Questions - Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 1510.08

[FredM 0]

“Questions”

Personal Log – Stardate 1510.08

 

What was there to say?

 

What was there to do?

 

How does a person come to terms with the ever constant passage of time?

 

Activities and events have a way of keeping one occupied, often allowing such thoughts to escape without much consequence. For some, it was a welcome diversion. Indeed, many were moving on and still had the peak they wished to climb in the future. Their trek was not complete while for others it would indeed be a difficult period. Was reflection always this doubled edged sword?

 

Was there consolation for those who had made it this far when they looked back at those who had not?

 

When his career had launched, Starfleet operated with energy like no other. A fire raged in the hearts of all who served, a desire to be a part of something all knew was special. The size and depth of the fleet was something beyond imagination. They had been good times. But it had been later that the true power of those moments would become clear…when they no longer existed. Knowing that this was a fact, he had made a point to only focus ahead and not get caught up with things beyond his control. While a safe method that had worked quite well for the last thirteen years, there was only one problem with this plan.

 

What happens when there is no tomorrow?

 

It had been here, as he sat listening to the chimes noting Midnight had passed many hours ago, it started to sink in. From a generation with such great promise and pride in what they did, even now less and less remained to recount their tails. Stories, faces, people and places. Enemies, friends…family… were slowly being consumed by the silence of time. While of course operations always moved forward, and a new generation would advance further than one could possibly imagine, it would not be the same way they had done it. The intimacy of how they had all kept that firing burning was something a faster generation simply didn’t have time for.

 

When the numbers had been calculated, less than ten percent of them were actually left. These were the names he had grown up knowing, the friends he had built bonds to last a lifetime. They had but was that what was ahead? Everyone knew a lifetime would eventually come to an end…but it would be a problem for someone else. Obviously it wasn’t something urgent until suddenly it was. Until suddenly it was your turn.

 

He was sitting at a window buried deep in a Jefferies Tube, likely a location no one had been in for quite some time. In many ways it reminded him of where he had first called home. It was a spot not much larger than this and the Odyssey was known for many such places. Then again, they had an advantage way back then and for the first time in nearly two decades he had a craving for something fresh from the C&E Brewery.

 

The isolation had been designed to give him a few moments of pause. He hadn’t moved in over five hours. A sense of dread kept trying to move into his mind…the knowledge soon the silence would consume them. The intent was to force himself to come to terms with what was about to take place. Terms…as if a contract had been signed. Originally, these feelings had not been expected but then everyone probably said that.

 

The problem was, after hours of reflection, he had more questions than answers.

 

What was there to say?

 

What was there to do?

 

How does a person come to terms with the ever constant passage of time?

 

How does a person not weep…at that one final bow…where they say goodbye?