SIM:Kevin Breeman - What He Left Behind
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Characters
Summary
Continuing from Faces
Sim
((Shuttlecraft, inside Shuttlebay - USS Independence-A))
::He never stood up and he never flapped his hands. He was Kevin now and he was an adult. He had followed his mother's instructions and grown up.
Looking down he caught a glimpse of his face again.
((Flashback - Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, Earth: 8 years ago))
::Seated across from him, Renee Millar grinned. It was the second time in the last hour he'd done that and Kevin had no idea why.::
Breeman: What's so funny?
::The kid's face straightened out again. Pudgy, four grades Kevin's junior, and with a penchant for colourful language, Renee was one of his only friends.::
Renee: ::Chuckling:: You!
::Kevin was taken aback. Here they were, winning the phenomenological representation tournament by a slim margin and Renee was laughing at him. Would he ever understand this kid fully?::
Breeman: Me? What did I do?
Renee: Why do you always have to have such big friggin structures in your representations?
::Kevin smiled. The dramatic associative imagery and the cube of transformation had helped him so far. But he could tell they were about to have this conversation again. It always went the same way. The way Kevin thought, Renee said, the imagery he created on the monitors with his mind, was too restrictive. It was too structured.::
::He thought back to the last round. He'd sat down, his opponent opposite him facing a monitor he couldn't see so that the two players couldn't steal ideas from one another. As the music began he'd thought of the girl he'd liked a few months before. He had a knack for this. The images came onto the monitor, first a planet, then the folds of distorted space-time. Her attractiveness distorted his mind and these ripples in the otherwise placid four-dimensional pond of his psyche were the result. Io, the volcanic moon swung neatly around the giant planet, explosions of magma erupting up from its torn interior as it endured the tidal stresses exerted on him by Sara's very presence.
He'd panned out, the gravity well of the giant planet -- of the giant representation -- expanding infinitely into space, fading finally with distance. Now only the blackness filled the screen. He could almost imagine Renee rolling his eyes as the blackness became a flattened tablet upon which other tablets were stacked. He panned into each square surface, a representation of a secret part of himself playing out on the dark screen with each move. This was dramatic associative imagery, the stacked cube into which one could pour the entirety of one's life.::
Breeman: It helps me I guess. I dunno man.
::The entire cube structure had floated there in a void. The crowd had applauded as the image had faded.::
Renee: Don't you find it boring?
::Kevin smiled. He needed something to do. He was bored. He looked ahead into his future and saw nothing but regularity. "Work," his father had said to him. "Work with your hands. That's all that matters." He didn't care about that. He wanted code. He wanted logic. He wanted puzzles. "There's more to life than that damned computer!"
No, everything else was less. He wanted to create. He hated what was. Now at grade twelve, his life was a void and on graduating he would step into obscurity and nothingness.::
::Kevin shook his head and Renee said,::
Renee: Sometimes I don't get you, man. You always repeat yourself.
::What was that supposed to mean? He didn't ask. Every match he won, every sequence of images was another expression of his fear of emptiness and of others' opinions of him. Creativity was giving up on life and casting away from the norm. Why commit suicide, he thought, when you can drop out of the world mentally?::
((Present))
::The summer and the fall of the next year had been hard, his identity and his self falling away from him as each day passed. What was he? He'd struggled to answer that question as he'd fought with his father almost every night.
"You're going to work if you're going to live in this house!"
But life was meaningless. He'd said it almost every time, a fake smile crossing his lips. But inside he'd felt anger at the death his father was imposing on him. He was just another enemy, oppressing him and weighing down on Kevin Breeman.::
((Flashback - Toronto, Canada, 22 years ago))
::Kevin woke, screaming, the image of the gorilla eating him still vivid in his mind. Someone really was holding him in his clutches now -- his father.::
Alvin Breeman: Shhhhhhhhhh
Breeman: ::Sobbing, screaming, kicking:: Aaaahhhhh!!!
Alvin Breeman: It was just a dream. Sssshhhhhhhh.
((Present))
::A tear rolled down his cheek as the two images of his father ran up against each other. Mentally he'd lashed out at the man so many times. And yet his father had protected him and loved him.::
::He stood up. He didn't want to see the reflection any more.::
Breeman: ::Whispering to himself as tears streamed down his face:: So damned narcissistic. So damned selfish.
::He tapped the console beside him and the aft hatch of the shuttlecraft opened. He stepped out, rubbing the remnants of the tears from his face. He was Kevin Breeman now, a Starfleet officer and an adult.::
Lt. Kevin Breeman Chief of Science USS Independence-A
Commentary
I wrote this post hoping to delve into one of the big conflicts and unresolved issues in Kevin Breeman's life. His relationship with his father and his differences with him continue to be a point both of guilt and of anger. Also, this sim explores some of Breeman's odd conceptions of the world. His teenage fear that his attractions to women would be found out, along with his penchant for orderly structures in his thought patterns are explored here through the so-called Phenomenological Representation Tournament.
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