by Rada Dengar
81012.2030
Hours After Not Goodbye
-=The Office of Doctor Greg Anderson; Earth=-
Rada nervously glanced up from his magazine to look around the room. This was truly a terrifying place. He had been dreading this day.
For the tenth time he reread the same line and he realised that this was hopeless, he couldn’t concentrate right now.
He could never understand why the people here still insisted on using non-computerised magazines although from some of the ‘current’ affairs which were mentioned Rada wondered if these magazines didn’t predate digital encoding. He half expected to turn the page and find an article arguing about the impossibility of alien life.
He wouldn’t mind finding such an article, he hopefully could show it to this colleague of Vol Tryst that he had been instructed to meet with and to convince him that since he obviously didn’t exist that they couldn’t have a meeting and that this man was the insane one for thinking otherwise.
He sighed with frustration as he laid it down on a dangerously high pile on the table beside him. By the look of the old thing he wondered if it would be able to support the weight, curiously the magazine pile didn’t budge but the table leant a little further to the right.
The Engineer in him wanted to try to fix it but he had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t start doing anything which could keep him here longer than necessary.
There was nothing more distressing to a man who’d been penciled down as sane than meeting someone with an eraser.
He was not looking forward to meeting this man; he supposed from the general lack of people here that he was either the type of man who just so lazy that he declared everyone insane and sent them for medical treatment, a road that Rada had been down once and never wanted to even see again or that he was so good at his job that he simply cured everyone, a more terrifying thought all things considered.
Rada knew that a lot of who he was fell out of the definition of normal and that life would be much easier if he didn’t, but the actual of thought of losing who he was to normality made him feel physically sick, could there be any worse a death than the kind where you live on?
He’d become far too attached to himself over the years to want to simply change. No, he dismissed that thought; very successful psychologists didn’t have dead plants in their office.
There were only three of them there. There was the receptionist sitting at her computer terminal with head phones in her ears. She hadn’t taken a single call in the entire time Rada had been here and he wondered if she’d even realised she was working here, from the brief glance when he’d come in she seemed to busy herself playing Solitaire on her computer terminal all day with the occasional interruption where she had to shush a patient and tell them that the doctor would be with them soon. He’d been hearing that for a long time.
There was the rather energetic Terran man sitting in the seat across from him and busying himself by counting the cracks in the ceiling, he seemed to be rather excited every time he found a new one or even when he found an old one he’d forgotten about.
Then of course there was him, the nervous Angosian Starfleet officer trying to look like he was simply bored with the wait. To his credit he was doing it very well.
Perhaps a little less to his credit; he’d spent virtually every second since he found out he was coming to the Earth trying to think of a way to get out of this and the best he could manage was sneaking in here the night before and covering the entire place with pollen and then when he became congested blaming it on him being allergic to this office. He had replicated some just in case.
“What are you in for?” said the excited man as he kept shifting his gaze from wall to wall.
Rada was a little startled but tried to act calm “It’s just routine. I’m a Starfleet officer and regulations require I have a check up”
“That’s weird.” said the man as he practically jumped over into the chair next to Rada “Couldn’t you just see your starship’s counselor?”
“I already did,” replied Rada, turning to face the man who seemed unable to sit still. He wasn’t sure whether he should match the man’s movements as to look him in the eye or if he would take that as mockery, he sensed that this man was easy to set off “He gave me a clean bill of health but arranged me to see a friend of his to get confirmation.”
“That’s cool, that’s cool,” said the man as he drummed his fingers along his arm rest and crossed, then uncrossed then crossed his legs again. “So who are you here to see?”
“A Doctor Anderson,” answered Rada, pausing to pretend that he was trying to remember the man’s name when he had in reality been thinking a lot about it recently.
“Ah!” said the man with a smile and a snap of his fingers, “you’re not just here to see a Doctor Anderson. You’re here to see the Doctor Anderson! Doctor Greg Anderson. He’s brilliant. I’ve been seeing him for years!”
*That says a lot,* thought Rada, though he just smiled politely as he listened to this strange fellow.
“So…are you nuts?” asked the man grabbing hold of Rada’s arm and leaning in disturbingly close as if he was inspective Rada’s face for holes. Rada began to speak but was cut off “It’s okay, you can admit it if you are, I won’t tell anyone.”
“No, I’m really not.” said Rada calmly “I’m just here because of…”
“Regulations,” the man cut him “I know, I know.” He jumped back away from Rada then sat down comfortably again “Then how come you’re the only one?”
“How do you mean?” asked Rada curiously.
“Well, I figure there have to be hundreds of people on your starship. Why are you the only one that’s here if they’re routine for everyone?”
“I sustained severe injuries on Betazed and I have to…”
“Where were you when you sustained these injuries?” asked the man excitedly.
“Betazed,” replied Rada and before he could say anything more the man continued loudly as he gestured wildly.
“Betazed, that’s a lovely planet. I’ve never been there but I’ve seen holo-images; mostly wedding shots. It almost makes you want to get married,” he said with a joking punch to Rada’s arm which really hurt. Rada just laughed politely along with him. “So, you said you were injured?”
Rada was wondering what business it was of this man but didn’t know how he would react if he refused to answer his questions “Yes, I experienced a low level phaser blast,”
“Why would someone want to shoot you?” asked the man as he looked Rada up and down, possibly looking to see if there was a reason why he should want to shoot Rada.
“I knew something about him that he didn’t want people to find out.” Rada answered cautiously, his eyes locked on this man who was moving up and down.
“Yes, my mother always said that knowing stuff would get you killed. That’s why she kept me out of school,” said the man, trailing off and looking in the other direction.
Rada hoped he was forgetting about him. Alas he didn’t, he put his hands on his knees and turned back to face Rada “Tell me more. What did you know?”
“Well…”
Rada was cut off again. “You know what, I don’t care. Were you scared?”
“Yes…of course I was scared,”
“That’s good. I’m scared all the time. Not for you obviously, I mean you could turn up dead tomorrow and it wouldn’t worry me, but I’m scared for myself.”
“Oh, why is that?” asked Rada but the man pretended not to hear him.
“Are you still scared?” the man asked loudly, Rada was terrified at the moment of this fellow, so much so that he’d forgotten his meeting with the psychologist.
Rada figured that the psychologist must have been running very late today as this man was here before Rada got in and still hadn’t been to see him.
“Well…no I mean it’s over now.”
“But you’re still a little scared, aren’t ya?” the man asked quickly although his inability to focus his attention lead Rada to think that he probably didn’t care about the answer.
“Of course it’s scary to think…” Rada started,
“Scary to think,” the man agreed with a whisper.
“What could have happened,” Rada finished.
“When I’m scared I like to hide at my neighbour’s house, she doesn’t mind, doesn’t even notice most of the time.” He rambled. “What do you do when you’re scared?”
“Well, I have people I can talk to…”
“Friends? Family? Fish? What?” The man asked rapidly.
“The first two,” replied Rada, he was getting very uncomfortable and kept glancing to the door to see if this Doctor Anderson was coming out yet.
“Oh well, two out of three’s not bad,” the man mumbled to himself then declared “You should get a fish!” Rada started to answer but didn’t get a chance. “So, are these friends supportive?”
“Yes, I can talk to some of them about almost anything.”
The man smiled and grabbed Rada’s arm again. *Hurry up!* he thought. He was for once wishing that he was going to see a Betazoid, someone that could hear his plea.
“That’s good, that’s good,” said the man as he was moving around in his seat “It’s always good to have someone to talk to. Doesn’t the fear of what happened interfere with your job though?”
“I rarely think about it when I’m working…”
“Ah, but what if you did?!” asked the man smugly with a raised finger as if he had just stumped an opponent in a life-changing political debate.
“I work closely with a good friend of mine and she knows all the details. If ever it did affect my work she could pick up on it”
“So; you’ve admitted that you’re still a little scared, you have friends and family for support and you always have someone close by to watch out for you.” The man counted these three things but somehow managed to use four fingers.
“Yes...” replied Rada cautiously.
“Excellent,” said the man, turning to Rada with a wry smile forming on his lips as he finally settled down and began speaking in a normal tone. “Doctor Greg Anderson at your service. Sorry about the deceit but it really is the only way to keep the patients honest. Patients always will tell each other more than they’ll tell their doctor. Congratulations, you just passed your psychological examination.”
Rada just stared at him in disbelief as the man showed him his identification. The receptionist didn’t seem to find anything strange about what had just happened; apparently he did this a lot.
Rada stumbled around in his mouth trying to find the right words before finally settling on a disbelieving, “I’m free to go?”
He couldn’t make sense of what had just happened, this man had not only just turned from a maniac into a normal human being but he was acting like there was nothing unusual in what he’d just done.
“Yes you are,” the Doctor laughed at the change in Rada’s demeanour as he ushered him out the door. He always enjoyed this part of the job the most; especially when patients get the look on their faces that Rada had now. “Say hi to Vol for me when you see him next.”
“I will,” said Rada as he walked out the door; he’d have a lot to say when he saw the counselor next.
Lt. SG Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
-=/\=-
NRPG: Congratulations, Sera Crew, on reaching our 600th post.
I certainly couldn't ask for a better one with which to mark the milestone!
Three more examples that show why everyone loves Rada Dengar:
"There was nothing more distressing to a man who’d been penciled down as sane than meeting someone with an eraser."
and
“Friends? Family? Fish? What?”
and finally...
"...could there be any worse a death than the kind where you live on?"
Genius.~ZL
NRPG: Congratulations, Sera Crew, on reaching our 600th post.
I certainly couldn't ask for a better one with which to mark the milestone!
Three more examples that show why everyone loves Rada Dengar:
"There was nothing more distressing to a man who’d been penciled down as sane than meeting someone with an eraser."
and
“Friends? Family? Fish? What?”
and finally...
"...could there be any worse a death than the kind where you live on?"
Genius.~ZL