Expiry Date

Posted on 25 Jan 2015 @ 12:08am by Commander Andreus Kohl
Edited on 25 Jan 2015 @ 12:09am

1,062 words; about a 5 minute read

Previously on Star Trek: Galileo...

"I'm feeling like..." Kohl started to say. He spoke very slowly, because he didn't know where his statement was heading when he started it. After his words trailed off, Kohl gripped the armrests of his chair, and then he managed to continue. "I'm feeling disconnected? From most everyone on the ship. There are a couple of people I like, a couple of people who have shown kindness to me. But I still, I'm still feeling disconnected from them all."

...

Kohl shook his head and then he laid his eyes on Stace. "How do you do it?" Kohl asked suddenly. "How do you engage with our work enough that the work intrinsically is enough for you?"

"Who said it was enough?" she answered coolly with a raise of her fiery brow. She released his hand and then took in a deep sigh, looking out across the faces of the breakfast room before settling back to her friend. "It's different for me," she began, pushing her plate aside fully. "I have so much more experience than you will ever be able to in one lifetime. I've been in love several times over and the heartache of a loss never gets any easier. But as soon as you resign yourself to the fact that each 'discontinuation' of a relationship is a process - the same process, no less - then you just have to paint by numbers to reach the finished picture." In her mind, she was making perfect sense, but with a twitch of her eye she then realised that this might not be the case for the Argelian. She decided to change tact.

"I have control over my career. What happens on this ship and with my path is solely down to me. I call the shots. In a relationship, you're introducing an unstable and unknown factor into the mix. Something that you have no control over. And that, for me right now, is not appealing. Sure I'd like to love again. But it's not the be all and end all of life. They're pockets of joining that make you feel that this is what life is all about." She patted her stomach with a wry smile and winked. "And I'm already Joined. Everything I need to satiate that appetite is out there. And it doesn't necessarily come in the form of another humanoid."

And now, the continuation...


--

Andreus Kohl's personal log, supplemental entry.

I went on a date last night.

Those words, they sound peculiar coming from my mouth. I suppose I haven't done very much in the way of formal courting in my years aboard Galileo. I've known romance. I've grown closer to some of my shipmates, through flirting or dancing or bedding. And there was that masked man at the masquerade ball... I tried to find him afterwards. I asked around, but no one I know knew who he was.

But it's been a while since I've walked up to someone I don't know, and made an invitation to spend an evening with me. It's one of those things... Courting isn't a formalized behaviour for Argelians; they pursue romance in a different manner. It's more organic, perhaps. I am Argelian, but I wasn't raised by Argelians.

My date's name is Viraj. If I'm honest, he wasn't a total stranger. I remember him from the campus in San Francisco. He was a cadet at the Academy, when I went back to Earth to study medicine and biology. I saw him around. I knew of him. I think he dated a classmate of mine. If I visit my intentions too closely, I wonder if I went out with him because he's a Trill. When I decided to ask him on a date, I was thinking of my conversation with Stace. Like Stace, Viraj is a Trill - an unjoined Trill, but a Trill nonetheless. I don't think going on a date was exactly the kind of advice Stace intended to give me, but it was the decision I made after speaking with her. If nothing else, I certainly went into the date thinking it would make for excellent fodder for my next counselling session.

Viraj works in the Operations department aboard Starbase 84. When I first approached him, we didn't speak for very long, and it took a couple of days until he had an evening free for me. If I was attending rehab at the hospital, or hiking in the arboretum, or drinking in one of the bars, I sent him messages from a PADD. He replied from whatever LCARS interface he was working from at the time. I learned he also dived competitively at the Academy, and when I told him of my sculpting in times of emotional stress, I learned all about his creation of textile hangings as gifts for friends and family.

And then we met for dinner.

Oh, why dinner?

I should have invited him out for a couple of shots, and left it at that. Schedule a second date only if the first one went well.

From what I can infer, Viraj didn't want to talk about himself. I have no way to know if he's like this with everyone, or if he was only guarded with me. Any question I asked him was answered in three words or less, and somehow, he always brought the conversation back to his work or his sister. He wouldn't talk about himself at any length. More than that, he wouldn't talk about me. I don't think he asked me a single question all night. Didn't even ask if I was enjoying my meal.

After the plates were all cleared, I made my excuses, but he made excuses to follow me to the Promenade. Despite showing some little interest, we still walked in silence. Every conversational gambit fell flat. As we walked, and as I approached my quarters aboard the starbase, I made new excuses, and changed course towards Galileo. Even then, he insisted on walking me to the docking port. In the end, I only escaped by convincing him he wasn't authorized to come aboard the ship. He respected that, I suppose. Or he got the hint.

I don't think there will be a second date.

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