Post by Lt. Commander Alyssa Jenison on Nov 28, 2014 18:51:32 GMT -8
“Don’t forget your pack, Alyssa,” a young man held out the straps of a child’s school pack, complete with all the trappings and luxuries a girl her age would adore. With a bright smile, Alyssa slid her arms through the straps and allowed her father to adjust them as comfort would dictate.
“There we go. Too tight?” he asked.
Alyssa slid her fingers beneath and tugged at them. “Nope.”
Her father smiled and brushed his daughter’s cheek. “You ready for your first day of school?”
Alyssa nodded her head, though with a muted anxiety. Her father frowned upon his daughter’s sudden trepidation. In a manner of fatherly comfort, he began to rub her shoulders.
“Anxious?”
Alyssa shrugged in that very child-like there’s-definitely-something-on-my-mind attitude. Her father got down onto his knees so that he was face-to-face with the girl. “You want to talk about it?”
She diverted her eyes as the temptation to confess her thoughts slowly grew. “What if they don’t like me?”
It was all her father could do not to allow a smile on his face. His own childhood memories swept over him, and he remembered what it was like to stand in his daughter’s place, to feel the desire to be liked and accepted, and to fear the opposite from his peers. He hadn’t the heart to tell her the next decade that awaited her.
“Alyssa, sweetheart,” he began. “Of course they will like you. You’re a smart, beautiful, rambunctious” he gently punched her arm, “and brave, young lady. You’ll have them eating out of your hands.”
A faint smile appeared on Alyssa’s face. She finally met her father’s comforting gaze. “But Michael said that on the first day, all the kids make fun of you to see how strong you are.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed as he looked back towards Michael’s room. “I’m going to have to have a talk with that boy.” His expression softened as he returned his attention to Alyssa.
“Michael was teasing, sweetheart. You are going to meet so many people, and make more friends than you'll know what to do with.”
“But what if some of them don’t like me?”
“Well, then they aren’t important,” her father honestly replied. “Even grown-ups have to be around people that don’t like us.”
Alyssa looked to her father with uncertainity. “What do you do when they don't like you?”
“Well, I try to avoid them if I can. Or ignore them.” He looked back to see if his wife happened to be in ear shot. He could still hear her voice from the boy’s room.
Confident that he was safe to speak freely, he continued with a quiet whisper. “Or sometimes, when they just won’t leave me alone, I give them a nice punch.” With his fist, he mimicked the action against his own jaw. “Rght here.”
He copied the gesture on his daughter’s cheek. “Right?” His hands fell to her stomach and tickled her until she giggled.
“Right!?”
He continued his onslaught, preventing Alyssa from answering his question. Though the answer was hardly important to him. The laugh of his daughter was.
With a morbid smile, Alyssa leaned down between the broken frame of her front door, and reached out towards the memory.
“Right, Dad.”
The reply was silence. Not that she expected anything different. There was no one to reply. The house—the whole neighborhood for that matter—had been evacuated weeks ago. She wasn't officially supposed to be here. Not until the damage assessment teams completed their survey. But she couldn’t stay away. It had too many memories for her. Too much significance.
The clang of metal falling towards the floor sounded from the kitchen. Alyssa retrieved her phaser with speed, and cautiously entered the room. The overhead chandelier had previously collapsed, leaving the area littered with glass. She flashed her wrist-light along the counter until she found the culprit: a raccoon scrounging for supplies.
She nearly phasered the beast before she realized that it was a bit overkill. “Get!” She lifted a piece of metal off the ground and tossed in near the creature. “Get!!” The ‘coon accepted that it had overstayed its welcome, and scurried off through the broken window.
Her light fell upon the counter as another memory washed over her.
“Alyssa!” A strong, feminine voice bellowed from the kitchen. A middle-aged woman sprinted across the kitchen towards the countertop. “ALYSSA!”
“WHAT?!” Alyssa stepped back into the kitchen with a PADD clutched close to her chest. Her hair was pulled back into a pony-tail, and her attire affirmed only that she desired comfort over aesthetics.
Her mother leaned over a boiling kettle of liquid and food. “You’re supposed to be stirring this!”
Alyssa pulled her PADD away from her body, and began to search its contents. “The recipe says stir occasionally…”
“I don’t care what the recipe says, Alyssa!” Her mother snatched the PADD from her daughter. “I said keep stirring it!”
“Yeah, but I—“
“Did you start the potatoes?” The bag of yet untouched potatoes on the counter answered that for them both.
“I—“ Alyssa looked from the sack as a lack of self-confidence came over her. “I was going to wait until—“
“Alyssa!” Her mother exhaled audibly as she brought her fingers to the ridge of her nose. The young teen looked from her mother to the PADD still secure in dangerous hands.
“Can I have my PADD back?”
Her mother reopened her eyes, and followed Alyssa’s gaze to her PADD. Her gaze was stern and punitive. “I ought to take this away from you.”
“Mom! That’s not fair! I…” Alyssa paused as a quiet horror overcame her. “Mom?”
A mixture of surprise and ire came over her mother’s expression as her attention settled upon one of the open tabs of the PADD. Her eyes, and only her eyes, rose to meet Alyssa’s. The teen knew full and well what she had discovered.
“Starfleet…?”
“It’s not—“ Alyssa stopped without bothering to complete her transparent lie. “Yes.”
“We have gone over this,” Her mother continued. The muffled wrath in her tone was as a river ready to burst forth a crumbling damn. “No one else from this family—“
“—dies in Starfleet. I know.” Alyssa defiantly finished. Her mother stood at her full height upon her daughter’s disrespectful tone. “I’m not going to die in Starfleet.”
“Your uncle said the same thing,” her mother countered.
“I’m not Uncle Tilo!”
“No, you are my daughter,” the woman firmly reminded. “And you will do as I say.”
“I HATE you!” Alyssa spat. The tone and attitude was bemusingly similar to her mothers, though the teen would never have admitted to any commonalities. She turned away after her pronouncement of hate, but before she completed her dramatic exit, her mother clutched onto her arm and spun Alyssa back around.
“Alyssa Lin Jenison; you will not speak to me that way. Am I understood?” Alyssa fumed in silence.
“I don’t understand you,” she continued. “You, more than all of us know what Starfleet did to Jamie. He lost his father! Is that what you want?!” Her voice began to break. “For us to cry over your grave?!”
Alyssa's anger softened to sadness as the sting of the point began to slice into her heart. A tear streamed down Alyssa’s face. When the silence became unbearable, her mother thrust the PADD into Alyssa’s chest, and turned away.
“Just go.”
A mess of broken picture frames littered the living room floor. Alyssa leant down over the largest of them—a full family photo--and pondered it's contents. At one point, the picture served as a memory, a captured moment in time when the family had been at it’s peak. Her father and mother were there. Her brothers, Kevin and Michael; Jamie, her beloved cousin; Michael’s now-wife, and her then-boyfriend, Hunter; even Maxi, the family Retriever had made this photo.
Now it was only a memorial. Her father…gone. Michael and Andria…gone. Jamie…gone. Hunter…gone. Even Maxi was gone, though hers had been upon the end of her life. So few remained, and what remained of those left behind was fragmented and broken. Alyssa could hardly be around her mother. The grief was too much—a mother’s grief.
It was like looking at her reflection, and the sight appalled her beyond measure.
A shuttle zoomed overhead, reminding the woman that her time was limited. She pocketed the most important of the pictures, and left the rest for the memory of the house.
Without significant reason, other than childhood want, she wandered to the room that had served as her sanctuary throughout her early life. It had changed and transformed over the decades. The old toys and décor had been boxed, gifted, or thrown away. New furniture came. New uses were enacted.
But she still remembered. She remembered the many nights in this room. The day’s Kevin and Michael had pestered her. The days she had pestered them back. The rough evenings she had endured in her bed, sick and uncomfortable, but happy under the loving gaze of her parents. And the days that nightmares had come and gone, only to be left by the bonds of family that she would cling to for the rest of her days.
A shove on her shoulder awoke Alyssa from her sleep. Standing by the side of her bed, illuminated by the moonlight, was the fearful face of her baby cousin, Jamie.
“I had a nightmare.”
Alyssa looked to her clock resting on her side table: 2:34 AM; Wednesday, May 2, 2379. She was officially ten years old.
Jamie’s eyes continued to peer at Alyssa for some kind of comfort. Compassion overwhelmed the young girl, as she lifted her covers. Jamie climbed in, and rested his head in the head in the crook of Alyssa’s neck. She wrapped her arms around the boy.
“Your daddy again?” She felt this head shift up and down along her skin. “It’s going to be okay.”
“'Lyssy?” Jamie started up. He thankfully shifted his head so that his voice wasn't nearly so muffled. “Why did daddy die?”
Unfortunately, age worked against her to know the true answer to that question. Cold, greedy, hateful people called Cardassians found like-minded friends and made their move to take everything for themselves. But Jamie was too young to understand that. At least, he was so young that she didn’t want him to understand that.
“Your daddy died to keep us safe. He wanted you to grow up, and to be strong and smart and brave just like he was.” Alyssa held Jamie tighter. “Your daddy is a hero.”
Jamie was quiet for a moment. Alyssa let the quiet remain. The many nights Jamie had come to her bed, it seemed all he needed was to be close. And she allowed him that with all her heart. But this time, he needed alittle more.
“Sing a song, 'Lyssy?”
There was a moment of silence as Alyssa first considered the request, and then considered how best to fulfil it. She raised herself up upon her arm. Jamie turned to rest his head on the pillow, ready for his cousin’s song to lull him to sleep. As the words came to her, Alyssa brushed the hair on Jamie’s head, and sung, watched over him until slumber came.
"Carry on my wayward son*
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more"
"Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high"
"Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming,
I can hear them say"
"Carry on my wayward son,
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more"
End Alyssa
OOC: *I recommend listening to the song as you read the lyrics. It made me feel!
“There we go. Too tight?” he asked.
Alyssa slid her fingers beneath and tugged at them. “Nope.”
Her father smiled and brushed his daughter’s cheek. “You ready for your first day of school?”
Alyssa nodded her head, though with a muted anxiety. Her father frowned upon his daughter’s sudden trepidation. In a manner of fatherly comfort, he began to rub her shoulders.
“Anxious?”
Alyssa shrugged in that very child-like there’s-definitely-something-on-my-mind attitude. Her father got down onto his knees so that he was face-to-face with the girl. “You want to talk about it?”
She diverted her eyes as the temptation to confess her thoughts slowly grew. “What if they don’t like me?”
It was all her father could do not to allow a smile on his face. His own childhood memories swept over him, and he remembered what it was like to stand in his daughter’s place, to feel the desire to be liked and accepted, and to fear the opposite from his peers. He hadn’t the heart to tell her the next decade that awaited her.
“Alyssa, sweetheart,” he began. “Of course they will like you. You’re a smart, beautiful, rambunctious” he gently punched her arm, “and brave, young lady. You’ll have them eating out of your hands.”
A faint smile appeared on Alyssa’s face. She finally met her father’s comforting gaze. “But Michael said that on the first day, all the kids make fun of you to see how strong you are.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed as he looked back towards Michael’s room. “I’m going to have to have a talk with that boy.” His expression softened as he returned his attention to Alyssa.
“Michael was teasing, sweetheart. You are going to meet so many people, and make more friends than you'll know what to do with.”
“But what if some of them don’t like me?”
“Well, then they aren’t important,” her father honestly replied. “Even grown-ups have to be around people that don’t like us.”
Alyssa looked to her father with uncertainity. “What do you do when they don't like you?”
“Well, I try to avoid them if I can. Or ignore them.” He looked back to see if his wife happened to be in ear shot. He could still hear her voice from the boy’s room.
Confident that he was safe to speak freely, he continued with a quiet whisper. “Or sometimes, when they just won’t leave me alone, I give them a nice punch.” With his fist, he mimicked the action against his own jaw. “Rght here.”
He copied the gesture on his daughter’s cheek. “Right?” His hands fell to her stomach and tickled her until she giggled.
“Right!?”
He continued his onslaught, preventing Alyssa from answering his question. Though the answer was hardly important to him. The laugh of his daughter was.
With a morbid smile, Alyssa leaned down between the broken frame of her front door, and reached out towards the memory.
“Right, Dad.”
The reply was silence. Not that she expected anything different. There was no one to reply. The house—the whole neighborhood for that matter—had been evacuated weeks ago. She wasn't officially supposed to be here. Not until the damage assessment teams completed their survey. But she couldn’t stay away. It had too many memories for her. Too much significance.
The clang of metal falling towards the floor sounded from the kitchen. Alyssa retrieved her phaser with speed, and cautiously entered the room. The overhead chandelier had previously collapsed, leaving the area littered with glass. She flashed her wrist-light along the counter until she found the culprit: a raccoon scrounging for supplies.
She nearly phasered the beast before she realized that it was a bit overkill. “Get!” She lifted a piece of metal off the ground and tossed in near the creature. “Get!!” The ‘coon accepted that it had overstayed its welcome, and scurried off through the broken window.
Her light fell upon the counter as another memory washed over her.
“Alyssa!” A strong, feminine voice bellowed from the kitchen. A middle-aged woman sprinted across the kitchen towards the countertop. “ALYSSA!”
“WHAT?!” Alyssa stepped back into the kitchen with a PADD clutched close to her chest. Her hair was pulled back into a pony-tail, and her attire affirmed only that she desired comfort over aesthetics.
Her mother leaned over a boiling kettle of liquid and food. “You’re supposed to be stirring this!”
Alyssa pulled her PADD away from her body, and began to search its contents. “The recipe says stir occasionally…”
“I don’t care what the recipe says, Alyssa!” Her mother snatched the PADD from her daughter. “I said keep stirring it!”
“Yeah, but I—“
“Did you start the potatoes?” The bag of yet untouched potatoes on the counter answered that for them both.
“I—“ Alyssa looked from the sack as a lack of self-confidence came over her. “I was going to wait until—“
“Alyssa!” Her mother exhaled audibly as she brought her fingers to the ridge of her nose. The young teen looked from her mother to the PADD still secure in dangerous hands.
“Can I have my PADD back?”
Her mother reopened her eyes, and followed Alyssa’s gaze to her PADD. Her gaze was stern and punitive. “I ought to take this away from you.”
“Mom! That’s not fair! I…” Alyssa paused as a quiet horror overcame her. “Mom?”
A mixture of surprise and ire came over her mother’s expression as her attention settled upon one of the open tabs of the PADD. Her eyes, and only her eyes, rose to meet Alyssa’s. The teen knew full and well what she had discovered.
“Starfleet…?”
“It’s not—“ Alyssa stopped without bothering to complete her transparent lie. “Yes.”
“We have gone over this,” Her mother continued. The muffled wrath in her tone was as a river ready to burst forth a crumbling damn. “No one else from this family—“
“—dies in Starfleet. I know.” Alyssa defiantly finished. Her mother stood at her full height upon her daughter’s disrespectful tone. “I’m not going to die in Starfleet.”
“Your uncle said the same thing,” her mother countered.
“I’m not Uncle Tilo!”
“No, you are my daughter,” the woman firmly reminded. “And you will do as I say.”
“I HATE you!” Alyssa spat. The tone and attitude was bemusingly similar to her mothers, though the teen would never have admitted to any commonalities. She turned away after her pronouncement of hate, but before she completed her dramatic exit, her mother clutched onto her arm and spun Alyssa back around.
“Alyssa Lin Jenison; you will not speak to me that way. Am I understood?” Alyssa fumed in silence.
“I don’t understand you,” she continued. “You, more than all of us know what Starfleet did to Jamie. He lost his father! Is that what you want?!” Her voice began to break. “For us to cry over your grave?!”
Alyssa's anger softened to sadness as the sting of the point began to slice into her heart. A tear streamed down Alyssa’s face. When the silence became unbearable, her mother thrust the PADD into Alyssa’s chest, and turned away.
“Just go.”
A mess of broken picture frames littered the living room floor. Alyssa leant down over the largest of them—a full family photo--and pondered it's contents. At one point, the picture served as a memory, a captured moment in time when the family had been at it’s peak. Her father and mother were there. Her brothers, Kevin and Michael; Jamie, her beloved cousin; Michael’s now-wife, and her then-boyfriend, Hunter; even Maxi, the family Retriever had made this photo.
Now it was only a memorial. Her father…gone. Michael and Andria…gone. Jamie…gone. Hunter…gone. Even Maxi was gone, though hers had been upon the end of her life. So few remained, and what remained of those left behind was fragmented and broken. Alyssa could hardly be around her mother. The grief was too much—a mother’s grief.
It was like looking at her reflection, and the sight appalled her beyond measure.
A shuttle zoomed overhead, reminding the woman that her time was limited. She pocketed the most important of the pictures, and left the rest for the memory of the house.
Without significant reason, other than childhood want, she wandered to the room that had served as her sanctuary throughout her early life. It had changed and transformed over the decades. The old toys and décor had been boxed, gifted, or thrown away. New furniture came. New uses were enacted.
But she still remembered. She remembered the many nights in this room. The day’s Kevin and Michael had pestered her. The days she had pestered them back. The rough evenings she had endured in her bed, sick and uncomfortable, but happy under the loving gaze of her parents. And the days that nightmares had come and gone, only to be left by the bonds of family that she would cling to for the rest of her days.
A shove on her shoulder awoke Alyssa from her sleep. Standing by the side of her bed, illuminated by the moonlight, was the fearful face of her baby cousin, Jamie.
“I had a nightmare.”
Alyssa looked to her clock resting on her side table: 2:34 AM; Wednesday, May 2, 2379. She was officially ten years old.
Jamie’s eyes continued to peer at Alyssa for some kind of comfort. Compassion overwhelmed the young girl, as she lifted her covers. Jamie climbed in, and rested his head in the head in the crook of Alyssa’s neck. She wrapped her arms around the boy.
“Your daddy again?” She felt this head shift up and down along her skin. “It’s going to be okay.”
“'Lyssy?” Jamie started up. He thankfully shifted his head so that his voice wasn't nearly so muffled. “Why did daddy die?”
Unfortunately, age worked against her to know the true answer to that question. Cold, greedy, hateful people called Cardassians found like-minded friends and made their move to take everything for themselves. But Jamie was too young to understand that. At least, he was so young that she didn’t want him to understand that.
“Your daddy died to keep us safe. He wanted you to grow up, and to be strong and smart and brave just like he was.” Alyssa held Jamie tighter. “Your daddy is a hero.”
Jamie was quiet for a moment. Alyssa let the quiet remain. The many nights Jamie had come to her bed, it seemed all he needed was to be close. And she allowed him that with all her heart. But this time, he needed alittle more.
“Sing a song, 'Lyssy?”
There was a moment of silence as Alyssa first considered the request, and then considered how best to fulfil it. She raised herself up upon her arm. Jamie turned to rest his head on the pillow, ready for his cousin’s song to lull him to sleep. As the words came to her, Alyssa brushed the hair on Jamie’s head, and sung, watched over him until slumber came.
"Carry on my wayward son*
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more"
"Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high"
"Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming,
I can hear them say"
"Carry on my wayward son,
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more"
End Alyssa
OOC: *I recommend listening to the song as you read the lyrics. It made me feel!