PNPC Vedek Hamsan Dwich — Hamsanity

[Kali Nicholotti]

And now, for an entirely different kind of Sandwich...

(( Hamsan & Sirin’s Quarters, Deck 4, USS Resolution ))

Dwich hated the chair he was sitting in.  It was awkward and made him feel like he was leaning halfway back to the floor, with nowhere to put his legs or rest his arms.  After Dr. Genkos Adea’s experimental treatment failed to produce any results, he had taken some additional scans and sent Dwich home.  Home.  These quarters, which he’d never seen before today, were his.  And Meidra’s.

He felt like an interloper, having been given access to a stranger’s residence.  The idea that he’d be sent back to the quarters he shared with a woman he’d never met before today struck him as a tad inappropriate, for both of them.  He wondered whether the familiar setting was by design, to shock his system with the comforts of home and “fix” him.  He didn’t like it.  Everyone he had encountered on this ship so far made it seem like it was just a failure of memory, an amnesia from which he would one day awaken.  That wasn’t it.  He wasn’t the person they were looking for.  He wasn’t their Hamsan Dwich.

But, he did have their Hamsan Dwich’s DNA and voiceprint, which gave him access to the library computer and allowed him to read up on himself.  It was fascinating reading, and after scanning his biography in detail, Dwich was able to pinpoint the exact moment when they went from being the same person, to diverging.  In the summer of 2388, Dwich was just 19 years old, spending his fifth summer in a row living and working with the ranjens at Kaiett Monastery.  At the end of his stay, he was told that his pagh was meant to walk this path, and he was welcomed into the brotherhood of the faithful.  He had remained on the property ever since, a decade of study and meditation and prayer, of devoting his life to the service of the Prophets.

The other Dwich had not been so lucky.  Evidently, even though they were the same person, the other Dwich’s pagh was not meant for a life of religious contemplation, and he was sent away from the Monastery, never to return.  After a period of drifting, working various odd jobs in tourist traps all across the Quadrant, he had somehow ended up on Earth’s moon, working at a hospital before beginning a career in Starfleet.  After arriving on Resolution, he met Meidra Sirin and the two began a relationship.  They dated, they fell in love, they moved in together.  She even broke his arm once.

Dwich was processing all of this when the doors opened and Meidra entered their shared living space.  He had helped many people deal with their grief, and he could tell that Meidra was still in the “not handling it well” phase.  She put on a smile and greeted him, her pleasant tone of voice an ill-fitting mask.

Sirin: How are you feeling? 

Hamsan:  As well as can be expected.  ::beat::  I know this must be difficult for you.  Dr. Adea sent me here, but I can easily go somewhere else if––

Sirin: No, these are still your quarters unless you intend to see Lieutenant Yalu to be reassigned. There is another bedroom on the other side of our bathroom. I can move into that one and you’ll have your privacy.

Dwich resisted the urge to shake his head.  These are still your quarters.  Everyone was still expecting him to awaken from this ordeal, as if it were a dream.  It was more like a nightmare.  Dwich had spent his entire adult life studying the words of the Prophets, but there was nothing he could think of that would soothe the pain she was feeling.  The silence needed to be filled with something, and Dwich could only form an apology.

Hamsan:  Meidra, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry I don’t know you.  And I’m sorry that Dwich, your Dwich, isn’t here.

Dwich’s apology was sincere, but it also served a secondary, more calculated purpose: he felt a responsibility to himself not to be bound by the expectation to be everyone else’s Hamsan Dwich.  Yes, they had been the same person up to a point, but after a decade of diverging paths and paghs, they were completely different individuals.  Even if he tried, every day for the rest of his life, he could never be Meidra’s Hamsan Dwich.

Sirin: I’ll be around if you would like to talk, but forgive me. I need to meditate before this headache makes me ill.

Meidra moved quickly away, saying nothing more, and Dwich knelt on the floor to pray for guidance as the soft sounds of a stranger crying in the next room carried over the stale, recycled air.

 

End scene for Hamsan

 

PNPC Vedek Hamsan Dwich
Vedek, Kaiett Monastery
Dakhur Province, Bajor

simmed by

Lieutenant Yogan Yalu
Helm Officer
USS Resolution NCC-78145