Paramount Global owns the Star Trek franchise. This is a piece of fan fiction based on Star Trek the Next Generation characters.
Another trip to sick bay
He woke up, patting the cover that was over him. “Cover?” He questioned. “And I’m in sickbay.”
“Yes, you are. You were shaking violently; we thought it best to bring you here.” Dr. Crusher reported.
“How do you feel?” Captain Picard asked.
He thought for a moment about the best word to use, “weak, sir.” Was what he settled on.
“Data, I want to show you something.” Dr. Crusher walked away.
He got up. He was still only dressed in his lounge pants though now they were dry. She handed him a white robe. He and the Captain followed her into her office. There on her desk was a flask ¾ of the way full.
“What is this?” Beverly stood, pointing at it.
“I do not know. Should I?” Data asked.
“This is some type of blood. It is chemically backwards from human blood. This was around you, you spat this up.”
He stared at it for a moment. “Doctor, give me something simple you would give the Captain.” Data got a petri dish, pouring a small amount of the blood in it.
“This is a common aspirin, “Dr. Crusher explained.”
Data crushed it in his hand, and then he sprinkled it into the blood compound. It foamed, bubbled, and hissed. Beverly and Jean-Luc stared at each other.
“Does this mean something Data?” The Captain asked.
“It might.” Data looked confused. He stared at the flask of blood. All of a sudden he wasn’t in sick bay, he was in Dr. Soong’s lab listening to him lecture. ‘Today we are going to go over the chemical make-up of man. We are going to explore every aspect of mankind.’ Noonien puffed out his chest, speaking proudly.
Data grabbed his stomach. “Stop. Please stop.” He begged.
Juliana walked into the room. “Data are you okay?”
He fell off the chair into the floor on his knees. His vision was blurry. He was compelled to stand. He stumbled to the door. Once outside he fell down a slight embankment. “Data!” Juliana shouted. Noonien held her back. They watched and followed him from a distance. He would walk awhile then fall.
“Oh Noonien, what are we going to do?”
“Watch.”
Data stumbled in the direction of the strange dwelling. He continued on until he staggered round the back of the structure. There he found her. Juliana screamed, turning away from the gory sight. Noonien held her tightly.
“Help me.” She gasped. Data could only read her lips, “call….my……father.”
“Anything,” he replied.
She flopped her hand over to him. He held it. It took all of his energy flowing through him for her to telepathically call her father. At some point he got so weak he couldn’t hold his eyes open. “Data!” Juliana called to him. She wanted to rush over to him. The sight of his friend’s injuries made her ill. She couldn’t move from Noonien’s arms.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Data.” It was a male voice, hard and bursting with authority. “Data.” Hands broke his grip.
“Help her.” Data moaned. He felt himself being moved. He heard her scream.
Data came back into the moment when Counselor Troi entered the sick bay. “I do not know.” He said shaking his head to a confused Captain and doctor.
Please allow me to start this piece with, I have issues that aren’t associated with aging. However; I’m not naive enough to think the issues I have aren’t part of the problem.
And I have to keep educating myself about menopause (or the change of life). I’ve always heard, your mom is a good indicator of how this phase of your life will affect you. Now, scientists are saying that’s not totally true. It’s like eggs all over again. Eggs are good for you. No, they’re not. 10 years later, yes they are. PICK ONE ALREADY! Are they incredible or not?
I did something this weekend I never thought I’d do. I spent over $100.00 on a single pair of shoes. How did we get here? Other than my feet screaming, ‘STOP ABUSING ME!’ First, I praise God that I had the money to spend. This has not always been the case.
To give you a time reference, I had an MRI when Obama was in office. My lower back was killing me. As we age our bodies tell us it’s time to slow down. We don’t always listen. When I went to a G.P. (general practitioner), he gave me pain meds. I’m a stubborn human being, pain meds scare me. And I wanted to know why? Why is my back hurting? This sent me down a trail of ‘you got to be kidding me’.
Not to bore you with the history, L4 and L5 (disks in my lower back) are bulging. By no fault of my own. Which sent me down a different trail.
The past couple months have been consumed with hip, knee and foot pain. Shoe inserts, knee braces and yelp new shoes. My bestie helped me do research and we came up with Brooks shoes. They are number 3 on the list provided in the link below. I got a pair of Brook’s Adrenaline 23 and Brook’s Launch 10’s. The combined total of the trial and error list above is still cheaper than a doctor’s office call. I’m sure I will end up having to go to the doctor.
So is the age of heels and flip flops over for me?
Sitting at my desk right now, my feet are tingling but not hurting. 🎉 That’s a plus.
It seems like I’m stuck in a Catch 22. You’ve got to move more. Moving more creates more problems. You should lose weight. This will help joint pain. I’ve read the books, tried the things I’m not afraid of. I’ve tried: Dr. Adkins, The Military Diet (beets taste like dirt), The Cabbage Soup Diet. Weight Watchers. I’ve intermittently fasted. Smaller portions. I’ve tried drinking more water. I drink green tea. I’ve counted all the calories. You know, there’s an app for that. I can loose 5 pounds and gain 10. I’m working on one more weight loss trial. I’ll keep you posted.
The knee braces are for the ‘moving more’.
Oh, and I even bought a pair of compression socks.
I got out of the shower the other day and my hip popped! Big loud, say hello kinda pop.
Seriously! What is happening to my body?!
We (bestie, another friend and I) went shopping Saturday. One cashier! This store had one cashier. We had to stand in line forever. To the point, my feet where hurting. My left leg was going numb. I started doing knee lifts and just shaking my legs while we were standing in line. One of my friends turned to me and asked, ‘what are you doing? You look like you’re on something.’ That’s just too bad, I replied. I’m hurting. This spurred the shoe shopping trip.
In the mist of all of this, I bought a new pillow. I’m a side sleeper. Sleep isn’t good when you wake up with shoulder and neck pain. To the point, that moving your neck hurts. The Vuteehy neck support pillow has been great. I have to admit that I’ve never gotten an instruction manual with a pillow before. I have noticed that I’m waking up on my back more, since I started using this pillow. Don’t know yet if that’s good or bad.
Paramount Global owns the Star Trek franchise. This is a piece of fan fiction based on Star Trek the Next Generation characters.
Best friend?
Data saw a pair of red eyes peer out of the darkness that enveloped him. From the eyes he felt anger, mistrust, and disappointment. Then he heard voices. “Noonien this is wrong. We shouldn’t do this to him.” Juliana voiced with concern. Data saw himself lying deactivated on an observation table. Juliana was standing by his side. Noonien was at a computer hooked into Data’s positronic matrix. “This is wrong.” She protested.
“All he has done since she left is mope around like he’s lost his best friend.” It was obvious Noonien was upset.
Juliana kept her voice calm. “Even though we created him, we wanted him to learn and develop on his own. We couldn’t control the rate or direction of his development. Nor should we. And really,” she held Data’s lifeless hand, “he did lose his best friend.”
“I will not have another accident like Lore.”
“Him having friends is not a mistake. It’s a miracle.”
“Friend!” He snapped. “You mean lover! I am not! I will not have him nor allow him to go running through the galaxy after a woman.”
Juliana thought for a moment, “what an even bigger miracle.”
“What would that be?” Noonien asked in disgust.
“A lover,” she continued to hold Data’s hand. “But what if that’s what he wants?”
“He doesn’t know what he wants!”
“I have a compromise.”
“What?” Noonien sighed.
“Instead of erasing the last 10 years of his life, let’s compress the memories and block them off.”
“Why?”
“He has experienced so much. It isn’t right to deny him the memories.” He just glared at her. “We can put a wall around the file that looks like a circuit. He will never know the difference.”
“To him it will be a circuit?”
“To us (you and I) it will be a full memory cell.” She smiled.
“Okay but if this doesn’t work, I will erase that cell. And,” Noonien leaned over Data, “this emotion chip is going. Perhaps someday I can perfect it.”
“This will work.”
Darkness encased him again.
“Help me.” He moaned. “Computer.” He rolled out of bed with a thud onto the floor. “Dr. Crusher.” He gasped.
Dr. Crusher’s communicator beeped. “Dr. Crusher here.”
A garbled voice called out, “help me.”
She ran out of sickbay, finding Data lying in the fetal position on the floor. There was a pool of something red around his head and chest. The black lounge pants he had on were soaking wet. “Data!” He was cold to the touch. He coughed. More of the red substance oozed from his nose and mouth. She ran to the replicator to get a liter flask. He coughed again. “Data!”
“Help,” was all he could squeeze out before he started coughing repeatedly. She raised his head collecting the red substance.
“Data,” she scanned him with her tricorder. She found nothing. He moaned.
Paramount Global owns the Star Trek franchise. This is a piece of fan fiction based on Star Trek the Next Generation characters.
The bridge at night
It had been two days since Data had any dreams or problems. He was alone on the bridge. These long night shifts gave him plenty of time to think. He noticed a shift in the air around him. It became sweet. Light. Nothing like the sterile atmosphere the bridge really was. He became aware of pressure on the left side of his body. With his left hand, he steadied himself against his console. It wasn’t important for him to remember to breathe. The motions were programed into him. Honeysuckle flooded is nose. He had the impression that she? ‘She’, he thought; was sitting across his lap with her head on his shoulder. His hand trembled as he laid it on what should have been her knee. The turbo-lift doors swished open. But he didn’t hear it. This impression had totally consumed him.
Captain Picard stepped onto the bridge. He looked at Data, it seemed to Picard that Data was unaware of his presents. He walked down and sat in the chair at the console beside Data. His left hand was laying on his console; while his right hand was laying on his right knee. Data looked like a statue sitting there. “Data.” Picard called to him. He didn’t move. “Mr. Data.” He said louder without shouting.
Data jerked setting up straight, “Captain.”
“The bridge is very peaceful when we are not here.” Picard sighed, trailing his finger ‘round the edge of the console.
“And talkative, sir.”
“Talkative?” Picard was trying to figure out how peaceful and talkative went together.
“Yes sir, talkative, even to the point of babbling at times.” Data remembered a time when the Captain told him he babbled and smiled. “The Enterprise will tell you everything she knows if you will listen to her.”
“What is she telling you?”
“She is telling me that in the past 24 hours, we have passed 2 class M planets, one with a pre-industrialized humanoid civilization; two long range comets; twelve spatial anomalies, and a star going super nova.”
“Is that why you volunteer for the night shift so often?”
“I do not require sleep….”
Picard raised his hand, interrupting him. “I know Data.”
“I had never thought about it in that manner, sir. I had never tried to romanticize it, sir.” He turned to his console then back to the Captain. “May I enquire why you are up so late?”
“Oh,” Jean-Luc continued tracing the console with his fingertips. “I can’t sleep.”
“Insomnia?”
“Maybe for tonight.”
“I have read that warm milk is a good remedy to help one fall asleep.”
“Not tonight. I want to talk to you.”
“About what sir?”
“What’s eating at you?”
“Sir?” Data was puzzled.
“What’s bothering you?”
“I am sure that things have happened to you that you would like to forget but cannot. Or maybe it is a dream? I have really been struggling with something and I am not sure how to classify it. Dr. Soong put a dream program in my emotion chip. I have not activated it. However, I have been dreaming. I can only assume that they are suppressed memories coming to the surface. I do not know where these memories are coming from. I can review my memories and do often.”
“When you review your memories, what are you looking for?”
“To see if I can learn something different. Learn more.”
“What makes you think these are memories?”
“They are real to me. They are getting more… “Data trailed off as he thought for a moment, “physical.”
“Physical? How?” Picard was shocked.
“With the last one, I woke in sick bay.” He turned back to his console.
The Captain left.
*
Jack R. Crusher, Beverly’s late husband. Wesley’s dad.
A family’s world turns upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for murdering a schoolmate: the charges against their son force them to confront every parent’s worst nightmare. On Netflix.
Have you watched this yet?
Spoiler alerts, maybe?
At first, I didn’t think the kid did it. I was leaning toward another character. This show plunges the viewer into the modern world of teenagers. I didn’t know there is a whole emoji language; that truly, I want no part of. That a peach really isn’t a peach.
This show has started a long overdue conversation. There have always been bullies in school. Now bullies have a new platform with a wider audience. It is sad, just like in real life, that it takes a tragedy for people to start paying attention.
The one thing I didn’t like was the mom. Not because she was a bad actress. I found her accent very hard to understand. This would have been a good place for subtitles.
Paramount Global owns the Star Trek franchise. This is a piece of fan fiction based on Star Trek the Next Generation characters.
Captain’s quarters
Captain Picard was sitting in his quarters, reading A Tale of Two Cities. His door chimed. “Come.” He said in a stern voice, looking over his book. Beverly entered when the door swished open, “Oh doctor, come in.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t make it any sooner.”
“That is okay. Sit please.” He put his book down on the coffee table in front of him. She sat opposite of him. “Can I get you anything?” Because of his long history with her, he always took the extra effort to be nicer to her than most everyone else.
“No, I am fine.” She ran her fingers through her hair.”
“How’s Mr. Data?” Jean-Luc asked.
“Jean-Luc, I am confused. Every test we run says he’s fine. Nothing abnormal. Nothing!” She slapped her knee. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What is your best medical conclusion?”
“It’s mental.” She hissed, shaking her head. “Can you believe what just came out of my mouth? Data and mental. Anyway, I don’t think he’s going insane. I don’t think he’s a danger to anyone or anything.” She let out a long tired sigh. “He asked me what it felt like to lose Jack.” She just stared at Jean-Luc. “He also asked me if losing contact with someone could hurt as bad. I suggested he talk to you.”
“Why me?” Picard asked with surprise.
“This may sound cruel but you had an on again off again relationship with your brother.”
Jean-Luc smiled. “He hasn’t stopped by to talk to me yet.”
“I am worried about him.”
“Let’s talk about more pleasant matters. Wesley has grown so much.”
“Yes he has. He looks more like Jack all the time.”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“Jean-Luc, he wouldn’t tell me. I’m just his mother. He would be comfortable talking about such matters with you, not me.” She smiled.
He laughed.
They sat there for the longest time. “What are you thinking about?” She asked in the sweetest voice.
“Sorry. I can’t help but think about Data?”
“There has to be some way we can help him.”
“I know.” Jean-Luc sank back into deep thought. Beverly yawned. “You need rest doctor. That’s an order.”
She smiled, “yes Captain,” leaving his quarters.
*
Wesley Crusher = Beverly and the late Jack Crushers son.
I was gifted a copy of Rebecca Solnit’s – A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Not far into the book she uses a quote, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” (Plato)
Try as I might, I couldn’t find this in audio form that was available to me. On my quest, I found the study guide below. 1. Which lead me to Plato’s Meno.
“Plato’s Meno introduces aspects of Socratic ethics and Platonic epistemology in a fictional dialogue that is set among important political events and cultural concerns in the last years of Socrates’ life.”2. As a friend of mine says, “shew buddy.” By the end of this fictitious dialogue I wanted to punch Socrates and say, “what the hell dude?” Socrates is trying to get Meno to define virtue. All I got, and at one point, I think Meno as well, is a lot of double talk and a headache. While there are points I agree with. My head is still spinning. 😵💫
Back to Solnit.
A Field Guide to getting list is written as a series of autobiographical essays. As we take a walk through Solnit’s life, she explores every aspect of getting lost. From nature (getting lost hiking) to personal loss. She dives into city verses country scenery, art, music and how these tie into our own ideas of getting lost.
It took me awhile to get into the book. Honestly, I felt lost. And a time or 2 I felt like I was reading Meno all over again. Yes, lost. Overall, I’m so glad I stuck with it.
“The Essence of living is being lost.” Rebecca Solint
Paramount Global owns the Star Trek franchise. This is a piece of fan fiction based on Star Trek the Next Generation characters.
The losing
After checking on him one last time, she turned to leave. She jumped as Data grabbed her by the arm. “Data, you startled me.” She patted her chest.
“I did not mean too.” He withdrew his hand.
“I know you didn’t.”
“Stay with me. Just a little while.” He seemed so sad. So alone, she thought.
“Okay, I will be in my office if you need me.” She started to walk away.
“Talk to me.” He spoke. She walked over to the table across from him and sat down. “You may not want to tell me about this. If not, I will accept that.”
“Okay.”
He looked blank for a moment. “What did it feel like when you lost your husband?”
She cleared her throat. “Well, at first I was in shock. There was no way Jack could have been dead. After that, I went through a stage of denial. I didn’t want to believe it. Jack wasn’t dead. He would come home at any moment. A big smile would be on his face, telling me that it was a big misunderstanding.” She smiled as she lowered her head. Her red hair fell down around her face. “Oh,” she groaned as she rose back up, “I was so mad. I couldn’t believe he left us. How could he have left me alone to raise Wesley? After literally years of being angry, I was sad. I still miss him,” she smiled. “At some point you start to get on with your life. Why do you ask?”
He didn’t answer right away. “I guess losing someone figuratively can hurt just as bad?”
“As in losing contact with someone?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“The Captain would be a good person to ask that question to.”
He got up, “if it is acceptable. I think I will return to my quarters.”
“That will be fine.” He started to leave the room. “Data, I have noticed that sometimes you use precise words, then other times you have started to incorporate ‘slang’ terms into your vocabulary.”
“I have noticed that as well. I believe it is a direct effect of the emotion chip. Thank you Doctor.”
Poetry & More 