The Underdesk world of Orin Sempton

Posted on Sun Mar 12th, 2023 @ 9:26am by Lieutenant Orin Sempton

454 words; about a 2 minute read

Computer, begin personal log.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEP BEEP

Personal Log, Orin Sempton. Stardate... I have no idea. I could find out, but that would require me exiting the safe haven under my desk, where I am currently hiding like I'm 6 again. Holding my legs, rocking back and forth like I'm afraid my father will burst in and drag me out to another site halfway across the world.

Lily asked me to dinner. A private dinner. I said yes. Why wouldn't I have? She's wonderful and funny and fantastic to talk to. And she probably just wants to talk more of my visible mental breakdown, just over dinner where I'll be calmer. Jokes on her. I'm wound so tightly right now you could attach me as a new permanent bracing for the warp core. I nearly passed out in the Turbolift after our talk, and I essentially crawled to my office where I proceeded to crawl under my desk to hide. Thankfully, no one saw me.

Stars above, what do I even wear? And I told her I'd bring dessert. What do I make? Something sweet? Savory? I think I still have the recipe for Constantine's baklava. He'd always make it before he and Dad had to go away again, looking for another forgotten piece of Terran history. Can't remember the last time I had it though. Must have been either before their trip to the lost villages in what was left of the Amazon, or that find in Sub-Saharan Africa. Had to be one of those, since Constantine didn't make it back from Antarctica two years later. Dad had to go document those old research stations. No matter what time, weather and World War Three had done to them. And to the land. I can still see Dad's face when he told us. Constantine was just there one minute and gone the next. An unknown crack in the glacier. Hard to get a transporter lock through 200 feet of ice. Dad taught for three years after that. Longest he's been in one place, I think. He's never been back to Antarctica. I don't think he can forgive himself.

None of this reminiscing is helping me answer my previous questions. Okay, not true, I'm making the baklava... If I can find the recipe.

I very much want to be on the Holodeck right now. Hand to hand combat is so much calmer. Less thinking and more doing something. Actually, it'd be nice to wax philosophy with Marcus Aurelius. His Meditations would be of some use to my current predicament. But if I go, I won't have time to clean up before everything.

Wait... Time. What time is it?

Qu'vatlh!

THUMP, CRASH

.... Owwwwww.

Computer, end log.

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