"The Park"

Diena Taylor (1997)

Okay, it's not RoseGardens, but I was looking through my old floppy disks and I found this. It was probably the first vignette I ever wrote in the seaQuest universe, so I polished it up and now I'm letting you read it. A version of this was on my webpage for a while, but this is a different, longer version of that. Anyways.... enjoy. :)

*Disclaimer: Lucas' point of view belongs to Universal and Amblin entertainment, and I'm not using it for profit. I'm just using it to warp the character to suit my own personal needs

"The Park"

Diena Taylor (1997)

I went to a park last week when I was on shore leave. I hadn't been to a park since I was seventeen, but that one didn't count. It wasn't really a park, and we weren't there for fun. It had been a sand pit with a slide and a swing set and a see-saw. No grass, and the equipment was rusted. It was depressing, actually. Dagwood didn't seem to understand what was going on when we went there, and truthfully, neither did I. I'm pretty sure Tony wasn't all that sure himself, even though he was the one who led us there. Dag was fascinated by the swings, I remember him saying something about fathers being good at pushing their kids on swings.

I remember going to another park with my dad once - probably the last day I ever spent with him when we weren't fighting. I was about five, I guess, and he pushed me on the swings. he pushed me so high I thought I'd fly over the bar. silly, of course. Now I know that's virtually a scientific impossibility, but I didn't when I was five. That was also the last time I remember that he told me he loved me. He seemed so happy, so alive. Like nothing would ever change between us, like everything would stay the same forever. But that was before his project, before his work took away that sparkle that I so admired in him. I'm not sure if I admire him so much anymore. He was dedicated, sure, but not to us, not to his family. That first became clear when he and Mom started fighting. I mean, really fighting. I used to sit upstairs in my room, just hoping one of them would lose their voice, and I wouldn't have to listen to them shouting at each other anymore. Then Dad, darling, loving Dad, sent me to the seaQuest. I hated him for that; I hated him for a long time for that. He took away my entire life, everything I had ever hoped for, gone, and there had been nothing I could do about it. Nothing but adapt, and make friends like Ben, Captain Bridger, Miguel, and Darwin, of course. And then later on Brody, Tony, and Dagwood. They were what helped me keep a grip on reality, kept me from losing what little sanity I seemed to have. Captain Bridger had just lost a son, and I had just lost a father, so we were sort of meant to be together, like fate, if there is such a thing. If there is, it has one weird sense of humor.

I sat on the grass and took in the sun's warm rays for a while - God I miss the sun. Artificial lighting on a submarine is no substitute, no matter how "realistic" they may market it as. Artificial lighting doesn't have that warm kind of glow that the sun has, and artificial lighting can't give me a tan. I want a tan so badly; I've become so pale since I enlisted. I guess it's because I get off the seaQuest less now. I can't come and go anymore, like I could, and Hudson isn't one to grant a lot of shore leave. I very rarely get out above the surface, even when we do have shore leave. We usually dock at some underwater facility and some of us get a few days' liberty. Hudson usually finds stuff for me to do instead of going, though. He's got a weird sense of humor too, as most of us have already found out. Especially Tony, who Hudson seems to have taken a liking to. Their relationship is almost like the one Bridger and I have - had.

I finally got some shore leave, and I took the Stinger to the surface, spending a day sleeping in the hotel, and today walking around, just happy to be away for a few days. Being in the Navy is tiring, and any chance to rest is always welcome for me. Even if that "rest" means I'm trying to get to where I'm going in a crowded city. I got to the park by accident - the taxi let me off at the wrong street, but I found that fate was playing another bizarre joke. I stayed at the park.

There were children in the park that day, playing catch, and laughing, and being children. How I wanted - still want - to be one of them; carefree and happy, no worries. I'm laughing now, picturing me with no worries. I doubt there was a time in my life when I wasn't worrying about something. But I still want to be a child, with a warm and loving family to come home to after school. I never had that, even when I was a child. I was never allowed to be a child, and there was never a warm and loving family to come home to, except that one time when I was five. That had been the happiest year of my life, but after that there was just fighting and yelling. And college. There was always college. I'm just glad Stanford was in California and I didn't have to put up with my parents' fighting all the time - only when I came back for vacations. Those were the times I found myself staying out late with my friends, just to get out of the house some more. But I had some warped sort of freedom back then. No one cared where I went, or what I did, as long as I was doing well in school.

I watched these children with a growing pain in the pit of my stomach, because it was then I realized that I could never ever have those years back. Not the ten years I was on Hyperion, and not the countless years I spent in school when I should've been acting like a child, not an adult. I suppose I'm making up for it now, wanting to live on the wild side, thinking I'm invincible, that nothing can hurt me. I wish that was true. But from all my experience, I am fully aware of my own mortality. Or maybe it's because I'm still mentally a teenager. Either way, I've lost so many years and now I'm in the Navy and I'm going to lose even more. I've already signed on for four years, and I'll probably be pressured to sign on for more after that time is up. I never thought I'd be career Navy, but that's what I seem to be turning into. I had to, though, to stay on the seaQuest, to stay in my home. Fourteen years is a long, long time. I wonder if anyone remembers me anymore. Julianna, Nick, Chloe, and even Sandra. What are they all doing now? Do they think I'm dead? Do they even remember me? I suppose it doesn't matter if they do or don't: I've got a new life now, I'm a totally different person, my past is gone, there are very few reminders of my past that still remain.

The children started playing "war", with some of them playing as the UEO and some as Macronisians. Their innocence about what they were playing simply added to the impact I felt. These children would, undoubtedly, be a part of the real war someday, and they'll find it is nowhere near as glamorous as they make it out to be in their stories and games. Children are so impressionable. If they see war romanticized on a vid, or if a parent speaks fondly of a war, they will think that war is the best thing in the world. The children I was watching were too young to know that what they were doing was a complete contradiction to real life. Real war isn't romantic, isn't fun, people die, and there is rarely such a thing as "just a flesh wound." The enemy doesn't fire seventy shots, all of them missing the hero, while the hero and the "good guys" escape from the enemy camps and save the day. Brody died in the war, and so did Freddy: they were the closest to heroes I had ever known, and no one missed them when they were being shot at. Stupid deaths, pointless. War itself is pointless, but I don't think that's the right mentality for a soldier to have. And that's what I am now, isn't it? A soldier? Hudson seems to think so, and I guess I want to believe that I am, that I can do something that no one else thought I could do.

Captain Bridger was shocked when he learned I enlisted. Disappointed, too, I guess. Robert was in the Navy, and no one knows where he is. Bridger told me that I was like his son, and I guess he doesn't want to lose me to the Navy too. He seemed so hurt when he first saw me in uniform, like I had taken away a part of him. I guess maybe I had. His entire visit that time was cold and basically impersonal. He yelled at me, because I had changed, and I yelled back at him because he had changed. We had drifted apart, and it was suddenly clear we were no longer the team we had once been. Yet another weird parallel to my relationship with my own father. It hurt so badly to find that we no longer agreed, that we both had gone our separate ways. The same thing happened with Ben. Everyone I used to be friends with are no longer fighting on my side, our lives no longer intertwined with one another's the way they used to. It's like I've been reincarnated after Hyperion, as someone completely different than who I used to be. I'm sure Tony has noticed it too. I've changed, he's changed, everyone has changed so drastically, it's scary. And painful.

It's hard to coherently express what this feels like, the weight of it, the constant pain of knowing that nothing will ever be the same, the way it once was, ever again. It can't be the same, not after ten years have been lost to us, not after everyone here on Earth had, or has, given up on us. I don't know how I'm coping, but somehow I, and everyone else, is doing just that. Somehow things are. well, not rosy. Bearable. Things are bearable. Despite everything that's happened, despite the pain, the anger, the frustration of starting a whole new life, everything is pretty much okay. I think it's strange that I'm handling everything so well. Maybe it's because part of me wants this new life. I'm not sure, but I do know that another part of me wants things to be the way they were.

I went back to the hotel feeling strangely invigorated, but with a heaviness in my heart that I know now will never go away. I had to write something, but now I wonder why I'm even doing so. Is it because the pain I'm feeling is so strong that I need to do something before I go insane? Have I already gone insane, and that's why I think everything's all right even when the universe is falling apart, or seems to be? Or is it because I want someone to find out how I feel? Will anyone even find this after I put it in my desk? Maybe when I die, and someone comes to clear out my quarters they'll find it and read it, and figure it out. But either way, the words are written and that's another thirty minutes of my life down the drain.

*~*~*~
The Labyrinth
http://www.crossroads.net/~dienataylor