The Other Simon Tam
Just over 500 words.
Seated in the pristine and well lit infirmary, Simon Tam was sometimes able, for brief moments, to almost believe he had never left the hospital. If he sat at the counter with his back to the hatch leading to the cargo bay and if he didn’t look too far to the right or left, if he stared only at the chart or printout in front of him, he could almost convince himself he was writing treatment notes in the lab. Almost. Because what he didn’t seem to be able to do was recapture the feeling of what it was like to be him when he had done those things. That feeling, of complete control of himself and his environment that used to permeate him when he was on duty, was gone. It had been stolen from him. He spent a considerable portion of some days trying to determine exactly who the culprit was who had stolen the entire person he had been in the before. It made a change from trying to figure out how to get back what they had stolen from River
The truth was that he had begun to have doubts that the Dr. Simon Tam, trauma surgeon of Capital City, on the world of Osirus, ever really existed. He never doubted that he was a doctor. It was the thing he was born to be. But not on Osirus. Not in the Core. And not for his parents and the social order they upheld at the cost of their only daughter’s freedom and sanity.
He’d been a preternaturally solemn child. His brilliant mischievous sister was the only one who could pull him out of his solemnity. Even in the before it had always been he and River. She could make him drop his schoolwork to play at Alliance and Independents, even with the silliness of dinosaurs thrown in. Her gentle ridicule had made his childhood tolerable, even memorably sweet. He remembered the expedition to the Camberson’s to find giant hodgeberries had been time stolen from an organic chemistry assignment. The memories were bright as the kingfisher’s that nested near the river that ran through their estate, full of color and motion and joy. They stood out like jewels from the background of his life. All gone, stolen, like her innocence and the last of her childhood.
It seemed his life was filled with theft of one sort or another. But he was slowly beginning to realize that not being the other Simon Tam was the price he had paid to have River back in his life. He didn’t really know what it would cost him when he started his quest to find her. But to reclaim her he had to give away everything that he was in the before. He’d liked to think that if he’d been told then that he’d have to give everything he had and everything he was, he would still have done it. He liked to think it, but he couldn’t be sure. He was only sure that if someone told him today that if he gave away everything they had now-here-on Serenity, then he could have his old life back; he would refuse.
Seated in the pristine and well lit infirmary, Simon Tam was sometimes able, for brief moments, to almost believe he had never left the hospital. If he sat at the counter with his back to the hatch leading to the cargo bay and if he didn’t look too far to the right or left, if he stared only at the chart or printout in front of him, he could almost convince himself he was writing treatment notes in the lab. Almost. Because what he didn’t seem to be able to do was recapture the feeling of what it was like to be him when he had done those things. That feeling, of complete control of himself and his environment that used to permeate him when he was on duty, was gone. It had been stolen from him. He spent a considerable portion of some days trying to determine exactly who the culprit was who had stolen the entire person he had been in the before. It made a change from trying to figure out how to get back what they had stolen from River
The truth was that he had begun to have doubts that the Dr. Simon Tam, trauma surgeon of Capital City, on the world of Osirus, ever really existed. He never doubted that he was a doctor. It was the thing he was born to be. But not on Osirus. Not in the Core. And not for his parents and the social order they upheld at the cost of their only daughter’s freedom and sanity.
He’d been a preternaturally solemn child. His brilliant mischievous sister was the only one who could pull him out of his solemnity. Even in the before it had always been he and River. She could make him drop his schoolwork to play at Alliance and Independents, even with the silliness of dinosaurs thrown in. Her gentle ridicule had made his childhood tolerable, even memorably sweet. He remembered the expedition to the Camberson’s to find giant hodgeberries had been time stolen from an organic chemistry assignment. The memories were bright as the kingfisher’s that nested near the river that ran through their estate, full of color and motion and joy. They stood out like jewels from the background of his life. All gone, stolen, like her innocence and the last of her childhood.
It seemed his life was filled with theft of one sort or another. But he was slowly beginning to realize that not being the other Simon Tam was the price he had paid to have River back in his life. He didn’t really know what it would cost him when he started his quest to find her. But to reclaim her he had to give away everything that he was in the before. He’d liked to think that if he’d been told then that he’d have to give everything he had and everything he was, he would still have done it. He liked to think it, but he couldn’t be sure. He was only sure that if someone told him today that if he gave away everything they had now-here-on Serenity, then he could have his old life back; he would refuse.