Trapped in the Void

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Trapped in the Void

 

In everything there is a pause, a time when there is nothing before there is something, a gathering breath before a decision is made whether to proceed, to return, or to cease altogether. Such is the nature of the universe. Such is the nature of things seen and things unseen.

 

Between beats, the heart rests. Between breaths, the diaphragm relaxes. Between thoughts there is a period of thoughtless indecision, a void waiting to be filled, a spark caught mid-way from one synapse to another.

 

And through it all – between the beats, the breaths, and the thoughts – there is the void.

 

Like the void between living and dying, when the body is no longer alive and not yet dead. The consciousness – that which makes us who we are, that which distinguishes us from others in the universe – has left, but the heart continues to beat, the diaphragm contracts and relaxes, the body fights to maintain the status quo, to keep the body going despite the absence of its most vital component. It is the void between being and becoming, a void as small as a thought and as great as a chasm.

 

And what better place for Jami Farrington to ponder these things than in the MedLab, just outside the morgue, where so many bodies lay battered from their transition through the void, from one reality to another. Beyond the door lay the body of Ian Syndrx - dead in that reality, alive in this one. Between thumb and forefinger, Jami held a DNA sample taken from her body - dead in that reality, alive in this one.

 

“You’re late.” Jeremy Stone half-sat on the counter next to Jami and crossed his arms as though waiting for... something.

 

She had been aware of a presence beside her, but had ignored her colleague in favor of turning the DNA sample over in her hands, then tracing its outline with one finger, as though the very act would change it somehow, would make it not hers.

 

“I know.” She continued to stare. To trace.

 

“I thought you’d be one of the first down here.” The implied question being Why are you here now? Why are you here... at all?

 

He’d probably been though this conversation at least a thousand times since retrieving the samples from the destroyed Manticore. The Manticore from the other universe, from the alternate reality conceived by taking another path, born through making another decision, or turning a different way than they had in the reality they knew as home.

 

He was older, and had pretty much seen it all - or at least a heck of a lot more than most. Easy-going. No-nonsense. Jami knew him well enough to know that he was letting his unease seep through for a darned good reason. There was a warning behind it. He knew what she was thinking and the subtext of his body language was clear. You’re losing it. Don’t go there.

 

The last half hour of staring, of pondering the imponderable, of contorting her brain until it hurt had not changed the DNA samples. They were still hers, a part of her... and not a part of her.

 

She was caught in the void.

 

“Let it go, Jami.”

 

Let it go. Could she? Would she ever?

 

“Let it go.” Gently, he prodded the sample from her, holding her hand in his until she stood and turned to face him, still lost, trapped by a puzzle she’d never solve. “We’re home. That’s all that matters.”