Posted May 24, 2019, 12:57 p.m. by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) (Lindsay B)
Bare walls- grey like the rest of the ship. Plain carpet- neutral, uninviting. A basic sofa, coffee table, a small table and two chairs. The small bedroom contained a basic bed and a bedside table along with clothing storage. A small replicator. A lavatory with a sonic shower and simple basics needed to wash up and store personal hygiene items. None of which she needed.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the space, Corinne eyed her surroundings . Her quarters. She had had quarters before- a lifetime ago- and they had served specific purposes. Now though this space was hers for entirely different reasons. She didn’t need to eat, didn’t require sleep, had no physical body that required cleaning. And yet, like any sentient person, she had objects she possessed of varying importance.
Around her, on the tables and stacked in a couple neat piles against a wall were small crates- the same ones she had been rifling through when Jarred had come to tell her about his daughter. All her worldly possessions- the markers of a life lived- existed in a few water-tight boxes and were now the only things she had to her name. Other than an entire starship at her fingers, of course.
She wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted this place to be yet. It wasn’t like she was going to have many visitors… well, maybe a couple here and there. But if there was one thing she knew for certain, it was a place she could exist outside of the computer systems that was hers and hers alone. She still had to enter and exit the tangible world via Sickbay, but it was a minor concern right now.
It occurred to her that she should decorate but that required having a sense of style, of having something about yourself you want to communicate. A space told others about its occupant. So, what did she want people to know about her?
She wasn’t sure, and that was her current dilemma; one that would not be solved with a snap of her fingers or a simple desire for it to be so. Not today anyway. Because one of this mattered in the light that her prized possession, the set of objects that meant most to her were still missing, possibly lost forever. That realization cut deep and made this whole room feel pointless. She could almost hear the counsellor now. Corinne… you’re clinging to the past. This is your present and you get to create your future. Let go.
Sure. But if none of that mattered, if the things that had shaped her could be so easily tossed away, then had they ever really mattered? Had anything?
~Corinne Dalton
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