“Step forward, Five.” His voice was jarringly gentle and a half‑smile replaced the blank mask. Five just stared at him, the spittle dripping from his face with the sweat. He behaved as if the docent had spoken an alien tongue. The mixed signals had confused us all.

“Stand in front of me,” Calyx motioned. Five was compact, and his trained, athletic body moved carefully in anticipation of a trick. He stopped in front of Calyx, whose half‑smile revealed broken and missing teeth.

“I want you to get me off of my place without losing yours,” Calyx explained. Five seemed transfixed by the half‑smile; I wasn’t sure he’d understood the request. I wasn’t sure I’dunderstood. We remained in formation while they stood facing each other. This standoff lasted forever. Five wavered, but he held his position, never taking his eyes off Calyx. My entire body was by now screaming in pain.

The Pit was in the far corner, away from the other training areas. Each was cut off by a barrier, so you couldn’t really see what was going on in adjoining areas. Voices and sounds would drift in and out of awareness. My mind wandered. I was sure that I heard sounds of the women students gusting with the winds. Suddenly mother materialized . . . she looked like she was apologizing. I wanted to tell her how much I missed her, but her image dissolved and . . .Father took her place. I knew he was telling me something very important, but I was growing dizzy and afraid that I’d join Six on the ground . . . his words were carried away by the winds. Father faded, and gradually I became aware of a figure entering from the right side of my peripheral vision. He was dressed in the student black and green, moving slowly across . . . No! Shewas dressed . . . in the classic long skirts. This was against the rules. What was she doing here? She glided into full view and stood between Calyx and Five. The dry Mekar winds billowed her skirts and whipped her purple‑black hair, obscuring her face. Did anyone else see her? I wanted to look around, to have my vision corroborated, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She stopped and returned my look. Her hair whipped behind her, exposing her unguarded eyes. She said something . . . but again I couldn’t hear the words. I moved to her. She was radiant . . . I was drawn to her. . . . Everything else fell into shadow, as if I were moving through a tunnel. . . .

“Where are you going, Ten? You’re losing your place.” It was the Gruff Voice from the storeroom. My female vision reacted to the voice and looked in the direction from where it came. I followed her look, and just as I began to discern the outline of another person–tall, graceful, an emerging negative image of a picture–I experienced an icy, painful spasm that pulled me back to the Pit. It was as if my heart had been crushed in a strong grip. I staggered and nearly fell.

“You look lost, Ten.” I turned to the voice, which now was familiar and no longer gruff. It was Calyx, and I was standing in front of him. What happened to Five? I wanted to look. I wanted to look for the young woman. For the Gruff Voice. But I didn’t dare take my eyes away from Calyx.

“Did you see them or hear them?” he asked. I hesitated, wondering how he knew.

“Both,” I replied.

“Did you recognize them?”

“My . . . parents. Not the other two.” Someone behind me started to laugh, but Calyx stopped him with a look.

“The other two. Is that when you lost your place?” I nodded. His questions were softly asked, almost kindly. I don’t know why I wasn’t surprised that he knew. Instead, I was grateful; it told me I wasn’t going mad.

“You have your work cut out, Ten.”

I nodded again as if some part of me understood what he meant.

“Are you up to this? Can you learn to hold your place?”

I just stared back at him not knowing how to respond. Softly he blew two acrid breaths into my eyes and, blinded, I stumbled back.

“Can you even finda space to hold?” he asked.

I came back to my sweating body and felt totally exhausted and beaten. We were dismissed, and I watched everyone move away. I had no idea of what had just happened to me. My work was cut out, Calyx had told me: I had to find my space and hold it. How do I even begin?

7

And how do we even begin to rebuild a world that doesn’t exist anymore? A world that exists in my mind with the same arid bitterness as the dust in my mouth. I have never lived with despair, Doctor, the way I live with it now. It’s almost like a phantom companion that shadows me and casts doubt on whatever I do.

“Why save him?” it asks, as we remove a young boy from the rubble of a school. “You’re only keeping him alive for a future of privation and chaos. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying to join the burial unit?”

I want to scream at this phantom, to shut it up. Once I turned around suddenly and raised my hand to strike it. When I realized it wasn’t there, it was too late. Everyone in the unit was looking at me; I’m sure I must have looked like a madman. Dr. Parmak tried to send me home, but I refused–alone it’s even worse. He offered me a relaxant, and I put it in my pocket.

“Later,” I said. “It’ll make me drowsy now.” And we continued to dig for more children.

When I returned to my shed, a rare rain was falling. I was chilled to the bone. I found the last of my rokassajuice and settled in front of the open door. I removed the pill Dr. Parmak had given me and I swallowed it with a gulp of juice. I watched the rain mix with the hazy dust and turn everything into a muddy swamp. As my muscles relaxed, figures began to emerge from the haze and take shape. They stood there–indistinct, silent–turned toward me as if awaiting my instructions or decision. There was nothing threatening about them; indeed, they were only the outlines of childlike bodies, standing patiently. My despair was finally in abeyance, and I experienced a relaxation I hadn’t known for a long time. I began to think that they were my old Bamarren schoolmates, and I wanted to speak to them, to welcome them back into my life. Yes, I thought, relief from the horror. I must get more of these pills from Parmak. As I tried to put faces on the shadowy children, they began to approach me. They became more distinct as they moved through the rain and haze. Can you believe it, Doctor? They weren’t my schoolmates; they were the Cardassian orphans from the Resettlement Center on Bajor we once visited. The orphans left after the Cardassian occupation forces withdrew. The same young girl was their leader and her lips formed the same question.

Have you come to take us home?

I jumped up. I felt the shed closing in, threatening to swallow me. I ran out into the rain and gloom.

“There is no home anymore! Can’t you see that? Look around you! It’s gone!” I screamed at them and fell to my knees in the sodden waste. They continued to stare back with that same look of fragile trust that I would somehow relieve them of their fear and bring them home. I couldn’t look at them anymore and dropped down into the muck. My despair was no longer just a voice; it was this monstrous world the evil had created, and it surrounded and overwhelmed me.

I don’t know how long I remained curled up in the mud. I felt myself being lifted and half carried, half dragged back into my shed. It was Dr. Parmak. He cleaned and changed me as best he could. He prepared a cup of Tarkalean tea, which made me think of you, Doctor. How ironic, another doctor pulls old Elim out of the muck of his despair, but this time he’s a Cardassian. Parmak offered me another pill, but I declined.

“I’m afraid they don’t react well with me,” I explained.

“I understand,” he said.

I wondered–did he? Did he understand that I have to live with this brutal reality–live in it!–without hope of a cheap escape? Just as I learned to live on Deep Space 9 without the wire that anesthetized my pain. The same harsh lesson. I’m sure he did. After all, he has to live here, too. And he’s a doctor. A Cardassian doctor.