Unwelcome Aid

Posted on Mon 27th Jul, 2020 @ 6:17am by Yuliette Marayan Dr.

823 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector: Zodiac
Timeline: MD12

Yuliette was climbing the stairs with her bag of groceries when she heard sounds like a pig squealing in pain. She looked up and listened, but the awful noise only intensified. There was a second, growling voice in something that was almost language, and slamming sounds.

She climbed the stairs faster, and though she wasn’t sure why,she headed towards the sound. Down the hall on the side of the stairwell opposite to her own apartment’s hall, Yuliette saw a massive figure, head full of matted hair, bellowing over a smaller version of it’s own kind, as if demanding a response. The bigger one spewed spittle and rage, until the weaker one, hands protecting his head, was bullied to respond. Only before the smaller one could say much of anything, he was struck again for deigning to talk.

Yuliette herself leapt back and cringed with the force of the blows as she witnessed them.

“Wraiths!” She swore, looking at the guys near her apartment, just sitting there listlessly in their folding chairs. “Isn’t someone going to do something?”

“Do what?” The Orion with the goatee took a drink from a bottle.

A human with braids shrugged. “Whatever, sister. It’s his own kid.”

His half brother with a bajoran nose bridge tried to explain for her. “They Nausicans. Is how they do things. Sakes, is how jus ‘bout everybody do things.”

“Yeah, my ol’ man couldn’t call it a night ‘til he tan me every day.”

“That why you such an upstanding citizen, Horace?” Goatee jibed.

Yuliette stood frozen at the top of the stairs, unable to help, unable to look away.

“Look ‘it. Bet she never caught a whoopin’.” Said one brother to the other.

“Not like that. Different kind maybe.”

“I’d whoop it.” Goatee said off-handed.

“Shut your face! She’s a lady. That’s jus the kinda talk what for Uncle Jack kicked your sad sack all over the place. A’sides,” He chuckled “… she ain’t got nothin’ for to whoop on.”

They continued jawing on while she remained transfixed by the generational travesty before her. She couldn’t believe how callous they were. Or maybe their laughter was a strange way they learned to cope with their version of ‘normal’. That they were having fun at her expense seemed to pale compared to the actual violence.

Full of her own outrage, Yuliette stomped to her apartment, unlatched her door and ducked inside.

Meanwhile the enraged father delivered one final string of growling Naussican invectives to his son and fell back to his apartment, slamming the door. The boy lay still for a long time, heaving with breath.

He was still stunned numb in the hall when a small woman gave him a cool glass of water and cleaned the snot and spit and blood from his face. Through the ringing in his head where he’d been struck over his ears, he understood nothing of what she said, only just that it was soothing, like the cool rag.

“Hey. Good, that’s good. Your eyes are focusing.” Yuliette sighed with relief. She spoke softly for the boy’s sake, but just as much because she was afraid his father might hear her over the noise of the holovid from the Naussican's apartment inside.

She dabbed his split lip beside one of the mouth tusks, but at the sting the boy shoved her reflexively.

Yuliette looked at him from where she was knocked on her butt and gauged the situation. “You’re right, you should do it yourself.” She put a kind of ointment on the cool rag and handed it back to the boy, who reached out and took it while he focused on her. “Listen, I live just down the hall, that door. If you’re ever scared, you can come tell me, okay?”

“Not afraid! Not human baby!”

“Shh, sh, Of course not, I didn’t mean—”

“What mean? Weak, you are.”

“I mean, you are strong. It takes courage to ask for help.”

The boy lifted himself to his feet and drew up as tall as he could in front of the crouched Cardassian lady, overshadowing her. His teen figure wasn’t yet muscled like his father’s, but he well and away outclassed her and wanted her to know it.

“Am strong.” He emphasized, beating his chest with his fist and throwing her rag back at her. “You no help.” He said before storming down the hall towards the stairwell and the street below, hiding a limp and holding a sore arm.

As Yuliette gathered her things, she had one wary eye out, watching the guys watching her.
“I got a boo-boo you can kiss!” Goatee called out as she locked herself back inside what counted for home.

She leaned her back against the door, put a hand to her forehead, and closed her eyes against the world.

 

RSS Feed

Comments (2)