But I've read his service jacket. He's not only trained as a Counselor; he's a physician. That's why it didn't surprise me that his first question went straight to the medical. Kylo asked me why I didn't go to the Infirmary and report that pain.

"It wasn't a secret," I explained. "I have reported to the Infirmary. I went to Doctor Sefton about the pain trapped in my flesh. No one could find anything physically wrong with me. The flesh wound, the nerve damage; it had been healed completely. The sensors said my arm was like brand new."

Kylo almost sputtered at my response when he said, "But to go from a medical examination to harming yourself... You had to have known that by doing what you did there were going to be consequences."

"I haven't met a consequence I couldn't live with," I told him.

Using my name, Kylo called me Andreus, and he reminded me that even with the state of medical technology, there are still many cases of patients feeling pain after a wound has been healed. Torn muscle and misfiring nerves are a trauma the body needs time to recover from. He recommended some readings for me, and then he asked, "I take it there is no more pain 'trapped in your flesh'?"

My stomach churned to hear my words turned back upon me. To my ears, they sounded like the words of a religious fanatical, not a secular Starfleet Officer of questionable spirituality. It didn't sound like me. But these questions, all of these questions, it brought those same words out of me once more. I can still remember them --remember from childhood-- remember the words being said in a smokey feminine voice.

I said to Kylo, "The spiritual sub-culture I mentioned, they speak of there only being one method for removing an act of violence from the flesh. They speak of sacrifice. The violence must be cut from the flesh."

Kylo didn't respond to that right away. He appeared to be debating with himself internally. When he finally did speak, he figuratively danced around most of what I had said, and he brought the conversation back to the physical world of medicine and science. He asked me sternly if I understood that I could have died from my injury.

I was clipped in my response: "I do understand that, yes."

Kylo was picking up momentum, and he asked me if this were to happen again, if I were to feel an undiagnosed pain in my flesh and the urge to cut it out, Kylo asked me to contact him instead. Kylo asked me to give him an opportunity to talk through it with me. He posited we may find a way to resolve the pain together without causing me any further arm.

I said, "I can promise to tell you... If I feel this way again, I can tell you first. That's all I can promise you. I will tell you. ...I'm not the kind of person who knows the words for what he's feeling. It takes time. Time to process."

"I'm a patient man," Kylo said to me. And he listened.


[OFF]

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