Marie's Mind – Reality is in the mind of the beholder
by Soghla' Marie St. Helene & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & HoD Ro' Matlh

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Title   Reality is in the mind of the beholder
Mission   Marie's Mind
Author(s)   Soghla' Marie St. Helene & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & HoD Ro' Matlh
Posted   Fri Feb 14, 2014 @ 12:39pm
Location   Marie and Tell's quarters
“Tell, I need to talk to you.”

Tell had her back towards Marie as she walked in to their quarters. The engineer was holding something up in the air that looked like a dress of some kind. "Have you seen this, Marie?." she asked,holding the outfit against her and twirling around with it. "Isn't this amazing. The colours seem to change with the light. I found it at this really great market stall. I bought a couple more too. I even bought one for you," she told Marie, pointing to the array of finely coloured outfits on the table. "Take your pick. I know you don't really wear things like that but on our next shore leave we could have a night out and wear them. We might attract some male attention because I don't know about you but there is not much of that happening on this bucket of bolts."

“No, please....”

"Rosezetta, that's the Xindi who owns the stall, even threw in two pairs of shoes to go with them at such a good price too. You can have a pair too if you like. She's offered me a good discount if I want to buy anything else too. Nearly bought a bag as well. I know what your thinking but I'm not much of a bag person, I think I'm much more of a shoe person to be honest with you. Which ones do you think go with this dress, the red or the blue?

"Apart from those things, got some other great deals too. I'll start work on upgrading the shower soon and declutter my workroom as I got a good deal on a storage unit and loads of stuff that'll be good for....."

“Tell!” Marie yelled.

"What?" the engineer replied, startled and as if noticing Marie for the first time since she walked in. "What? What's wrong."

Marie sat on her bunk. That outburst had drained her. She had to gather her courage around her again before she could start. “Tell, this is going to sound weird even by my standards.”

"We live and work on a Klingon ship; we see weird everyday. If you remember some of the things we've been through...."

“I keep having visions. I’m in some sort of hospital with a Vulcan doctor. No, make that a Vulcan psychiatrist. He keeps telling me the FHew isn’t real: that I’m living some kind of fantasy.”

"You should have taken the 'insanity test' I offered you a while back. I think the program is still around here somewhere. I can find it if you like." Tell reached out and not too lightly pinched Marie's arm. "There doesn't that feel real?"

“Ow! What was that for?” Marie rubbed at the sore spot on her arm.

"It didn't hurt that much." Tell replied sitting down next to her. "We could always try spacing you; without your suit, of course. That ought to work." Tell didn't get the reply or the returned attack that she expected from Marie. She stared long and hard at her friend. "What...you're not serious are you? Good grief you are, tell me more."

“I’m in some sort of institution...the Moonshadow Institute. This psychiatrist insists he’s trying to cure me; to bring me back to reality. He insists this....” She swung her arm in an all-encompassing arc. “....is a fantasy. He says that only by letting go of this can I be cured.”

"Don't take any notice of him, this is reality Marie, right here, you, me and the rest of the bunch on the rusty bucket we call home. I know easier said than done. But don't let go we've done to much together for you to fall off the planet."

Tell got up and retrieved her PADD. "There was something, I'll try and find it...oh here it is, knew I'd seen it somewhere. There was something about a transporter malfunction and it split the mind and the body of one of the officers on a Fleeter ship. Perhaps that's what happened to you."

“What, you mean like Thomas Riker but without a whole new body being formed? So...I’ve got two minds crammed into one skull? And I thought I had problems working out how one mind worked....”

"Also says here that some of the affects of transporters can cause people to hallucinate, that's only in rare and extreme cases though. There might have been a glitch in the transporter which would cause you to see things that aren't really there."

She looked intently into the eyes of her friend. "Marie is he here now?"