Answering the Cry

Posted on Wed 23rd Sep, 2020 @ 5:15am by Yuliette Marayan Dr.

1,007 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector Deck 2245: Parade Line-up
Timeline: MD 14 Evening

Yuliette sat down on the cobblestones for a while, scribbling a vining flowers design into the stones around her and watching the kids skipping on the numbers. She watched the elderly couple doting on one another, and she watched old and new friends greet one another, exchanging food and laughter. She liked to think she could stay and become one of them, but she found it difficult to talk without saying much at all, and then felt smore of a stranger than ever when she fell back and forth over her words. She felt disingenuous with them all. Dusting the last of the piece of chalk from her hands, Yuliette looked aside from the party, hugging her shoulders and listening to other voices and music down along the ‘lane’, such as it was.

Mingled with the noise coming from that direction, there was a particular sound which her ear inclined too. To her gut it sounded like trouble, and she stood and began in that direction.

Up ahead the usually drab hallway was instead being lined with a throng of vibrant, ceremonious color. The blush of reds, oranges, and yellows in the robes of various orders of the faith stood out hotly against some more subdued cool nature tones, mostly greens and here and there a pop of blue. On so many ears glittered the strand of the distinctive Bajoran earring.

A few dozen women with ribbon-like banners were rehearsing a dancing arrangement. Yuliette wished she could read the lettering to know what kind of organization or temple they were representing.

A school group was lining up with their flutes and drums, the smallest ones idly smacking each other with rhythm sticks as they endured the tuning up, and the smallest of the small partly delighted with noise rattles and partly sitting on the street and crying.

Crying. Not this crying. It was some other crying. Younger than the preschoolers, more insistent. Yuliette continued towards the back of the parade line up.
The streets narrowed and she found herself pressing against the tide of the forward marching throng.

A wall of fragrance hit Yuliette, and she saw up ahead a float, liberally covered in flowering tree branches. At its apex were three old men smoking pipes. They waved to her as she looked up at them.

“Peldor Joi, neighbor!” They called down to her.
When she heard their voices she recognized them from outside of Tam’s apartment. They were the dominos players.

“Peldor Joi!” She called back up to them. “Your float is incredible!”

“Irich here collects the trimmings from his pruning work and we root them! There’s a secret to getting the cuttings to flower when you like though.”

“What’s that?”

“Yamok sauce.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. It’s gotta be the nasty unsalted version, but the trees just eat it up.”

One of his friends elbowed him. “You loudmouth. Can’t ever shut your trap.”

“The lady asked.”

“Fine,” the grumpy objector harrumphed theatrically. “But there’s a price. Now you tell us your secret.”

“Oh, you want my secret, do you? Well— I also like Yamok sauce.” Yuliette revealed. “But salted, of course.”

They laughed. And Yuliette slipped away. She stood another second to let her ears tune for the sound again. It hadn’t stopped. It was still the young one crying desperately. Not just like an inconsolable fussy little one. It was more like terror. More like pain.

She came upon another float, this one resplendent with all manner of strange and marvelous forms and figures. There were patterns and markings in rich detail, and writings that Yuliette couldn’t read but knew from their treatment must have been some venerated words. On the platform was a curled leaf form, cusping a writhing and screeching bundle.

She looked around, but no caretakers seemed nearby; with concern, Yuliette climbed the float and reflexively picked up the child to comfort it. She checked its temperature with her cheek against its forehead; it was Bajoran, and she’d gotten fairly good at judging temperature by touch for many species. The baby was certainly warm for a Bajoran child, but she thought the elevated temperature more from the terrible effort of screeching than from any fever besetting it. She clasped it against her chest and tried to hum, rock, and shush, but it had no effect. It wasn’t comfort the baby needed. Yuliette was certain it was in pain.

She laid it back in the gilded leaf bassinet and began to work at unswaddling it. Both of the baby’s hands were wrapped in bandages, she began to unwind one…

Only to discover the pad of each and every finger tip had been deeply burned, seared into the dermis below. Horrified yet certain it was true of both hands, she hurriedly unwrapped the second. Only to confirm the terrible truth. All ten of the baby’s fingers had been methodically, intentionally seared.

A figure leapt up beside her with urgency and before she could even turn to look at it, she was struck once, pointedly in the throat.

She found herself tossed roughly from the parade float, tumbling over on the ground and gasping to breathe.

“Wraith-born be gone!”

Several more figures in embroidered robes gathered, one attending the screaming baby and re-swaddling it. He gave it a vial of something to drink and the terror in the scream died back. They all put arms over one anothers shoulders and began some kind of chant in earnest,

As Yuliette picked herself up, gasping and holding her throat, she tried to see through the wall of robed figures; but the float and the Bajorans surrounding it lurched forward into the moving parade. She was pushed aside by a fife band striking up a peppy tune, and a row of some people dressed as something like giant colorful bears wearing sashes.

"Peldor Joi!" said one of the bears, waving to her while another was throwing a handful of flower petals in her face.
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