Ensign Maria Alvarez - Meditation and Offering
Max
((Genti II - Grand Central Establishment, Federal District. Brynja Bairiri Hall - East Wing))
The event was in full swing in the displays Maria’s team (and those “volunteered” to help) had put up in the east wing of the Bairiri hall. Hordes of Gentii milled through the ornate white concrete-and-tile halls, echoes of footsteps and conversation were only dimmed by clever, colorful sound-deadening foam on the wall shaped into sculpture in their own right.
One of the more popular displays appeared to be a case containing several medieval-earth illuminated manuscripts, and a reproduction of the Magna Carta drawing particular interest. It made sense, she supposed, given the gravitation towards rules and etiquette the Gentii displayed. On another day, she too might have been inclined to inspect the document, but today she felt far too restless to do anything but continue moving through the displays.
She moved through the sculptures, paintings, furniture, glassware, baskets, dishes, burial artifacts, jewelry, and all manner of other items they’d set up. The vast majority of it was a reproduction, of course, but every once in a while there was the odd original she’d managed to find on tour close enough to borrow for this event. After the initial disaster, Starfleet operations had been very eager to make an attempt to impress the Gentii.
One such piece hung in a quiet corner at the far end of the wing. A painting, colossal in scale, utterly dominated the entire far wall of the small room. A single Gentii girl, who to Maria’s eyes had to have been equivalent to eighteen or twenty Earth-years, stood in front of it with a sketch pad. Judging from her expression, the abstract work was utterly perplexing.
A small placard to the right labelled it “Meditation and Offering. Linseed oil paint on canvas. Harass Ulaan - Musilla Province, Bajor. 2378”
The girl looked up from her sketch at the sound of Maria entering the room.
Girl: I don’t get it. What is this painting of?
Maria smiled, and turned to inspect the painting. I had to be easily fifteen feet tall and thirty across. Bold colors were troweled on, by palette knives she guessed, into ragged shapes that cut across the canvas like lightning bolts or cliff faces or twiggy tree branches. A couple of the shapes looked vaguely bipedal, but it was tough to be certain. In places, the paint looked drippy, with heavy droplets that had run down the canvas quite a ways before drying. There was a raw, yet calculated way to the technique behind the imagery.
Alvarez: I don’t really know.
The girl’s brows furrowed, as if the mere idea of not knowing was an affront.
Girl: How can you not know what the painting is of?
Alvarez: I don’t think it’s “of” anything. Or at least nothing concrete. It’s supposed to be about what it makes you feel. Since it’s from Bajor and only a couple years after the Dominion War, I’d guess it’s probably part of a renewed surrealist and abstract movement. Attempting to objectively capture that trauma and hardship was simply too difficult for most, so they turned to techniques that let the viewer read their own personal feelings in the art.
She remembered studying pieces like this one in relation to the musical movements that came with them. They’d always fascinated her. In a way, it was fitting that this is what drew her eye after the events earlier in the week.
There was a momentary silence as the girl looked back to the painting, carefully considering the new insight. She still seemed troubled.
Girl: You’re saying there’s no key to decode what it means? The colors are so vivid, the shapes… almost like they’re moving. It must mean something?
Maria looked down at the short-statured young woman with a gently playful smile. The girl looked back at her, as if the answer were somewhere in the alien’s brown eyes.
Alvarez: I didn’t say it meant nothing. Quite the opposite. Just that you have to create the meaning for yourself based on how it makes you feel. :: She leaned in and pointed to a spot on the painting. :: Here, this shape in blue here. I think it looks a little like a person, don’t you think?
The girl stared and stared in silence, then finally her lips parted to add her thoughts in a quiet voice.
Girl: It looks like she’s crying… that drip there. :: She pointed. ::
Alvarez: I can see it! :: She beamed with encouraging agreement. ::
The painting was clearly beginning to affect the girl, having never experienced anything like it before.
Girl: Why?
Alvarez: You don’t want me to spoil it for you, do you?
The girl took a long time, looking the painting over, standing side-by-side with Maria basking in the sheer scope of it. She finally spoke up, a tiny, soft, and sad warble in her voice.
Girl: It looks like she’s mourning her dead children. Making an offering for their safe journey into the afterlife. Look - there’s the pyre, there’s the souls ascending. That’s why she’s crying?
Maria took a moment, then smiled softly.
Alvarez: See, I would have said she’s crying for joy at the rebirth of her home after long suffering. Not a pyre - a sunrise. Not souls of the dead - life returning to her land. I think she’s giving an offering of thanks, meditating on all the good things that are returning to her. I don’t know though. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither.
Another moment of silence passed, the girl nearly overwhelmed herself.
Girl: How can it be both? I still don’t get it....
Alvarez: Neither do I.
Maria started laughing, realizing she was making it all up just as much as the girl. The girl started laughing along with Maria’s giggle, understanding the irony of how the tall Starfleet officer was just as lost as she was when it came to this painting.
Alvarez: It made you feel something, though, didn’t it?
Then the room fell to more silence, this time a little calmer.
Girl: I think it’s beautiful.
Maria just smiled.
Alvarez: I do too…
NT