Stitching With Old Threads

Posted on Thu 7th May, 2020 @ 9:38pm by

625 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Dallas Briggs' Quarters
Timeline: MD 13, 1335

Victoria was tired of drifting around the station, tired of the lack of interaction with people. Frankly, she was tired of her whole ghostly existence! She wanted to go back ... but she wasn't sure what that even meant. Back to what? It wasn't back to Dallas, since they couldn't have much of a relationship occupying different planes of existence. So, what was the back that niggled in her mind?

She found herself outside the quarters she'd never actually occupied with her husband and melted through the walls, setting her feet on the floor. The emptiness of the quarters was apparent instantly. She could hear no breathing, feel no pulse beats. The invisible-to-most woman walked through to the bedroom and looked at the space. Nothing had changed much since her last visit to Dallas ... three weeks ago? No, maybe twice that long. She shook her head. Time had no meaning to her now.

For a while, Victoria busied herself changing outfits. If she didn't think about it, she found stayed in the clothing she'd died wearing. That doesn't seem quite right ... dying. There was an explosion, but .... For a formerly logical person, Victoria spent a lot of time thinking about how things felt now.

Shrugging, she thought about her clothing again. Sometimes she wore a long white-ruffled dress, more in keeping with 500 years in the past. Sometimes it was a beach outfit from their one visit to Risa. Today, she settled on a short blue silk tunic over black tights ... and then unsettled almost immediately. It didn't feel right, either. Finally, she went back to the Starfleet uniform she felt comfortable wearing, only she made it completely black, to suit into the darkness where she felt lost.

Wandering out to the living area again, the ghostly woman sat on the end of the sofa, playing with putting her hand through the table in front of her. A smile touched her face as she thought how odd it was to be able to sit on the furniture and yet not be able to pick up things or keep her hand on the surface of the table. She tried her hand flat and sideways. She tried her stiff finger tips and watched as each one sank, in turn, through the flat near-wood. A weird anomaly of her existence.

The truth was, Victoria felt restless. There was that touchy-feely word again, but she didn't know how else to describe it. Something inside of her was jittery, bouncy, unsettled ... restless. She got up and moved around the living area again, then into the office. She paused in front of the replicator, thinking about what she'd have if she could push the buttons. A hot chocolate with whipped cream maybe? Coke with a splash of Ferengi ungaberry juice? Really, she'd as soon have Terran cherry or strawberry. Ungaberry tended to be seedy. Or maybe a nice slice of key lime cheesecake with buttery graham cracker crust!

To her memory, all the options sounded good, but she felt no physical longing for any of them. If anyone had told her before she died how much the physical body impacted one's life, she wasn't sure she would have believed them. Victoria had never been a hedonist, but without a body, the few cravings she'd ever felt disappeared entirely. There was no pleasure, because she felt no pain. She didn't want things, because she didn't need anything. The only things that remained in her realm were good and evil. She still knew the difference between those two, still had emotional reactions to each.

Moving away from the replicator, Victoria began her restless circuit of Briggs' quarters again. One thing hadn't changed. She still wasn't particularly patient.

 

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