Cardassian Sunrise
"The story I'm going to tell you, my little ones, is something I experienced, when I was young.", Tirin began her account. "It happened exactly a hundred years ago, in a very different time. ", she looked into the faces of her young audience. "I'm sure, your teacher has told you about that time, about the Dominion, about the rebellion and what we commemorate on this holiday, today?" They were a class of pupils, maybe in third grade, but what were they taught in third grade today? As the teacher slightly nodded, she assumed it was on the curriculum. The older she became, the harder it was for her to guess the age of little children. "It is not a story of heroes and it is not a story of sacrifices, it is just a plain and simple story to illustrate, to spur your imagination, to add a facet to what you already know and maybe even teach you."
"It was a different time, but the same place.", Tirin looked around, taking in her surroundings. The dark green patches of sturdy desert grass. The reddish, yellow, white and orange colors of lichens spreading over sand-coloured blocks of stone, arranged between the footpaths. And the small but immaculately cared for beds of flowers, which were surrounded by shrubs to protect them from the hot wind. "No.", she quietly corrected herself. "Even the same place was very different."
This park lay in the heart of the city. Once it had been one of the oldest and densely populated districts. A district like a town of its own. Bustling day and night with business and leisure, young and old, students and businesspeople, workers and bureaucrats.
Now, the sole reminders were the footpaths, retracing the old streets, and the three spires of the old assembly hall, which had been left standing. Twisted and torn they were the only structure that had survived the attack. In their middle, where once an orator would have been standing on his podium, a polished black stone was set into the ground, inscribed with a single date – exactly one hundred planetary cycles around the sun ago.
Not wanting to stress her audience's exemplary patience – no doubt, a wonderful achievement of their teacher – Tirin allowed herself one last moment of contemplation, closed her eyes and felt the warm rays of the afternoon sun on her face, a grateful smile on her lips, like every time, when age and health allowed her another enjoyable day.
"As I said, I was much younger." Tirin's gaze returned to the children. "Well, not as young as you are. I was in my last year at school and prepared to start my training as a medic at the university afterwards. You all know, what a university is, do you?", she asked, to be certain. "Yes, it's that building over there.", a young boy jumped up and pointed towards a large building at the southern fringe of the park. "Yes it is. Very good.", Tirin smiled. "And do you know, what it is for, Mekru?", she read his name on the sign attached to the front of his school uniform, certainly to identify him in case he got lost. "It is a big school for when you are big and grown-up. Our teacher says, even grown-ups have to learn because learning never stops." Tirin's smile got bigger. "Your teacher is a wise man.", she nodded approvingly to the man, who could have been one of her grandchildren. "When you are grown-up and have learned everything at school, you can go to a university. But unlike at school you study just one subject instead of many, so you can become a specialist in it. And I chose to study medicine, to cure ill people and heal wounded."
"My family, relatives and whoever visited us lived in one big house. Sometimes we were over fifteen people living together. On that special day, a hundred years ago, it was me, my mother, grand-mother, aunt and uncle and my three little sisters and two little brothers. My brothers were about your age, they are twins." Twins were quite rare back then, now it happened more often, although in most cases due to fertility treatments. "Our house stood on the mountainside, over there.", she pointed to the west, where there were houses clinging to the steep incline, their sandstone facades blending into the barren face of the mountainside. "It was a long way to go down to the city, to school or even to the next transit stop, so everyone had to leave early to start his business. Oh, I often wished, we could use a transporter, like when my father returned to his warship after shore leave. He just stepped out into the courtyard and … bzzzzzing… was back at work." By now, Tirin had used a transporter several times and knew exactly how it worked, but for her a transporter was still surrounded with an air of magic.
"But no, such comforts would certainly have pampered and eventually weakened us, so we got up at sunrise, I made breakfast for everyone and woke up my siblings, to oversee that they ate their breakfast, brushed their teeth and got ready for school." Her eyes wandered over the boys and girls sitting and kneeling on the ground before her, looking healthy, good-nurtured and clean. "I'm sure it is the same today, isn't it?", she mused.
"However, that morning was different. All the adults were already up before the sun had risen. Someone had already packed baskets with food and put them on the kitchen table. At first I thought, we were going for a surprise picnic. Because…", she hesitated a moment, an idea had crossed her mind. She looked at a girl with blue eyes and two cute braids curled over her ears, who was listening attentively. "What did you eat for breakfast today, my sweet one?", Tirin asked the girl. "I had cereal mash.", she answered, bewildered. "With berries."
"You see.", Tirin went on. "It was the same back then. We also ate cereals for breakfast, but when I looked into those baskets I saw dried fish, bread, meat pie, fruits and sweet pickles... We weren't starving, but we had sparsely to eat, so you would never ever have had this all for breakfast. I had seen such baskets full of delicious food only twice in my life before, when we had gone to a picnic, so when I saw my mother I flew around her neck, shouting: 'We're going on a picnic. Thank you, mommy.' And I kissed her on her cheek. She hugged me, but when I saw her sad smile, I knew, something was wrong.", Tirin's happy face slowly became sadder and she could see her expression mirrored in the pupils' faces.
"She hugged back me very strongly and then looked into my eyes. For a while she said nothing, but I could see a wet glimmer in the corners of her eyes. Do you know, how terrible it is to feel, that your mother is sad?" She looked around, but most of the children silently denied. "It grips your heart and then ties a knot around it.", Tirin put her hand on her chest, just over her heart and clenched it into a fist. "Tighter and tighter until you hear your heart hammering and you can hardly breathe." She inhaled, deep and slow, to get rid of this memory. "It makes me happy to see, that you don't know this feeling and I wish you will never experience it."
"So, when she let go of me, she spoke, her voice somber and steady." Tirin tried to imitate her mother's voice and mood. "Tirin, today is a very special day, a day that will either go down in our history or will mark the end of it. You know, that me, … we all have been active for weeks, doing things and holding meetings, that we kept hidden from you." Tirin looked at the children. "Certainly it hadn't escaped me.", she said jokingly. "Being young doesn't mean you are stupid. I think you can confirm that.", she added with a conspiratorial smile, which earned her some giggles.
Then she adopted her mother's face and voice once more. "It was for your own safety. And for your own safety I will not tell you even now, what it was about. Because we cannot be sure that there won't be someone coming to you, asking questions." Tirin knew back then, that 'someone, who will ask you questions', was a very euphemistic description, even if she didn't fully grasp what it meant for the one being questioned. Now, she knew what it and decided, it was nothing for those young ears to hear. "'I know you are a good girl, I know you knew your Citizens' Oath by heart when you were three years old and have ever since recited it every morning at school.', my mother said. 'Until now, those were only words for you. But today you will deliver your promise.'"
Tirin looked gravely into the faces of the pupils. "I know you still recite this oath every morning at school, don't you?", her eyes, colored the same steely grey as her hair, shot a questioning look towards the teacher. "Yes, we do, Professor Partak ", he answered quickly. "The same words you spoke over a hundred years ago." "Good." Tirins smile grew broad with satisfaction. "And therefore I know, you can repeat this one line my mother cited to me." She paused for a moment. "… Cardassia, I dedicate my life to you, to your children, to serve and protect…", she paused and let it sink, waiting until little lips stopped moving as they silently repeated her words. "It was my time to serve and protect."
***
Especially since she was a child back then.
(And if it is, can we trust the narrator?)
