Saying Nothing At All

Posted on Wed Jan 12th, 2022 @ 10:32am by

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Starfleet Medical Campus
Timeline: Eighteen months ago
646 words - 1.3 OF Standard Post Measure

"So your parents named you Aspire To Go Lightly?" Jennifer asked. The curiosity emanating from her fellow nursing student would have been obvious to even a non-empath.

"Not exactly," Aspire answered. "I took the name Golightly from my great-grandfather."

"Your human ancestor," Ashraf interjected. Ashraf had been the first friend Aspire had made at nursing school, and had heard Aspire explain her unusual name to other students several times already. "The one you inherited your vocal chords from," Ashraf continued. Aspire nodded in agreement.

"Did that give you special status, being the only one in your community who could verbally talk?" Jennifer asked. It wasn't the first time the question had been asked of Aspire, but it still made her giggle.

"Not being able to communicate vocally isn't a handicap," Aspire said with a gentle laugh. "In a lot of ways, it's...well, I won't say non-verbal communication is superior to having to use vocal chords, but it's like...okay, take that blue sweater you're wearing," Aspire began, reaching over to touch Jennifer's sleeve.

"The one she's going to try to borrow from you when we go out this weekend," Ashraf added dryly, which made all three women laugh.

"If I was talking to my mother," Aspire continued, "I could send...for lack of a better word...a block if information, from what I was thinking just right before I first saw you wearing that sweater, what the material of the sweater felt like..."

"...How she's going to talk you into lending it to her this weekend," Ashraf interjected. The quip made all three women laugh.

"To how I'm going to talk you into leading me that sweater this weekend," Aspire allowed with a smile. "But I can pack a whole lot more in that message to my mother. Like how the color of your sweater might make me think of a favorite dessert, or if I ever thought a boy was cute because he had eyes the same color of your sweater...things like that."

"Can you pick all that up from me?" Jennifer asked. Aspire could feel a certain amount of awe and perhaps even a hint of panic from Jennifer. The last part Aspire could understand. Everyone wants to think they're safe with their own secrets behind their own eyes.

Aspire shook her head. "It's like...okay, you know Georges Seurat''s painting, Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte?

Jennifer and Ashraf shared a blank look, then turned back to Aspire and shook their heads.

"Seriously?" Aspire was clearly shocked. "You're both human, you both grew up on Earth, and you don't know the work that started the neo-impressionist movement?" Aspire waved her disbelief away. "Well, basically. with other Anjurwans, I can see the final details. With humans, I can only see the broad strokes. It's actually a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist of how things work. It's why when humans and Anjurwans communicate, it's with this weird pantomime pidgin thing. And those very, very few of us who were born with vocal chords...well, you would think we would be living Rosetta stones, but it doesn't work that way."

"And you can't communicate with other telepathic species at all, like Betazoids?" Ashraf asked.

"Just verbally," Aspire answered. "They can't read us, and we can't read them. No thoughts, no emotions, nothing. Something about how each of our species developed in different ways, I suppose."

"That still doesn't explain how you got a name like Aspire To Go Lightly," Jennifer interrupted.

"Well, my middle name isn't T-O, it's T-E-W," Aspire began, "Which means---"

Aspire's answer was interrupted by all three of their PADDs beeping.

"Which means," Ashraf said, "That we got to be at our Microbiology study group in ten minutes."

The other two nodded and hurried in the direction of their study session.