On Grief

Posted on 09 Nov 2012 @ 2:02am by

2,698 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo: LTjg Liyar's Quarters
Timeline: MD10 1810 Hours

MOUSE OVER Vulcan for translations!

Herein there be literary pretentiousness of the depressing variety.

'Tevanu by Turan' is translated into Vulcan directly from Paul Celan's Fugue of Death. I claim nothing except the translation. Other works include Wislawa Szymborska's Tortures, and The Wizard of Oz. The final 'literary work' is something I threw out at the top of my head, no such Adrive of Rigel V exists.

ON:

The horizon was visible from the large window in his quarters, bathing the area in soft golden light as the sun began to descend. His shift wound down, superior officers and subordinates alike disappearing into the void as if their presence were mere shadows, passing through the walls. He found himself here, without fail, every night. Attempting to achieve a proper state of meditation, to gather the wayward threads piercing through his head and quiet them at last. There was a reason that meditation was so private for each Vulcan. For in it, a Vulcan knew himself. And that knowing was not always pleasant.

The orange blood red sky of Vega IX streaming through the window, surrounded by the tapestries and clan ornaments Liyar had taken from the Estate, the flicker of the small flame beneath his hands as he tended to it. Nothing in his time sense had altered. Nothing was different. Reality had not changed. The universe moved on. The void existed only within him. Outside was untouched.

(Szymborska sifts through his head in the free-association common to meditation. One of Athlen's depressing Terran European poets in a long line of literature he had mandated for required reading.

"I think you will appreciate it," the crewman had simply said enigmatically.

Torture is, as it's always been, only the Earth has shrunk, and whatever happens, feels like it happens next door. Nothing has changed, only there are more people. Nothing has changed - except for the course of boundaries. The line of forests, coasts, deserts and glaciers. Amid these landscapes traipses the soul, disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away, alien to itself, while the body is and is and is and has no place of its own.')

His perception of reality was as stark as ever, and yet it felt stretched somehow. Minutes and hours turning into one long endless drone, to the point where by the time he managed to coax himself into a mild meditative state, he lost track of time altogether. This was what it felt like, Liyar mused to himself mirthlessly, to be utterly, devastatingly alone. Remanded to quarters night after night, a prison of regulation metal for the Tin Man.

(The L. Frank Baums novel sits half-read on the mantle somewhere beyond his small kitchen. It is singularly irrational and he can barely follow the storyline.

"Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage!", the Lion said, triumphantly.

The Wizard spoke. "As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable."

"But I still want one.")

The Rigelian's influence was macabre. Metaphor was not in Liyar's nature. Irrational.

In this, these aliens could not understand. They thought Vulcans emotionless, but truly, they could not understand the depth of loss. That collective consciousness, it buoyed everyone. The family bonds, the connections to one's kin. Meditation was for many things, but the most important had been to tap into that shifting, ageless entity. That one which said, 'As every Vulcan knows another.' But it was fractured. At least, for him. Liyar reached forward, grabbed the incense stick and lit it with a small flint, the fire burning hot anew. He stuck it into the pot, alighting the flame within once more. He would need its power to concentrate if he were to think much more on that.

Now, at long last, he was truly, damnably alone.

Certainly, to deny reality would be illogical. The universe was a constant, objective presence, and this he firmly believed. There was a right and wrong, there was action and reaction. To succumb to the gut-wrenching grief that threatened to obliterate him, churning from the depths of the Inner Chorus that Vulcans sought above all else to master, lest they revert to their baser instincts - that too would be illogical. No. He must see it as it was. Accept it. It had happened. Kaiidth.

It was the first lesson of adulthood, the first lesson in t'san s'at, perhaps for these very reasons. When something so devastating, so completely annihilating occurred, the t'san s'at must persevere. No matter who his clan was. No matter the arts he had learned from a young age - said to remind of the dangers within Vulcan psyche, but really, it was because the taunt of the past was never far from Vulcan consciousness, no matter how far they had come. No matter that he had been instructed in D'Alik'tal since he was an infant. No matter, perhaps, that Vulcan neurology truly didn't discern. Warrior, poet, philosopher.

(Briefly, he recalls Tevanu, by Turan. The poem is written before the Time of Awakening, when the Orions had achieved significant success in enslaving their population.

Perhaps his thoughts should not turn to this, but he finds it difficult to separate his feelings about the War from his feelings about last year. Maybe there is no difference. Maybe he is only the sum total of all of his grief.

Mon nesh-kur ha'kiv t'gad-keshtan etek
Mon nash lu'mu-yor shetaular etek
Mon etek aru, mon etek halan, mon etek mu-yor

Mon etek kwon'sum etek heh mon
Hil-tor shi'vukhut svi'ha'gel-razh etek
Ti'ra se qual rom
Mavau k'oluhk, sasu svi'kelek
Kitaun heh kitaun, sasu tor

Im'roilar sa-kelek sasu, min khio'ri
Khartaular sasu >shen abru tor a'rs'a t'Tevanu!<
Mon du etek mu-yor heh halan, mon du heh mon du etek
Kwul du fi'ulidar k'mokev-tevakh dungi sasu

Man-tor dungi etek sai igen svi'fa-wak
Ki'shi'vukhut t'gad-keshtan du yi
Ti'ra se qual rom

It reminds him of the Kir, the small ship he'd fought on during the Dominion onslaught. How many of his comrades had he watched die? How many had watched while the sanctuary of P'Jem became a ground for the Jem'Hadar to create their fight camps, how many lost? How much stoic witness had been born, as ancient tapestries and stones were gleefully destroyed, their protectors unwittingly killed?

But P'Jem had been restored. Order had been regain. Vulcan had not fell. They had prevailed. Would he?)

They were many things, but this was their core. No. He was a diplomat. Not a soldier. Certainly not a poet. Not that which his blood sung for. Revenge, destruction, chaos. For T'Yron. For his clan. For his comrades. Never in his life had he experienced sensations like this. Swirling about his brain. Where had it come from? Why now, after more than a decade?

Liyar stared into the fire-pot, his gaze nearly as heated, streaks of fire emulated in his fathomless black eyes. He was rational. Logical. Dignified. He would master it, as he was a thinking being. Even this could not, would not revert him to anything other than what he was. A Vulcan. Bred from birth to discipline. Discipline. Not violence. His thoughts began to coalesce. Slowly. How many hours had passed? The second stage of meditation was upon him only now, after many of those hours. His eyes were closed now, posture beginning to steady. He allowed himself to think of her. Her alone. Not merely a personification of grief, but with a specific focus.

It was fractured. He drew a heavy breath. Exhaled. Calm. The answer was obvious. T'Yron was gone. Raek was gone. There. He had admitted it. He had finally had the time, to himself, to admit it. Only now. And he did grieve. Only it wasn't simply a telepathic acknowledgment, an acknowledgment of what their clan had all lost, what Vulcan had all lost in those days, what they had lost in the V'Shar. It was his grief. His alone. For what he had lost. His wife. His mate. His friend. Who had told him that no matter what he portrayed, she knew his regard. That which he had never been able to say while she lived.

He had lost her. He had lost what was his. It did no good to pretend to be anything but what he was, provincial though it proved. It was as if someone had taken a knife and cut out his lungs. It was not that she was lost. He had lost her. And now, that she was gone, he realized he felt for the first time in his entire existence, completely aimless. There was no one to turn to. No one, even in silence, who could understand. No one to envelop him, no one to keep him in return.

Deep in the pit of him, where Vulcan sexuality reigned supreme, he balked. Love was not something Vulcans easily felt, and it was not merely because they pretended not to, but because the Vulcan imitation was something far more alien. But he knew it now, enough to regret that he could not give it to her. That love was not as possessive, bone-wrenching and blood fueling as it was in Vulcans, but it involved putting your mate above all else. To a Vulcan male it was almost inconceivable. And he had wanted to learn it, to place himself above her, to the depth of feeling, knowing that you would do anything, even let go.

But this wasn't a letting go. It had been ripped from him. For he knew, as they began to compromise and learn, the chasm so different even between male and female of the species, even after all that time, that she would not have left. She did not leave. She had been taken. And he did regret it. He regretted her loss, as much as he regretted anything. He regretted that he could not give her in life what she so deserved.

He had not been capable of love.

So what then, was grief? For losing half of his heart, did he truly mourn another, or did he mourn only part of himself?

He was fifty-six years old, an adult by every definition of the word, and he could not answer the question. It left him bereft, reeling and immature, as if he were a boy all over again under T'Maile's reproachful gaze as she reprimanded his lack of decorum, lack of comprehension, lack of understanding. Humiliated and enraged, he sighed. The only outward acknowledgment thus far.

That was not to say anything of Raek. Raek, he found himself blind to. As if the child had dropped out of his conscious thought, replaced with the blistering chaos of agony for T'Yron instead, it seemed to annihilate anything other than itself. Was it truly possible he did not regard his own son enough to consider him now? Was it possible to run out of feeling? Was it an energy, that could only be given to limited extent? Briefly, almost fancifully, he wondered if perhaps he would use every last resource inside himself to pour into grief for his mate, until he turned to dust. What was a son, compared to that? What was a father who could do no more?

Perhaps another few hours went by. The fire-pot was out yet again, smoky incense filling the air. He withdrew the medication he'd been given from the doctor, after the rather prolonged and awkward examination required to receive it. (Words more and more used to describe his interactions: awkward. jarring. clashing. prickly. uncomfortable. confusing. unfathomable. alien. ... 'The body shudders as it shuddered - before the founding of Rome and after.' ...)

The dark of night was now upon the colony, the moonlight filtered through, captured it harmoniously, the stars visible across the sky. Finding their repose where their observer found little.

His mind felt... raw. Like it hadn't stopped bleeding out psionically, like the healers hadn't done their job and it just kept on seeping out of him, strangled, unnatural energy like an oozing flesh wound that never would seal. It had been two months. He could not understand why it was not getting easier. He was not deficient. He shook his head abruptly, and forced the thoughts to stop. He pulled the top off of the hypo canister and released the valve, before injecting it swiftly into the side of his own neck.

Everything stopped. Briefly, Andreus Kohl's words came back to him. Do you take any narcotic medication? His answering thoughts were of how highly illogical it would be to do such a thing without sufficient cause, but as the hyperactive energy seemed to dissipate, and the unshielded thoughts of everyone on board seemed to grow fuzzy, he wondered if this might be the reason one would form an addiction.

Was this reason sufficient enough to rely on Lexorin forever? Was there a difference, when the price was simply control? His long-standing perceptions of individuality were obscure, here. After all, was that not what Vulcan strove to be? Effortlessly logical, exactingly correct, a ghost in the machine. What would the difference be? Empty, but he would be in Control.

And then, gradually, things began to make more sense. With sense, unfortunately, came the logic to recognize how far he'd lost his way. Slogging through his own mind became, at least for a moment, easier. It would not do to dwell on dreams. There was a purpose for his existence, and his alone. A reason.

He would not be content, but life solely lived for the purpose of hedonism was irrational. He had his duty. It would be irrational to deny the reason unless he determined he no longer valued his own survival. In this, the Terrans might possibly understand. Survival instinct, even in Vulcans, often prevailed, producing a terrifying conundrum of ridiculous responses when the emotions turned inward - warring and waging, push and pull. Destruct, revive, destruct. A half-state.

(Live well, says Adrive of Rigel V. It has become the standard greeting now on Rigel. Not 'how are you', but 'have you lived?' Live well, live hard! Vibrate the edges of the universe with your thundering presence until it can do nothing but bow. Silence is for the dead!)

He had resolved to live. He would live.

OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, SDD/VDF
USS Galileo

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