by M. R. Holman
your commands aboard the ship. At first I thought it was just Starship Delirium… that it would go away in time or when we reached the next port, but it never did. You got wilder and wilder and no one would listen to me when I suggested that you should be mentally evaluated... They knew I was ambitious. I think that they assumed I wanted your position for myself. You were paranoid, Tom. Some paranoia is acceptable for a captain of a starship, it comes with the job, but this... This was different. You kept referring to a 'snake in the grass'..."
Captain Tom had a vivid mental image of the snake he had seen in the grassy clearing and in his cell. How it had glared at him. How it had followed him. How it had spoken to him. How he knew the snake...
"You sent a battalion on an absurd mission to defend the ship against a long-shot threat. The possibilities of you being wrong were astronomical, but you swung your weight and sent them anyways. You told us you knew something that we didn't, that you had seen and even spoken to the threat."
Captain Tom closed his eyes. "What happened?" he asked after a moment, fearing the worst.
When he opened his eyes, Helena was looking down at the people walking below the balcony. Her eyes were out of focus as she nodded her head forward. "They all died."
Captain Tom released Helena's hand. He put his elbows against the rail and leaned over. As he laid eyes on each individual below, they disappeared.
"When I heard what had happened, I ordered that you be taken to the brig. I was devastated due to the tragedy, but I knew you would finally get the help you so desperately needed."
Captain Tom's eyes filled to the brim as the last person below them vanished when his gaze fell upon them. The vast promenade below them was now completely still and silent.
Helena gripped him around the elbow as she continued. "I told them not to tell you... I told them to just take you to the brig, but the guards were furious. When one of them told you what had happened," she paused, wiping her eyes with her free hand and taking a deep shuddering breath. "You broke free. You broke free in the hall leading to the brig. You ran to this balcony, and..." Helena stopped speaking. Her grief seemed to be beyond tears now. Her gaze shifted away from Captain Tom. Though she was looking at nothing in particular, it was clear that she was seeing a great deal. "And you jumped... Right here.... Right in front of me. This is where you tried to take your own life."
A tear fell from Captain Tom's eye and he watched it fall through the air and splatter on the floor far beneath them. His heels throbbed as he rocked his weight onto them, unable to look over the edge any longer. Helena, apparently satisfied that he would not jump again, released her grip from around his elbow. For a long time, the two of them stood in silence, looking out at the deserted promenade of the starship.
“My heels…” Captain Tom said as the pain resonated up his legs.
“You landed on your feet and then crumpled to the ground like a shattering glass bottle. I’ll never forget it.” Her gaze had not shifted. It was obvious that she reliving the moment. Captain Tom wondered how many times she had watched him leap from the balcony since it had happened.
"It's a shame what happened, but it's over. Your treatment is already working wonders for you," Helena said, taking his hand once again. Her apparent reverie was broken and her focus was on Captain Tom once more.
"How can you tell?" he asked, perplexed.
"I’ve seen the treatment. I’ve spoken to the doctors… Besides, your voice, your eyes, your general appearance... You seem like the Captain Tom I knew, not the one who doomed that battalion and leapt from this balcony, but the one that led thousands and captained a prosperous starship throughout our galaxy. The one who was my role model and my hero from the day I boarded this starship."
"I wish I could remember that..." Captain Tom said, looking away from her. His throat had begun to constrict and burn as he tried to withhold and bury his sadness and regret.
"You will... In time. Come with me," Helena said, releasing his hand.
She began to walk toward the corridor that housed his cell. They paused when they reached the cell that displayed his name on the placard. The snake sat coiled around itself on the floor. Its neck rose from the center of the coil and surveyed Captain Tom as he approached. It gazed at him and tasted the air before lowering lazily back into its coil.
"It was that real to you?" she asked in bewilderment, not taking her eyes from the now slumbering snake.
"I'm afraid that it was..." he replied. "Let's go. Don't even acknowledge it."
As they neared the end of the hall, the man with the clipboard appeared. Captain Tom read the name Dr. Mitchell on his white coat. Dr. Mitchell looked up from his clipboard and eyed Captain Tom suspiciously before turning to Helena.
"Are you sure it's time, Captain Helena?" the man in the white coat asked.
"It's time. He's ready. He hasn't made peace yet, but he's on well on his way."
"And the snake?" the doctor asked, making a note on his clipboard.
"Confined and dying," Helena said.
"Good, good. You have a valuable ally in Captain Helena, Mr. Tomlinson."
"I'm rediscovering that," Captain Tom said, puzzled.
"This way," Dr. Mitchell said, extending his arm to indicate the passage leading to the right.
Helena and Captain Tom walked down the hallway, past a row of vacant rooms. They were in the hospital section of the starship. They reached a room that had two guards posted on either side of the door and Helena paused. Neither of the guards acknowledged Tom or Helena.
"I can't go in with you," Helena said.
"What? Why not?" he asked her in a pleading tone.
"Because it’s time for me to go. Besides, I'm already in there," she said, nodding at the gap between the hulking bodies of the guards. It was true. Captain Helena stood at the bedside of a person whose head and legs were heavily bandaged. It was Captain Tom’s body.
Captain Tom looked from the Helena standing beside him, to the Helena in the hospital room standing beside his unconscious body. They were identical.
“Wait, if I’m there, then why did I wake up in the brig? And why am I also here? I'm still very confused as to the nature of our current forms..." Captain Tom said hesitantly as he peered between the guards.
"I can't help you there, Tom," Helena said with the ghost of a grin on her face. "Listen to me," she said as she gripped her hand around his elbow. As she did so, Captain Tom saw one of the doctors insert a needle into the vein at the bend of his elbow on his unconscious body. "Just focus on getting well, alright? Things are going to be OK. I'm on your side in this." She released his elbow as the doctor in the hospital room withdrew the needle from his arm.
"What is going to happen to me? If I recover, I mean?" Captain Tom asked nervously.
"You're going to recover. You just need time. And when you recover, there will be a trial. Don’t be scared. Like I said, I'm on your side. After the trial, if you so choose, I’d like to keep you on staff in an advisor capacity. But your captaincy is over, Tom. For good. Do you understand?"
Captain Tom nodded his head in acknowledgement and reached for Helena's hand. He saw as he did so, that the Helena in the hospital room had taken his bandaged hand in her own. He squeezed gently and saw his fingers struggle in the next room while Helena looked down at him.
"I'm sorry... About all of this." Captain Tom said as he released Helena's hand.
"Don't apologize for what others ignored until it was too late. Get well, Tom," she said, turning to leave him at the hospital door.
"Wait," he called out, looking from Helena's retreating back to his motionless form on the hospital bed. He had one final question. "What do I.... I mean, when will I... which isn't to say him, or me, rather," he said in utter confusion as he motioned from himself to his body lying on the hospital bed. "What happens to..." He did not want to say 'me' since ‘me’ could also refer to the body lying in the other room. He compromised by pointing at his chest.
Helena
looked as though she was trying not to laugh. "When it's time for you to go, you'll go. And then you'll be gone. And then you'll just be Tom again. Only Tom."
Captain Tom nodded although he was not sure that he completely understood. He resigned to the fact that he either would in time, or he would not at all. Before he entered the room, he looked back to Captain Helena one more time, but she was gone. Captain Tom entered the room and sat by his body, willing himself to heal mentally and physically as he felt the pressure of Helena’s hand holding his own across the room.
“The physical recovery is going to take a while, but we’ve almost completely isolated his mental issue… It should just be another moment or two before he wakes,” the doctor said to Helena. A moment passed and Captain Tom faded away from his seat by his own body. Tom stirred on his hospital bed and his eyes opened. He stared blearily at Helena. He looked down at their joined hands and silently rejoiced. He no longer felt distance in the touch of his ally. The snake in the grass was gone for good.
The Titanic Columns
A gargantuan tower loomed beneath a perpetually grey and raining sky. The structure swayed minutely despite the absence of wind. It had been erected long before recorded history.
A group of titans and titanesses, fathers and mothers of the gods who followed them, were sentenced to forever serve as the columns which held up the thick slabs of marble which constituted each floor of the
