Ofrenda

Rating: G
Disclaimer: No infringement intended.

Crewman Irma Jimenez of Engineering was lonely. As she sat in the mess hall watching the Halloween party come together, she missed her fallen comrades, and she missed her family. As a child in Los Angeles, she had carved jack-o-lanterns, gone trick-or-treating, and made herself sick on free treats. Later, she had shepherded a swarm of neighborhood kids from house to house…but now she missed a different tradition. The tradition of her grandmother building a little altar in the living room, with flowers and candles and food. With pictures of the dead.

Black and orange streamers were going up, and tears began to fall.

“You appear to be in distress, Crewman.” said Commander T’Pol. “Do you find the preparations disturbing in some way?” eyeing the numerous depictions of the human skeleton capering around the wall of the mess.

“No ma’m. It’s just making me think of Jane . . . Crewman Taylor, you know.”

“In what way?” wincing as “Monster Mash” came over the speaker system. “Well, if I was home, instead of this . . .” gesturing at the increasingly riotous goings-on, “I’d be . . .” and found herself explaining the Day of the Dead to a Vulcan.

To her surprise, T’Pol nodded. “On Vulcan, we too have such a day. We remember our ancestors, and honor the struggles and sacrifices that have made our lives possible. It is called the Gad T’Vokau.” She looked thoughtfully at the impromptu committee in charge of the revels. “Perhaps the observance of more than one set of traditions would be in order.”

And so, in a corner of the mess hall, amid the pumpkins, candy corn, skeletons and punch, there rose a little shrine. Pictures of Taylor, Marcel and the others lost in the Expanse, Trip’s sister Lizzie, and Admiral Forrest (given by the Captain.) There was even a somber Vulcan couple, T’Pol’s parents. Flowers came from Hydroponics, and food from Chef. Over the course of the evening, many little mementos of the fallen also appeared.

The response of the crew, while difficult to quantify, seemed positive to T’Pol . She decided to donate incense and the use of her meditation candles, and recalled this of Surak:

"To each joy its celebration; to each sorrow, its observance. That is only logical."