Counselor in a Box

Posted on 24 Jun 2012 @ 8:32am by Commander Andreus Kohl

700 words; about a 4 minute read

Andreus Kohl's Personal Log, Supplemental

Is this-- Is this recording? Computer, are you recording? Normally there's this-- this kind of clicky-chirp when it starts to record a personal log, and I didn't hear it this time. There should be a, uh, a visual confirmation on the-- the LCARS display. Oh! Oh, there it is. Oh damn, it's been recording all of that. . .

Right then. So.

I don't know how I'm going to get through my counseling evaluation. My mother told me my dad is dead today, told me an hour before my new tour of duty aboard Galileo. Why would she do that to me? Couldn't it have waited?! He's still going to be dead. Why today? Why now?!

Oh. Whoa. That was--

That was too loud. Doctor Ni Dhuinn sent me to the lab to sterilize surgical equipment, and I haven't tested if the bulkheads are sound-proofed. Or maybe I just did. I'm being unreasonable, anyway. Imogen couldn't have known about my new assignment. I certainly didn't tell her about it. I didn't tell her about my last assignment either. Bactricia.

On Bactricia, there was this little LCARS program some of the marines were using. I don't know where it came from, or how they got it, but it was this random counseling question generator. They would use it to prep for counseling evaluations. It's ridiculous. The program isn't even an artificial intelligence, it's just a question randomizer. Honestly, I don't know if that speaks to the limited intelligence of the person who coded the program, or the general perception of an average counselor's intelligence. . . In either case, I know the program is stupid. From my training, I know counseling sessions don't work like that. I know counselors are too perceptive for. . . And yet still, I can't stop thinking about it.

I feel like. . . I feel like I need to prepare for my psychological examination, as if it were a mid-term. I've been drinking, no, I've been guzzling teas loaded with mood-stabilizing herbs. Panax and kava kava and the like. I'm too afraid of getting caught replicating narcotics for myself, but I don't know if the teas are working, and I can't afford to have some kind of emotional melt down. They can't make me take a leave. They can't make me go to the funeral. Not on my first day. I just have to get through it. Get through today. Get through my counseling evaluation.

Sigh.

Computer? Activate program: Counselor in a box.

Accessing, the computer said. What has been the hardest thing in your life to overcome?

Learning how to put need ahead of want.

What was your favourite toy as a child?

Wheely-boots and any staircase I could climb. The Federation embassy building had six straight flights of emergency staircases. Hyper-awesome.

Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?

I believe... well, I believe everything happens because of causation. Every happening is a direct result of the happening that came before it. Secret patterns beneath the surface, destiny... I don't see it. Not even if I squint real hard.

If you could ever travel through time, when would you go?

My own conception.

Would you take a phaser blast for anyone?

Yes, but you only get one.

Do you think you would make a good parent?

With my in-born neuroses, my eating habits, and my medical training paranoia? I don't think so. Any child of mine would resent me by the age of twelve. By the age of sixteen, my child would overcome a fear of heights and learn to fly a shuttle, just to run away. But my daughter would know how to break your nose in two places with one punch, I swear it.

Which family member are you closest to and why?

I don't-- I haven't spoken-- There are the people related to me by blood, and the people who raised me, and the people I have chosen. . . But I don't have any people in my life right now. I don't, I don't totally know why. . .

Oh, Computer. . .

End log.

RSS Feed