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LUNCHTIME IS NOT LINEAR
A DS9 story about taking care at a distance.
CAST
CASTELLAN ELIM GARAK
A head of state, approaching retirement – constantly frustrated by the robust system of checks and balances he has meticulously constructed around himself. This includes:
DOCTOR JULIAN BASHIR
His husband, a doctor – a very handsome, annoyingly clever, and excessively humanitarian man.
EMERGENCY COUNSELLING HOLOGRAM
A friend in need.
SETTING
It’s 20 years since the end of the Dominion War. Dr Julian Bashir has been resident on Cardassia Prime since the end of the war, participating in the reconstruction. His erstwhile lunch companion and former Obsidian Order operative, Elim Garak, is now, for his sins, Castellan of the Cardassian Union, overseeing the shift towards an open society. They have been a couple for some time.
The previous month, against Garak’s preference, Bashir joined a relief mission to a remote area in the northern continent, where there has been an outbreak of ‘water fever’. He is currently in quarantine, having exhibited mild symptoms. Garak has remained in the capital throughout.
They are attempting to have lunch as usual. The situation is complicated by physical distance, time difference, and everything else that happens in a long-term relationship.
GENERAL DIRECTION
A general impression of having lunch. Specifically: a mug, a tablet computer (for the padd), and a hardback book will be needed as props (it would be great if there are two copies of the same book in the different locations to feign it being transported, but not essential).
- INT. TWO SEPARATE SPACES
(Our heroes are meeting for lunch – but they are in two places at once. BASHIR is stuck in quarantine. GARAK is stuck in the office. One of them has dressed for this lunch date, and it’s not BASHIR.)
GARAK:
(PIQUED) Really, doctor, you could have made an effort. I think you wore that shirt yesterday—
BASHIR:
You do realise it’s almost midnight where I am?
GARAK:
And possibly the day before—
BASHIR:
I’m stuck in quarantine. There is literally nowhere to go and no-one to see.
GARAK:
(SLIGHT FROST) Except me.
BASHIR:
Sorry. Getting cranky. It’s been a week today—
GARAK:
So only one more week to go.
BASHIR:
Yes, but the Cardassian week is nine days long.
GARAK:
I don’t make the rules.
BASHIR:
That’s not, in fact, true, Castellan Garak—
GARAK:
Anyway, that’s no excuse for not putting on a clean shirt for lunch. Did you read the Preloc?
BASHIR:
Yes.
GARAK:
And?
(BEAT)
BASHIR:
I didn’t like it.
GARAK:
You didn’t like it?
BASHIR:
You knew I wouldn’t. That’s why you chose it.
GARAK:
(SIGHS) How long have we been having this argument? Twenty years?
BASHIR:
Twenty-seven years, ten months, eleven days, and—
GARAK:
Sometimes, Julian, imprecision is the better part of valour.
BASHIR:
Not in my line of work. (RESIGNS HIMSELF) Go on then. Convince me of the merits of Eleta Preloc’s recursive verse.
GARAK:
I hardly know where to start!
BASHIR:
That good, eh?
GARAK:
When the pupil is unpromising, the explanation must necessarily lack nuance.
BASHIR:
(SNORTS)
GARAK:
(REAL DISAPPOINTMENT) You didn’t like any of them?
BASHIR:
Some of them were fine. There was that sequence at the start – they read a little like a villanelle series. And the long one at the end reminded me of a sestina—
GARAK:
(SNIFFS) Wholly inferior forms.
BASHIR:
Oh, here we go…
GARAK:
Even you must be able to see that the final poem is vastly superior to the sestina. Julian, it’s over 300 lines long!
BASHIR:
(FAINT; A MAN WHO HAS HAD A SLIGHT HEADACHE FOR FIVE DAYS) Was it really only three hundred?
GARAK:
And not a word wasted! Julian, surely even you noticed how the central image of the trefoil appears again and again throughout—
BASHIR:
Oh yes, I noticed.
GARAK:
How it varies subtly each time – exquisite!
BASHIR:
Exquisite is one word for it.
GARAK:
(UNFEIGNED ENTHUSIASM) And the repetition of key words and phrases throughout, each use gaining ever more symbolic weight… Wait until you reread it!
BASHIR:
Reread it?
GARAK:
It doesn’t really make sense until a third or fourth reading—
BASHIR:
(SMALL EXPLOSION) But it doesn’t go anywhere! It loops back round on itself, again and again. It’s solipsistic.
GARAK:
And once again we reach the limits of your Federation viewpoint. This linearity! This insistence on progression!
BASHIR:
How is the appropriations bill for the new healthcare programme coming along?
(BEAT; touché!)
GARAK:
It’s still stuck in committee.
(BASHIR will never stop being amused at the sight of GARAK struggling against the constraints of the new democratic order on Cardassia.)
BASHIR:
(LAUGHS AT HIM) Looping back round, again and again, gaining ever more symbolic weight…
GARAK:
The trouble with democracy is that it takes up too many evenings. The Union was considerably easier to run in the days of the Obsidian Order—
BASHIR:
Didn’t turn out terribly well, though, did it? Anyway, I thought Cardassians liked the sound of their own voices. All this debate should suit you.
GARAK:
I like the sound of my own voice, doctor. Not the sound of anyone else’s. Particularly when they don’t agree with me.
BASHIR:
I still didn’t like Preloc.
GARAK:
Not even the book itself? As an object, I mean?
(BASHIR waves his padd (tablet computer) at him.)
BASHIR:
Well, I read it on a padd—
GARAK:
No wonder you didn’t enjoy them! Half the pleasure is being able to hold the book, move back and forth between the verses, trace the lines of multiple allusions... A padd is no use at all!
BASHIR:
It was all I could lay my hands on stuck here—
GARAK:
(CONTRITE) How very thoughtless of me! Wait a moment, I’ll send you my copy.
(The hum of a transporter as GARAK sends over his personal copy of Preloc’s verse.)
(BASHIR picks up and examines the book. If there do happen to be two copies of the same book in different locations, that would be great. But not essential.)
BASHIR:
Is this a first edition?
GARAK:
Of course.
BASHIR:
Not many things like this can have survived the Dominion War.
GARAK:
Not many, no.
(BEAT)
BASHIR:
I’ll take good care of it.
GARAK:
I know. (TENDER) Are you feeling better? Any more symptoms?
BASHIR:
Temperature’s back down to normal. Headache continues, but I’ve been reading Cardassian poetry. In my own expert opinion I think I’ve had a cold – but I’ll stay here another week, just in case.
GARAK:
(STILL TENDER) You didn’t have to go out there yourself, you know.
BASHIR:
(SOFT) I know.
GARAK:
There are many other perfectly qualified people capable of giving aid.
BASHIR:
I know.
(Quiet beep of a communicator; GARAK is receiving a message.)
GARAK:
Incoming message… Do excuse me for a moment… (VAGUELY INTERESTED). Oh. The Autarch of Tzenketh has abdicated.
BASHIR:
That’s… big news, isn’t it?
GARAK:
(UNPERTURBED) Oh yes. Their entire government might collapse. Dreadful news for the sector. Could cause all kinds of instability.
BASHIR:
Don’t you need to go and be briefed about that?
GARAK:
(SHRUGGING) It can wait until after dessert.
(BEAT)
BASHIR:
(SUSPICIOUS) You don’t seem very surprised. Almost like you were expecting it.
GARAK:
I get daily intelligence briefings. It’s been on the cards for weeks.
BASHIR:
(STILL FISHING) Well, you don’t seem upset.
GARAK:
(PIOUS) I’m naturally deeply concerned. Nobody deserves a breakdown in law and order.
BASHIR:
Not even the Tzenkethi?
GARAK:
Now why would I wish any harm on the Tzenkethi? An innocuous species, if ever there was. Somewhat kitsch, but that’s not a cause for cutting off diplomatic relations. Unfortunately.
BASHIR:
They did drop a building on you that time.
GARAK:
Who?
BASHIR:
The Tzenkethi.
GARAK:
(FEIGNING THAT HE’S FORGOTTEN) Oh yes… Well, it’s always nice to be noticed.
BASHIR:
You were stuck under the rubble for days.
GARAK:
Occupational hazard. You know, a friend of mine once shot me during a holosuite spy game. Practically foreplay.
BASHIR:
(SIGHS) We’ve talked about this.
GARAK:
About what?
BASHIR:
About confusing acts of violence towards you with expressions of love.
GARAK:
Was it not, Julian?
BASHIR:
Not what?
GARAK:
An expression of love?
BASHIR:
No, shooting you was not an expression of love. It was...
GARAK:
Yes?
BASHIR:
A gesture of affection.
GARAK:
Then I appreciated it. In the same way I appreciated the tuxedo.
(BEAT: they only have eyes for each other.)
BASHIR:
(FOCUSING) You know, you were telling me about the collapse of the Tzenkethi government.
GARAK:
In fact, I believe I was trying to distract you by talking about foreplay.
BASHIR:
That too.
GARAK:
(GETTING GRUMPY) Whatever’s bothering you, why don’t you come out and ask?
BASHIR:
All right, I will. You’ve had your eye on the Tzenkethi for years. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’d had a hand in this.
(BEAT)
GARAK:
Let me go through this step by step. If I understand this correctly, you’re saying that because an Obsidian Order operation in which I might or might not have been involved—
BASHIR:
Definitely involved. Up to your neck.
GARAK:
Let us stick with hypotheticals. That because this hypothetical operation went wrong, I have held a grudge so deep that forty years later I have devoted a portion of my grievously limited time and resources to covertly destabilising their government?
BASHIR:
Yes.
GARAK:
That is fanciful even by your standards.
BASHIR:
You know, this is just like that time with Odo.
GARAK:
What time with Odo?
BASHIR:
When his molecular structure destabilized. You came along on the Defiant when we went looking for a cure and distracted him with a tissue of lies.
GARAK:
(OFFHAND) Oh, that time. What are you getting at?
BASHIR:
What I’m getting at is – I’ve been exposed to an infectious disease, I’m in quarantine, I’m worried, you’re worried, you’re trying to distract me—
GARAK:
Actually, I’m trying to have lunch before the sheer weight of my afternoon schedule collapses on top of me.
BASHIR:
We've talked about this.
GARAK:
About what?
BASHIR:
About you mistaking overly elaborate mind-games for gestures of affection.
GARAK:
(HUFF) Well, you may rest assured that none of this is a gesture of affection.
BASHIR:
No?
GARAK:
Of course not.
BASHIR:
Then what is it?
(The words ‘an expression of love’ are there between them; a message for themselves alone. Much tenderness; very love.)
GARAK:
You’ve been talking so much that your soup must be cold by now. Shall I replicate you another one?
(Quiet hum of replicator near BASHIR, who is startled, and looks across to it. )
BASHIR:
(STARTLED) Hang on, can you control my replicator over here from your office there?
GARAK:
(SOFT LAUGH) Oh Julian, that’s not the half of it.
BASHIR:
(LIVID) You’ve mucked about with my bloody replicator?
GARAK:
Only with the entrees. Dessert is your own affair.
BASHIR:
Don’t you have enough to do in the day? You know, I dread your retirement—
GARAK:
Probably wise. Last time I got bored I blew up the shop.
(BASHIR throws up his hands. It’s late, he’s tired, he’s married to the most infuriating person in the universe, and he’s now ready to bargain with a higher power.)
BASHIR:
Is there nobody in this universe who will help me?
EMERGENCY COUNSELING HOLOGRAM:
Please state the nature of your psychological emergency.
GARAK:
(OUTRAGE) Who turned that thing on?!
BASHIR:
Did you switch that bloody thing on?!
EMERGENCY COUNSELING HOLOGRAM:
One of you said, ‘help me’.
GARAK:
Off!
BASHIR:
Off!
(Both GARAK and BASHIR lean back, united again in the face of a common enemy.)
GARAK:
I thought we’d blocked all the activation phrases on that wretched thing.
BASHIR:
I’ll do that after this call.
GARAK:
Thank you. (BEAT) So how is the soup?
(BASHIR reaches across for the mug in the replicator; tries the soup.)
BASHIR:
In fact, it’s delicious.
GARAK:
You’re welcome.
BASHIR:
(THROUGH FOOD) Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. You stop clandestinely interfering in the internal affairs of foreign powers, and I’ll stop personally intervening in epidemics.
(GARAK and BASHIR look at each other. It’s not going to happen, is it?)
GARAK:
Sounds dreadfully dull.
(BEAT)
GARAK (CONT’D):
You know, lunch isn’t the same without you.
BASHIR:
It’s exactly the same. Anyway, it’s as the writer says: “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”
(GARAK doesn’t recognise the source. BASHIR has got him, and he’s not pleased.)
(NB: BASHIR not handing Douglas Adams to GARAK at any point in the last 30 years is surely the least plausible element of this script.)
GARAK:
I… don’t believe I know that writer, doctor.
BASHIR:
Well, I have to keep some surprises up my sleeve.
GARAK:
One would certainly hope so, after… How long did you say it was?
BASHIR:
Twenty-seven years, ten months, eleven days, and (LOOKS UP AND LEFT BRIEFLY TO CALCULATE) three-and-a-half hours.
(Eyes lock. A BEAT that lasts a second or two – and a lifetime together.)
GARAK:
Seems like only yesterday.
(The faint beep of a communicator. GARAK looks down as his comconsole.)
GARAK (CONT’D):
Oh, how delightful. A meeting with the Tzenkethi ambassador has appeared on my schedule. (SIGHS) I’m afraid this can’t wait after all.
BASHIR:
Dessert my own affair, then?
GARAK:
I’m afraid so.
(GARAK holds up his palm; BASHIR mirrors this.)
GARAK:
Until tomorrow – my dearest doctor.
BASHIR:
(SMILING) I love you too.
(Hands down. Hold a moment; one last look at the other.)
GARAK:
(WITH LOVE) Screen off.
BASHIR:
(WITH LOVE) Screen off.
- END -