A Stitch in Time

I have little tolerance for noise and stupidity.

I’m an unfinished man, Doctor, like a suit of clothes hanging on a display rack waiting for the final touches that may never come; I need to tell this story to make a peace with those parts of me that were left unfinished. A healing. Indulge me, if you will; I need you as a witness. A stitch in time….

I know that we have grown apart and that's as it should be. We learn what we can from certain people, then we move on after we've taken what we need. When we learn nothing new about ourselves in a relationship that's when the relationship is over. Or it's over the moment when we're afraid to learn something new about ourselves. But what I have been learning about myself ... whatever it was inside me that was sparked and challenged when I first met you ... is deeply connected to this story.

The moment you step into a garden and begin to cultivate and prune, you become a killer.

As I said, I'm an unfinished man reassembling the pieces of a broken world, and I have asked you to be a witness because you would never judge me as harsly as I judge myself.

But what people lie about the most are themselves, and these lies become the stories they believe and want to tell you.

But what am I here for?” I now felt bolder. “You’re here to find out who you are. And to create your own story.

When fear is allowed to flourish in its dark and lonely medium, then any evil that can be conceived by the fearful imagination will emerge.

Let the ones without power scowl and make fierce faces. You smile. It's an invitation to connect with another person. And once the invitation to accepted, relax and listen. . . you'll come to know as much as you'll ever need to about that person,

I know better; the reward for work well done is the work itself.

A Cardassian remembers everything on every level all the time. For us, past and present are not neatly separated. We live with everything in the moment—including the nightmares. And so do you. To a human this would be chaotic, unbearable. For us it’s just the way it is. This

Truth is in the eye of the beholder, Doctor, I never tell the truth because I don’t believe there is such a thing…” “You’re not going to tell me.” “But you don’t need me to tell you, Doctor,., if you’ll just notice the details. They’re scattered like crumbs…

Sentimentality is another trait that makes humans dangerous.

It takes courage to come here, to look at things the way they once were. And while they can never be that way again, we can extract an essence that will nurture and amplify our own lives. We can strive to be better friends and live with ourselves and others with respect and the recognition that each soul desires to be reconnected with the source. To enslave or prey upon each other is not how we began. We were connected to each other. We did not experience hunger, deprivation, or loneliness. We were connected, and we cared and nurtured and loved. No, friends, it’s not how we began. But if we end in isolation and hate, not even a monument in Tarlak will ease the agony of our lost soul.

Each of us accepts the amount of responsibility we are capable of bearing. Some accept nothing, and these people are quickly swallowed by their isolation, their insanity transformed into a rationalized evil. A smaller group accepts total responsibility, and their insanity is an unbearable burden that cripples and eventually grinds them down. The rest of us carry what we can and leave the rest.

When we learn nothing new about ourselves in a relationship that's when the relationship is over. Or it's over the moment when we're afraid to learn something new about ourselves.

My feelings are spent, my moral rationalizations are empty, and I can't say it's not my problem when I'm pulling and lifting and throwing bodies of people who once only wanted to go about the business of their lives.

The problems of measuring, choosing a fabric and design suitable to the person and the occasion, cutting and putting the pieces together in a comfortable and attractive fit can keep my mind away from those realities over which I have no control.

The truth is that I have come to enjoy tailoring.

So much of what we see and hear is not the truth of any given situation; sometimes it’s necessary to close the eyes and be still, to extend our awareness beyond what we’ve been conditioned to believe is our field of sensory operation. Only then can we learn the patience to trust that all the information that we need will come to us.

I was at the edge of my experience, and the only way I was going to expend my frontier was to act.

this another example of Federation hypocrisy? These people reduced all political complexity to pious platitudes, while they constructed the greatest empire in the history of the Alpha Quadrant.

Someone once said that democracy was the flawed solution to a perfect mess …

First of all, Doctor, I don’t quite know what you mean by ‘democratic principles.’ Are you referring to the appalling lack of discipline and self-control I’ve observed on this station? The exaltation of individual freedom above the welfare of the group? The fact that the ‘first among equals’ in democratic society seem to get preference and privilege?

The Obsidian Order?" I asked. "What do you know about us?" "Nothing." "That's a good start.

But we have become these beings—are becoming, always in the process of becoming—on these other dimensional levels that are not limited by the measures of time and space. And the great determining factor of our becoming is relationship. Unrelated, I become unrelated. Alienated. Opposed, I become an antagonist. Unified, I become integrated. A functioning member of the whole.

The truth is that I have come to enjoy tailoring. The problems of measuring, choosing a fabric and design suitable to the person and the occasion, cutting and putting the pieces together in a comfortable and attractive fit can keep my mind away from those realities over which I have no control.

In these meetings Palandine was teaching me how to use my eyes and ears in a manner that complemented the teachings of Calyx and Mila. “And you have to use that wonderful smile of yours more often, Elim.” “What’s that got to do with listening?” That was the subject, and Palandine had typically made a jump in logic I couldn’t follow. She also forgot that I was a Cardassian male and smiling was not one of our strong features.

Yet as I tried to elicit the specific details of what he wanted, he became shy and reticent—almost irritable. “Something that’s not so . . . baggy,” he said as he impatiently gestured to his drab constable uniform. I could understand his concern. Major Kira’s tightly wrapped figure made us all look baggy.

Captain, Cardassians come into this life with an awareness of their protected perimeters—what the doctor calls our ‘reptilian brain dominance’—and die defending them.” The