308. Patterns

"John," Sue whispered as if John's ears and not his eyes were damaged, "the commander will see you now." Standing, Sue took his arm, the two walking in slow step like mother and groom through the door to the solitary chair sitting quietly in front of the commander's large ornate desk. Pictures, a virtual who's who lined the walls between shelves of multi-colored tomes on topics of leadership and men, or war and not-war. John didn't need his eyes, the room breathed history, decorum, tradition, right and wrong, black and white. Taking a breath, the familiar smell of spit and polish mixed with buildings academic, which was to say of government issued paint. Go to any military base on the planet and that smell was there, unmistakably, like some warlike god had marked his hallow grounds. And with that smell came the memories, the shouts, the triumphs and disappointments, the long runs and crappy food. The smell was not just a smell, the smell was military life itself. The sounds would come later as would the images of sweat and blood, but before them all, was the masculine aroma of wood and metal, of cleanliness and government issue.

"Thank you Sue," said the commander. "That will be all."

John sat, his back upright at attention, bandages over his eyes. He heard the sound of a chair skirting across the floor, of heels clicking on wood, of papers lifted and placed, of heavily starched clothing resisting the tug and crease of measured movement. John marveled at how quickly his sense of hearing had developed, as if a whole world he had never taken notice of before was dancing before his mind, delighting in the attention as children before relatives. The commander breathed and John felt his heavy bulldog eyes settle into a pregnant gaze. Whether the commander paused for effect or simply because he didn't know what to say to his most decorated soldier, John could not tell. Either way, the silence was unnerving.

"John, as a career military man, I've been taught all my life to look for patterns, that patterns don't lie. Men lie. Men rationalize. Men plot and plan, scheme and dream and change their mind more often than women, but one thing remains true--the patterns of a man's life, the decisions he makes over time. Free will; that is bullshit. We aren't free. We are programed, from birth. Me, you, and everyone else on this god forsaken planet. You understand what I am saying?"

John shifted slightly in his chair. "Sir, I'm afraid I don't quite follow you."

The commander picked up a folder, flipped through it like a professor bored, and placed it back down on his desk. "I've known you for more than twenty years. Saw you graduate first in your class, the best fighter pilot our academy has ever produced. Then I saw you enter medical school. Graduate in three years with honors as a world class neuro surgeon before you reentered the academy and virtually rewrote our leadership training. I've got an entire filing cabinet of your exploits since. Not a single solitary blemish. On a personal note, I attended your wedding to Cait, was present at the birth of Ariel, and have enjoyed having you as our guest on many dinner occasions. You see John, I know your patterns. I know your choices. I know you inside and out, probably better than you know yourself. What you did John, fits no pattern that I know."

"Yes sir."

"You know, there are limits to how far I can go to protect you?"

"Yes sir, I understand."

"Damn it John, do you? Do you understand the trouble you are in? And I'm not just talking about your career or the thought of prison, I'm talking about Cait too. Do you know how many times she has come to me. Asking me what was going on and I had no answer? Do you know she loves you like you were the last man on world? Do you know the pain and anguish you have put her through? Not to mention Ariel."

John's head bows as the weight of a sigh forced itself free.

"Well? Do you son?"

"I do."

"I do? Is that it. I do? Care to elaborate? I'm all ears."

One hour later . . .

"So her name is Kyra."

"Yes sir."

"And I should believe all that you have said?"

"Sir, at the risk of sounding sarcastic, what does my pattern tell you?"

The commander stood up. Without taking his eyes off John he clicked his comm, "Sue. Come in here, right away."

307. The Yul Interview (Part 1)

Interview with Yul (from Earth)

T: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us this morning.

Y: No problem. What's up?

T: I wanted to ask you about the time when Rog returned from the mission to rescue Bravo and--(notices strange look on Yul's face). What?

Y: Go on.

T: You sure? You seem--

Y: Like a girl in the bathroom who hears a door open and a stranger walks in?

T: (smiles) Well, more like a girl in the bathroom who sees the stranger and doesn't break eye contact but instead sits upright, chest out, eyes wide, lips slightly parted with a Mona Lisa smile.

Y: (laughs out loud) You know, I would frail you, how do you say it, just to be clear, and I would frail you right now (Yul seductively slides her spear-like blue tongue over her glistening upper lip, and her eyelashes, or so it seemed, swayed like palm trees in a gently breeze, glimmering and sparkling like the surface of the turquoise ocean they guarded and longed to reach.). What do you say? Be our little secret. Rog doesn't have to know.

T: You know, you don't really have to try so hard (deliberate pause), to avoid the subject. Just say you'd rather not discuss the matter. I understand if you don't (shifts position).

Y: (laughs again, her eyes dropping, starring) Seems I'm not the one avoiding the question (winks). It's getting a little warm. Do you mind if I take my shirt off? (starts to unzip her blouse, slowly, tilting her head without breaking eye contact)

T: (stares at her perfectly polished nails delicately and slowly pulling his eyes south with the metal enclosure, the valley of her feminine charm, fertile as fields before mountains, opening as flowers on the dawn, only the lush green replaced with an exotic, mysterious blue cast)

Y: (with a slight pout) The zipper seems to be stuck. Would you be so kind as to assist.

T: (smiles wide) Yul, perhaps we should continue this interview another time.

Y: Another time, yes (pulls the zipper back up). Now, what was your question?

T: You sure you want to do this?

Y: Oh, I want to do this. The question is, do you?

T: You're enjoying this, aren't you?

Y: Like a cat with a ball of yarn. But I am making (drops her tone), things difficult for you.

T: No, not at all.

Y: Really? (looks down) To get the truth you must be willing to give it.

T: (turns to his aide) Turn the camera off and leave us.

Y: Thank you.

T: Do you want to interview or frail?

Y: Why does it have to either/or?

T: (bursts out laughing) Touché.

Y: Business before pleasure. Ask your first question.

T: After the operation, when you woke and you knew you were still alive, walk me through what you felt, what went through your mind.

Y: (sighs) You really know how to turn a girl on don't you (her eyes water and her lids drop; she reaches out and touches his arm with her nails).

T: We can stop at anytime?

Y: No, I want to answer this question. Just not easy to go back there. Sometimes the past is best left in the past.

T: Easier said than done.

Y: True. Pain. That was the first thing I remember, the intense pain. I learned later their pain meds didn't quite work as they should on our alien nerve centers. Every movement hurt. Breathing hurt. Laughing hurt. Lifting my head hurt. Moving my arm hurt. But none of those things hurt as much as waking up, in that white room, alone.

T: Was Mairi not there?

Y: No. After the operation, she went back to her quarters to get cleaned up, to recover, and I suppose that is when Trev appeared. At the time I didn't know why Mairi was not there. I had no idea the trouble Trev had gotten himself in nor the extreme guilt Mairi felt, undeservedly, in my opinion, but then again, who am I to judge the burden another picks up, right? (laughs)

T: Can you describe the loneliness?

Y: You're alive. A miracle has occurred. And you want to die. As painful as the surgery was, it was the moon to the sun of my mental torment. I suppose I was primed to feel sorry for myself. As I think you know, I was never "the one." My sister (Yul pauses), can we take a break?

T: Sure.

Y: (wipes her eyes) Never mind, I'll push ahead. My sister was the one. She got everything. I was passed over so many times, the scars, well, if I told you even today they were completely healed, I would by lying. So when I woke up and there was no one there, well, I slipped into an emotional free fall. Not exactly what the doctors wanted to see.

T: Keep going.

Y: (takes a deep breath) I knew Rog had made a choice to be elsewhere but I was not expecting neither Mairi nor Trev to be absent. I was angry, resentful, bitter, scared. I didn't understand why they weren't. I mean, how could they not be there! Frail, for Janus' sake. How could they not be there! So you want to know what I felt. I felt frailing pain like you will never understand. Think of it this way. Imagine you walk into a bank and you present your life as a deposit and the banker looks over your portfolio and starts laughing. You ask him why he is laughing and he says there is nothing here. Imagine that. Your life is deemed worthless by those who know you best. You are on your deathbed and your lover leaves you. You go under the knife and when you wake your other two friends are not there. Do you have any idea, any frailing idea what it is like to wake in an alien hospital, attended to by aliens, your mind is drugged, you are disoriented, in pain, severe physical pain and they are whispering in a language you can't understand while taking sideways glances at you, and there you are, rejected again, abandoned again, told, not with words, but with actions, that you don't count. You want to know what went through my mind? I'll frailing tell you. I thought of Mairi and Trev sitting in the sun having a leisurely breakfast and talking nonsense about what they were going to do that day without my name ever coming up. And then I thought about Rog, jacking off, and you know what. He wasn't thinking about me. He was thinking about Kyra, about Em, in his quarters, wailing away. That's what I frailing thought. And then I thought, frail them all. Just frailing frail them all. You know what I mean?

T: I had no idea.

Y: (Yul looked at him hard) Frail you.

T: Pardon?

Y: I don't need your false sympathy. If you want to continue this interview I need you to be real, just speak the truth, otherwise we've got nowhere to go.

T: (sighs) Look, I understand the events, the time line. I meant I have no idea what it must have been like to be you at that point, not that I didn't know there was pain.

Y: Oh, my bad. Won't be the last time I put my foot in my mouth. Promise. Make it up to you later.

T: Don't worry about it. So when did you know Rog was on his way to see you?

Y: About five minutes before he walked in the door but I don't think that is what you're asking is it.

T: Not really.

Y: Since the moment I slammed the phone against the wall and broke it into a thousand pieces, all I could think about was that moment when he returned and what I would say. Keep in mind, I had ample time prior to the operation to stew and mull and that soup burned under the blazing fire of eminent death. Not even Mairi knew she was capable of pulling off what she did. I could see the look in her eyes, same for the doctors. There was no light, no hope. The surgery, at best, was going to be a living autopsy. I was their plaything. Not of their kind. What the frail did they care whether I lived or died. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn they looked eager to open me up. Anyway, so before the operation, my emotions were running so strong, not thinking, but knowing I was going to die, and I was obsessed with how I could somehow pay that little frailer back for abandoning me. I mean what the frail. I'm frailing dying and he runs off to save someone else. Stop and think about that for a second. Put yourself in my shoes. How would you feel?

(to be continued)

306. Either/Or

Kyra, in black form-fitting Venusian leather, sat alone in the long white hallway, a solitary sterile way-station, a place neither here nor there. Above the white door was a clock; white face, black hands. With each minute, the long hand snapped forward with the rigid mindlessness of a soldier’s heels clicking to attention, the shrill metallic sound plopping in her mind as drops of water on the forehead, each, seemingly, successively louder, exponentially more urgent, pressing, suffocating.

After what seemed like days, the door opened. Kyra stood. Rog took a step and stopped as if waiting for his minder. Reaching forward, his palms turned upward, Kyra took his hands, her eyes flirting back and forth across his stone-like face. Rog stood stiff, upright, which was not the Rog she knew. A solitary tear slipped form the bandages around his eyes and she quickly moved her thumb to catch it. He tried to smile but his cheeks started a quiver that quickly spread to his lips.

Releasing his hands, she took his head into hers. “You don’t have to say anything.”

Her words brought worth a second tear. “Either/Or.”

“Either/Or what?”

“That’s what she told me, ‘either/or.’”

Commentary

305. I Know

"Rog, you ready?" asked Kyra, her hands holding his. She looked for a reaction, some sort of expression, which from Rog was almost a given. Maybe it was the blindfold or maybe it was fear that gave forth the blank stare. Either way, she felt it and it felt real, it felt solid, it felt like she could reach out and massage it; and she knew, the only way into that room, to see Yul, was through that fear.

Rog took a heavy breath. "Kyra--" He squeezed her hands and tilted his head slightly as if the words in his mind were leaning the ship as they attempted to escape.

"I'm here Rog and I'm not going anywhere. Would you like me to go in with you or wait outside?"

Rog sighed. "I thought this moment would be a happy moment. She survived. She is going to live--a miracle. Even the doctors said as much. So, it is a happy time. Right?"

Kyra leaned into Rog, wrapping her arms around him and whispered into his ear, "I don't know what happiness is anymore. But I do know that door is a bridge, one we both must cross. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I've played it out, the decision, in my mind a thousand times. When you lose your sight, your mind just goes into overdrive, relentlessly thinking and it has been driving me crazy. I no longer know what is real and what is pure bullshiott." Rog paused. Kyra held him tight. Only the sound of their breathing could be heard in the hallway. (camera pans from the back of Kyra's beautiful black mane--she is dressed in her form fitting black leather--180 degrees as we see her sapphire blue eyes water as rain on glass and look down and to the left). "You know what I fear the most?"

A tear falls from Kyra's eye and we watch in slow motion it fall toward the white floor. "Tell me Rog."

Rog rolled his upper lip inside his lower. Kyra could feel his heavy warm breath on her neck and images of a braying horse in the start gate, lathered with uncertainty stuck in her whirling mind (she would later say the smell of fresh turned earth filled her senses as clearly as if she were on that horse). "That the Yul in that room is not our Yul."

Kyra feels Rog tremble with the words and she hold him tighter. Camera picks up a wetness on his eye mask. She rolls her eyes upward. "I know."

Commentary and Backstory

304. Not White

Yul starred at the door with its small window, puckered her lips, sighed, and, throwing her head into the pillow, looked at the ceiling. White, she thought. Why is everything white? White, white, and frailing white. Frail me if I ever decorate a frailing room in frailing white.

Tapping her fingers on the crisp white sheets she reached, without looking, for her comm on the nightstand. She could find it with her eyes closed now, which is what happens when you pick the damn thing up a hundred times in as many minutes. And a hundred times the message was the same—nothing. She pulled her arm back as if to hurl the small object against the wall before remembering the incident with the phone and muttered under her breath with a sideways glance, Where the frailing frail is everyone?

Closing her eyes the words echoed through the halls of her memory. Where the frail is everyone, where the frail is everyone, where the . . .

The sun had set quickly and the addresses were hard to read. Yul pulled the note out of her coat pocket, reread the address, looked at the door and took a deep breathe. This was it. Just knock, that’s all, just knock. She opened the screen door and was about to knock when a small white object caught her eye—a note. Unfolding the paper she read these words: So sorry. Something has come up. Another time perhaps. Then she read it again and then again and again, reading without moving, reading without thinking, reading without feeling her feet on the ground.

Yul just stood on the old gray wooden porch, her head bent over, the note hanging loosely in her right hand like a leaf in autumn feeling the pull of gravity. She starred at the writing as if starring would reveal some hidden meaning, some explanation that would soothe the sickening feeling growing in her gut. But stare all she might, the house was dark, the door locked and this note was all there was. Silence never sounded so loud and although no one else was on the street she felt as if a hundred eyes were boring a hole in her back. Her neck tensed and turning her head, assuming she wanted to, became next to impossible.

Balling the note in her delicate hand she felt a wave of heated emotion rise from her tight chest to her glassy eyes, and as if her soul itself needed release into the cool night air, one tear followed another in an endless steam of repressed self-hatred. Why me?


Three hours later . . .


“Dad, can you hear me?”

“Yes Yul, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t find my keys.”

“Tell me where you are, I’ll be right there.”


One hour later . . .


“Dear, what happened?” asked Ms Yul.

“Get the little lying bitch cleaned up and in bed. I’ll deal with this frailing shiott in the morning.”

Yul lay on the ground in the fetal position. Her face was a mess. Her vision blurred and her clothes matted with a most foul smelling stain. Looking up she saw Aly, her eyes wide, in her pristine white nightgown. Nothing needed to be said. There was Aly and there was Yul. One standing and one on the ground. Seems this is the way it would always be.



“Turn out the light!” yelled Yul, trying to cover her eyes.

“Sorry Yul, but I thought you’d like to know you have a visitor,” said the nurse, dressed, of course, in all white.

Commentary Part 1

Commentary Part 2 with cameo from Maria

303. Concern

"Ms Kyra, what did you do to your hand?" asked Goldie.

"Don't ask," snapped Kyra. "And don't just stand there looking at me. Find some bandages on this Janus forsaken vessel. Now!"

______________

30 minutes earlier . . . (to be continued)

302. Can You Help Me?

Kyra: Von, we are going to be docking in a couple hours. Do you have a few minutes?

Von: Always Kyra, what’s on your mind?

Kyra: I’m scared. Actually, scared is not the right word. Can I ask you a question?

Von: Please, yes.

Kyra: Why did Papa put you on Bravo?

Von: You want the long story or the short version? (Von wishes he could see her)

Kyra: I want it all. Every last detail.

Von: Okay. I’ll start with the short version. I owed your grandfather a debt. I’m repaying that debt by looking out for you.

Kyra: (silence)

Von: What are you thinking?

Kyra: Not what I needed to hear. Feeling as if Papa didn’t trust me, didn’t believe in me.

Von: That is—

Kyra: Hear me out. Papa didn’t tell me who you were or why you were on board. What does that tell you? What does that say? What do you think that does for my self-confidence? What message do you think I read into that?

Von: Kyra, you don’t need me. Papa—

Kyra: Frail the logic Von. This isn’t about what is, it is about what I feel. You know what is hard?

Von: Tell me.

Kyra: To have an experience that you cannot share. To speak a language no one else can understand. To be given a puzzle that no one else can help you put together. Can you help me Von?

Von: (sighs) No.

Kyra: You know what I like about you Von?

Von: Pray tell.

Kyra: You’ve always been honest. I knew before I asked the question, before I came here that you had no answers for me. And you know what?

Von: What?

Kyra: If you had tried to give me advice, I would have shut you out. But you didn’t.

Von: Kyra, you have seen things I will never see. You have experienced things I will never experience. You have gifts beyond my comprehension to understand. Besides, I am an old Hynerian. My life is all but behind me. My future is uncertain. Hope is in short supply. So I live for my mission, however ill-equipped I am to the task. And, at this moment, blind as I am, ignorant in equal measure, I know the only thing I can offer is my ears, to listen without judgment.

Kyra: (leans over and kisses Von’s forehead) Thank you Von, but you sell yourself short. You have offered me much more than just your ears.

Von: And what might that be?

Kyra: Your heart. (she reaches out and takes his hands) Your debt has been paid many times over. But, you still give.

Von: If—

Kyra: Shhhhh. Don’t talk. I don’t need your words. Feel my hands. Feel the warmth?

Von: Yes.

Kyra: That is not me. That is you. I am terrified Von. I cannot see past this fear inside of me. I feel it consuming me, eating me alive from the inside out and I have no idea how to stop it. My mind is hollow and questions are bouncing around seeking what is not there. This gnawing fear feels alive, as if it has a life of its own and is clouding everything before me and you are reaching out, with your heart. You are not judging me. You are not advising me. You are simply communicating, with your heart, that you are here. And you know what Von?

Von: What Kyra?

Kyra: You are wrong about one thing.

Von: And what might that be?

Kyra: I do need you. I need you without obligation. Without a mission. I need just you. Can you do that?

Von: Yes.