The Ansha Tales: House Calls

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The Ansha Tales: House Calls

Warning: Topics include Suicide and Trauma

Present Day - Dirba, Sikhistan District, Earth

Ansha sat at the kitchen table in the humble Talle Singh residence reading from a PADD and trying to keep her mind off of recent events. It was difficult to do, but there were respites with news not related to all things Starfleet.

Local news helped, but in a small city like Dirba, there is only so much of that. Maybe Punjab area related, but the whole world seemed more focused on events off Earth rather than the local, state, regional, or even world news. There’s only so many cricket tests going on at the moment. There were only so many people doing something interesting. Only so many political machinations that Ansha cared enough to read about.

There was an article from the greater galaxy about the murder of a Ferengi merchant at Drozana Station but as it stands, that isn’t a surprising event for that crime-ridden hole. The only reason Ansha figured it was in the news feed was that the suspect, the merchant’s nephew, is still at large.

There was a book on the table that she had picked up from her father’s library that contained the poetry of an Earthling poet named Robert Frost. There was something about the words within that seemed to resonate with her.

She looked at the book on the table, with a bookmark wedged inside.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep…” she said quietly.

Just then Ansha’s communicator began beeping with an incoming call. Ansha tilted her head, debating whether to answer or even see who was calling. She sighed and picked up the communicator to see who the caller happened to be, fully expecting it to be someone from Deep Space 13 calling her back in for either a deposition or something of that nature. It was not. It was from Lieutenant Commander Valusia, Chief Medical Officer of the USS Hornet.

Ansha had only talked to Dr Valusia once before, and then it was only by messages and one comm chat during a captain’s mast of all things - Ansha’s first captain’s mast not just barely a week after having taken acting captain of the USS Ecstasea.

She flipped open the cover and answered.

“Lieutenant Commander Ansha Wind-People speaking,” she said in a professional, albeit thickly accented manner. A soft, lilting, and smooth female voice on the other end spoke.

“Hello Lieutenant Commander Ansha Wind-People,” the elegant voice said, speaking in a smooth and cheerful manner, laced with an almost music-like pacing, and also accented with a slight touch exotic brogue. “This is Lieutenant Commander Jeiliscia Valusia, emm dee, at your service.”

“Hello, doctor. This is uhm… this is unexpected. What can I help you with?” Ansha was confused. This wasn’t the chief medical officer of a command she was associated with.

“I was simply calling to see how you are doing, so… how are you doing?” Jeiliscia let out a small giggle that Ansha could only imagine looked as adorable as it sounded.

“Oh, doctor, I am as well as I can be, all things considered, thank you.”

“I see, Ansha.” Jeiliscia paused for a moment. “Is it alright if I call you Ansha?”

“Doctor, that is fine, but you do not need to waste time calling to check on me. I am sure you have many more important things to do. I am as fine as I can be, I assure you.”

“You can call me Jeiliscia or just Jelly if you wish, and, Ansha, it is not a waste of time. You may not be a member of my command, but as a Starfleet doctor, it is my responsibility to make sure everyone I think… Well, let’s just say, I have a hunch.”

“Doctor, seriously,” Ansha said with a pained expression on her face. “The mycologists say I am physically fine, really. Just, you know, taking it a day at a time.”

“How about mentally speaking? Do you have a counselor?”

“Well, I mean, not yet, not here on Earth. But I am doing… fine. I will be fine.”

There was a long awkward pause that was finally broken by Jeiliscia’s voice.

“Ansha, I know what you are going through.”

“Oh? Do you?” Ansha said, trying to keep her composure despite rising irritation. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Do you really?”

“Yes, Ansha. I do.”

“What they taught us at the academy is not the reality I feel. There is no simulation, no manual, nothing that can prepare anyone for this. There is no written diagnostic manual that can adequately discuss the pain and the loss. Now, Doctor, I appreciate your call, but you have crewmembers to attend to. I am not one of those. Please, just leave me be.”

There was another long pause.

“Ansha, what if I told you I am well versed, not just from an academic sense, but rather from a live, actually experienced sense, on what you are going through? What if I told you that I too suffered the same guilt, shame, sadness, and anger that you are probably feeling. What if I told you that?”

“What does it matter, doctor?”

“It matters, cherished sister, because you matter. Just hear my story, please.”

“Fine,” Ansha relented.

“I was a doctor onboard the USS Feines. I was there when she was attacked by Nausicaan raiders. I became the senior officer left standing, despite my own injuries. I tried to save everyone, because that is what doctors do. I was loading the wounded and children into an escape pod as I was directing evacuation efforts. There wasn’t room for me, so I sent it on its way and got into the last operational shuttle. I thought for sure the escape pod would be safer for the patients given its status as a non-combatant vehicle. I thought they would attack the shuttle instead.”

“I was wrong,” Jeiliscia continued. “they targeted that escape pod. There were no survivors.”

“Doctor, I am sorry,” Ansha said quietly. “I did not mean that you could not have…”

“I know. I know. That isn’t even the end of the story. The real kicker was after that and this is the important part for you. I got a shiny medal for all the ones that I was able to help make it out alive, because… because I was doing what I was supposed to do. My duty as an officer. All the while there was that nagging sense that despite the three hundred, thirty four members of that crew that survived out of five hundred and twenty eight, there were twenty that plagued me… haunted me.”

“Orions,” Jeiliscia continued, “are notoriously skeptical of and resistant to psychiatric treatment. We are stubborn. Our minds are hard to read and those that can, find it a disturbing thing to do. I just kept telling myself ‘I am fine’ and I passed on the counseling that was recommended to me. I told everyone around me that I was fine, almost argumentatively at times. No matter how many times I said it though, inside I felt so different. I would close my eyes and see the children’ s scared faces. In silence I could hear their cries. I could not sleep for the… for their faces in my dreams… in my nightmares.”

“Eventually, I snapped. I hit my fiancé, David, with a thrown coffee cup in the head over… of all things, a spatula. A spatula in the wrong drawer. Can you imagine? After that I just laid down on the floor and cried. I wanted to be dead… and… I started to grab for a knife that had fallen on the floor when I had yanked out the entire drawer. David came back to the kitchen just in time after cleaning up his wounded head, and took it away from me before I could… Well… he held me tightly while I fought him. Eventually I grew tired and just laid there crying while he held me. I wanted to die so badly. I wanted to end the pain. He called medical and they sedated me and took me away. It is fortunate that he was a wrestler in school and much stronger than me.”

“I spent six months in a Federation psychiatric ward until I was deemed healthy enough to resume my duties. When I left there I picked up where I left off, albeit, changed forever, but wiser, and more in love with the idea that life is worth living.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Doctor, but, I… I am not the same as you, you know? I am Wind People. Not an Orion.”

“I know, Ansha. Adjeallia Euscamycetes. Once Lieutenant Commander Sh’ow informed me that you were not an Orion, as I thought you were, I looked up your species. Wind People are like cultural sponges. You absorb emotions, mannerism, speech, cultural norms, everything around you. I just am worried that this is something you have absorbed, without the coping mechanisms afforded the rest of us. Given the lack of psychiatric knowledge on hand regarding dealing with your species in post-traumatic periods, and that you are apparently the first to experience many things of your species, I became worried about you.”

“Doctor,” Ansha began, not sure what to say. “I… I am.. I can assure you that I am…” there was a long, heavy pause. Ansha’s lower lip quivered and her eyes welled up with green tinted tears. “I am not fine.”

“I know. I heard in your voice, Ansha”

“Can I just hate you for being right?”

“Yes,” Jeiliscia said, laughing. “If it helps, you do that, cherished sister.”

“I am not alright. I do not know what to do. I cannot take this anymore. I wish… I wish I was not here anymore, and feeling all this that I feel. I hate this sublime experience.”

“I know, Ansha. I know.”

“Then what should I do?” Ansha cried out.

“Well, first and foremost, Ansha, whatever you do, no matter how bad you feel, remember that we are put here to live a life, and that life is not always going to be easy. Living a life, a good life, an adventurous life where we are able to prove ourselves, where we can see, do, and experience everything this galaxy has to offer, is not without risk.”

“Remember also, that you have friends and family who love you. You have people here in Starfleet who respect you. You have life that is worthy of praise. Do not ever let that go. Be thankful that whatever deity you pray to, or even if you do not pray to any, fate I guess, has put you here, now, to live this wondrous life. It will get better, cherished sister. You have to believe me. It will. You need to be there for it when it does.”

“Now,” Jeiliscia continued, “I cannot make you go to counseling since you are not in my crew, but that is what I recommend. Do not wait. If you delay this will eat up from the inside and destroy you. Do not let it fester. Get a counselor there, or come back and get one here. Setup a session with your communicator so it will be seamless when you come back. Just get to counseling. Also, you know how to contact me. I will be happy to talk to you, even though I am technically tasked in dealing with things of a physical nature. Nonetheless, I am still a healer and this is a wound that needs healing.”

“Alright, alright, I will,” Ansha said as she wiped her face. “I am sorry about earlier, acting like I am the only one this has happened to. I do not know how others are so strong. I am… I am falling apart.”

“No need to apologize, sister. We all deal with these things differently. There is no shame in that. Do not feel like you have to compare your experiences to anyone else’s. Besides, putting on a brave face doesn’t constitute being strong. No one likes to talk about these things. The stigma is ridiculous. People feel like they are admitting to weakness when they admit to being distressed about loss. It is stupid. I for one will tell you, sister, you are not alone. I have walked that path. I will not let you or anyone else walk it alone.”

Ansha closed her eyes. “I will make an appointment for counseling, Jeiliscia. Thank you. I will call.”

“Alright, Ansha. Thank you for hearing me out. I will let you be. If you’d like, I can call you again, maybe in a few rotations?”

Ansha smiled. “Alright. I would like that, Jeiliscia.”

“Good. I would too. Goodbye, cherished sister. May the Mother Goddess bless you with clarity and strength.”

“Rab rakha, Jeiliscia.”

The line went dead. Ansha stared at the communicator for some time. Then her eyes moved to the poetry book on the table.

“..but I have promises to keep…,” she said underbreath in an older dialect of English.

She lifted the communicator to her mouth and said. “Get me the Deep Space Thirteen Counseling Department, please.”