One Hundred and Twenty Days

Posted on Mon Mar 30th, 2026 @ 5:21pm by Lieutenant Commander Savok

1,894 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: Strawberry, Marin County, California, Earth
Timeline: October 2383

The evening lay thin upon the street, a light so very pale and reluctant that neither warmed nor completely withdrew. The three-storey house stood apart from the others, modest in its proportions, its sharp colour--once chosen with some deliberation--now seemingly almost a reproach, as if it remembered a gentler intent than the present could ever hope to sustain.

Savok paused before the threshold out of habit; for there had been a time when he didn't cross that boundary unannounced.

The biometric scanner registered his form and he entered.

The air within held no scent of recent life. It was clean, still, obedient to the order he always had maintained, and yet it bore a quality that logic could not readily catalogue--some airy, faint absence, as perceptible as a missing tone in a chord one has long known. The door sealed behind him. He stood a moment in the entryway, his gaze settling, as it invariably did, upon the potted plant.

The plant.

It rested where it had always rested: a small, resilient specimen in a simple vessel, its leaves firm, its colour unblemished by neglect. Eighteen years prior, it had been given by Mrs. Sugiyama, who had smiled with an openness Savok had then found curious, and declared that the plant could not be killed--"no more than the friendship between neighbours." The words had seemed unnecessary at the time; the sentiment, excessive. Yet he had accepted the gift, and T’Sharis had placed it in the entryway with a level of care that suggested she perceived something in it beyond its botanical qualities.

The Sugiyamas had departed seven years ago. And yet the plant remained.

Savok tilted his head, studying its form. He had not failed in its maintenance. Its continued vitality was the expected result of proper care. There was no mystery in it.

Mrs. Sugiyama had called it a ZZ plant, better known to botanists as Zamioculcas zamiifolia.

He removed his uniform jacket and placed it on its designated hook with his usual exactness. Savok found himself considering--not for the first time--the peculiar assertion attached to the gift. Impossible to kill. The phrase was illogical. All living things possessed finite resilience. Even this plant would, under sufficient neglect or adverse condition, wither and cease.

He had not, and did not--neglect it.

The house yielded no greeting, no alteration in atmosphere to mark his return. He proceeded through the corridor, his steps slow and chosen, each motion economical. There was no disorder to correct, no task demanding any immediate attention. The routines of the day had concluded at Starfleet Command with their prescriptive efficiency; his reports had been precise, the conclusions entirely sound. His superiors had expressed satisfaction, though such expressions held absolutely no intrinsic value. The work had been completed. That was sufficient.

He entered the dining room.

There, upon the four-seated table--of which only one chair had been used these past months--stood the teacup.

It kept its indefatigable place, neither conspicuous nor concealed. The porcelain was pale, the rim unchipped, the surface unmarked by any passage of time beyond that which had already rendered its contents absent. The shallow measure of black tea that had once rested within it had long since evaporated, leaving no residue perceptible to the eye.

Savok halted.

He regarded the cup.

This, too, was unchanged.

He had not touched it.

This detail presented itself to him with no embellishment. It had been one hundred and twenty-two days since T’Sharis’s death, and in all that time, he had not moved the cup, nor washed it, nor returned it to the matter reclamation unit. It remained precisely where she had last set it, as if she had been interrupted by another activity.

He approached the table.

His hand extended though not to take, but to hover, suspended at a distance so slight it might have been measured in millimeters. The gesture itself was unnecessary. He knew the texture, the weight, the trivial specifics of its form. It was a teacup. There was no information to be gained by contact.

He withdrew his hand.

"Why," he said, and though the word was spoken without inflection, it did not dissipate as his other words did. It lingered, like the room had acquired some unusual property of retention.

He stood in silence.

The question, once it had formed, didn't resolve itself. It remained.

Why had he left it?

The answer, at first consideration, appeared simple: there had been no requirement to move it. Its presence did not impede function. It occupied a minimal space. It did not detract from the room's aesthetic. To remove it would be an action without necessity.

Yet this reasoning did not satisfy him.

He turned slightly, his gaze shifting from the cup to the empty chairs surrounding the table. Four seats. Four places once set, though rarely all in use. The arrangement had been chosen when their children were still present and at home.

He recalled--without effort or invitation--the manner in which T’Sharis had placed the cup upon that surface. There had been no significance in the act at the time. It had been one of countless small motions that fashioned the fabric of their shared existence. The memory did not reveal itself as an image so much as a certainty: she had been there; she had set the cup down; she had intended to return to it.

But she had not.

Savok straightened.

"Humans," he said, quietly, "engage in preservation rituals."

The statement was accurate. He had observed it in many contexts. Objects were retained, arrangements maintained, spaces left undisturbed, visual representations displayed. He understood the why: to sustain a connection with that which was no longer present. These practices were acknowledged as emotional responses, completely devoid of logic, and therefore not binding upon him.

He was Vulcan.

He understood the finality of death. He accepted the cessation of biological function, the dissolution of the individual as an active entity. T’Sharis was not in this room. She was not in any room. The matter that had composed her body had returned to its elemental state. The neural patterns that had constituted her consciousness had ceased.

There was no ambiguity in this.

He knew it.

Savok had known it from the moment the report was delivered.

He moved to the chair he habitually occupied and sat.

The cup remained before him, slightly to the right.

"Therefore," he continued, "the retention of this object serves no purpose."

The conclusion followed logically. An object devoid of function should be reassigned or removed. There was no justification for its continued placement in its current location.

He did not move it.

The silence resumed, more profound than before.

Savok's gaze returned to the cup, and for a moment--so brief it could scarcely be measured--there arose in him an impression not of its present state, but of its prior condition: the curling spiral of steam that had once risen from its surface, the warmth that would have been perceptible to the touch through the porcelain, and the subtle scent that marked the tea T’Sharis had preferred.

The impression did not linger. It dispersed as swiftly as it had come.

He drew a breath.

"Science," he said, "does not support this behavior."

The statement was correct. There was no empirical basis for maintaining the illusion of presence through static arrangement. The act did not alter reality. It did not restore the lost. It did not even approximate restoration.

It was, by all rational measures, futile.

And yet...

He found that the word did not complete itself.

He rose abruptly but delicately. Savok then stepped away from the table, creating distance, as if repulsed. He crossed the room, then returned, his path tracing a narrow line. The house remained as it had been: orderly and silent.

At length, he came again to the table.

The cup stood where it had stood.

He extended his hand once more. This time, he did not halt it before contact. His fingers closed around the porcelain.

It was cool.

Of course it was cool. There had been no heat within it for months. The observation was entirely trivial!

He lifted it.

The weight was slight--less than he remembered it being, or perhaps precisely as he remembered, the difference lying not in the object but in the context of its holding. He raised it to a height that would have sufficed for drinking, though there was nothing to drink.

He held it there.

"Return," he said, and the word was not addressed to any presence in the room. It wasn't a command. It wasn't even a request. It was, rather, the articulation of a condition that simply couldn't be fulfilled.

He lowered the cup.

His hand trembled for a moment.

The motion was tiny--so slight that an observer might have failed to perceive it at all. Yet it was undeniably there. A deviation from perfect control.

Savok stilled his hand.

He set the cup down with care, aligning it precisely into its former position. The adjustment required only a fractional movement, but he executed it with the same attention he would have given to any task of significance.

He withdrew his hand.

The tremor ceased.

He remained standing, his posture restored, his composure regained. The room resumed its accustomed stillness, all surfaces now reflecting the measured order he imposed.

And yet, something had altered.

Not in the room. Not in the arrangement of objects. Not in any external parameter that could be quantified.

The alteration lay elsewhere. Perhaps in a space not readily defined, not subject to inspection or correction.

Savok turned from the table.

He moved toward the entryway once more, his steps easy but steadfast. The plant awaited him, its leaves unwavering, its structure intact. He regarded it again, noting its continued vitality, its resistance to decay or deterioration.

"Impossible to kill," Mrs. Sugiyama had said.

The phrase returned to him now, wholly unbidden.

He reached out and touched one of the long, upright leaves. It yielded slightly beneath his fingers, then resumed its natural form. The contact was brief and precise.

"Incorrect," he said.

All things could be destroyed. All bonds could be severed. The universe permitted no absolute continuities.

He withdrew his hand.

For a moment, he remained there, standing between the outer door and the inner rooms, between departure and return, between the life he conducted and the absence he inhabited.

Then, with contemplation that bore no trace of uncertainty, he turned back toward the dining room.

The cup remained where he had placed it.

He did not move it again.

And though he would later, in a quiet accounting of his own conduct, classify this choice as illogical, unsupported, and contrary to the principles he had long upheld, he found--incomprehensibly, unjustifiably--that he would repeat it on the following day, and the next, and the next.

For there are, it seemed, certain absences that logic does not fill, but merely outlines; and in the space thus delineated, a being may continue--not in reason, but in the tacit refusal to let the final word be spoken.

---

Lt. Commander Savok
Liaison Officer
USS Astrea
(NPC of JB Dorsainvil)

 

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