~*~
“Admiral Janeway, if you could describe your life as a color, what color would that be?”
Well, at least this puts an interesting spin on a somewhat cliché-ish interview question. Kathryn Janeway’s thoughts sparked in her eyes as she smiled benignly at the young woman quizzing her on the details of her career. Color wasn’t exactly something she considered much in her life; she accepted whatever she saw or was given.
Certainly life had been varied throughout the almost five decades of her existence, with enough diversity to fill any artist’s palette with every color in heaven and earth and then some! One color? A single tone, pure and true and unblemished? The question had no answer; it was impossible to pick just one color…
Growing up, the colors were white and blue and green. A carefree childhood, warm green fields of summer and clear blue winter skies, with their breezes and winds wrapping her safely within their confines. Her parents loved and nurtured her, providing all the affection and support a girl and young woman could want. The colors – and her life – were strong and clear and happy back then.
Intellectual pursuits and physical demands at the Academy constantly challenged her, stimulating her and focusing her, demanding her to place her sights on the ultimate goal. Red and orange and yellow leapt forward in her mind, ever pushing and prodding, demanding her every effort. Here I am: see me; hear me; watch me! I am so much more than Edward Janeway’s daughter; I am Kathryn, and I will be my own person.
The primary colors of youth and childhood blended into those with more complexity, more murkiness. Blues and greens and reds intermingled into tints more difficult to define. Life’s confusion and ambiguities took the color outside of defined lines; experiences with the realities of the universe splashed and mixed the colors. The horrors of conflict and imprisonment; the devastation and isolation of unfathomable loss dimmed the colors into dark tones beyond description. Maroon mixing with umber; puce spewing itself into teal; vermilion spilling into lime. At times, the swirls of technicolored chaos sucked her into its vortex, overpowering her with its discord.
Then came her days on Voyager, a time that began with her palette filled with purpose and clarity, a time to redeem what seemed to have been lost. However, as soon as bright new pigments were placed on that surface, fate slung it against the wall, despoiling any hope for a perfect picture.
For seven long years, she stretched and blended and diluted the colors, hoping against hope that restoration was possible.
Events and people, memories and dreams – all merged into a single pot from which she could paint. One moment life was exhilarating; the next, she found herself in darkest hell. Colors were no more; what was there was beyond human comprehension, lost in the infrareds and ultraviolets of other dimensions and places in time.
Her only constant, her sole reference point, was like a thin beam of purest light, always there for her, gleaming through whatever whirls of despair tried to destroy her. Every color commenced and concluded with this source, this salvation. Time and again, she dipped her brush into its vibrancy and strength, calling upon it to provide her with texture and tone, using it to bring substance to whatever she was trying to create. All those years of taking its presence for granted, knowing that it would always be there.
It? Don’t I mean him? That’s what he had promised her once and that’s how he had remained. Her friend, her confidante, her lifeforce. He allowed her to use him as she needed, never forcing his importance into her life. Oh, there had been a few times when she was tempted to mix all the colors together, allowing his lightness to merge with her darkness. But she knew that the picture would never be completed if she allowed that to happen.
Now they were back in the Alpha Quadrant. Back within the comfortable embrace of red and blue and green, no longer haunted by the ethereal invisible colors of the unknown of far away. She no longer needed him to smooth over the rough places, to tone down the harsh colors to blend the garish tones. She told herself that she had no regrets; that the colors had dried and the time for alteration was past.
~*~
“Admiral?” The young woman’s voice called her out of her reverie.
Janeway looked at her, expectant and hopeful and so innocent. How long had she been waiting? How long have I been reminiscing? How could she explain all the colors of her life to this stranger?
“What color would my life be you ask? There is no single color, my dear. I like to think of my life as a large canvas, filled with various types of strokes, using every color imaginable. At times, it has been painted with broad, firm strokes in vibrant, bold hues and tints of red and orange, events that were pivotal and life altering. Other times, the brush barely whispered across the canvas, leaving subtle wisps and kisses of blues and violets and greens, remnants of dreams and desires and paths not taken. But most if the time, it has been a backwash of black and white, fading into many different shades of gray. Life is like that. It presents itself as a set of rules and regulations, attempting to make us see only in the blacks and whites of right and wrong. What we don’t acknowledge is that the two colors constantly seek each other out, blending and fusing into neither and leaving us only with the nether hues of gray.
“So, truthfully, I would have to say that my life has been a rainbow of colors, with a different shade influencing me or taking precedence at different times in my life. Some colors I allowed to overwhelm the picture, while others faded all too quickly among all the others. And there a few colors that will last forever, colors neither you nor I can see – colors buried so deep within me that even I don’t know they exist. I guess you could call them the colors of my soul. Without them, the rest of my being would cease to exist.”
Janeway paused. It was too difficult to explain to one so young, to one who had never known the Delta Quadrant… or of him.
~ THE END ~
