STAR TREK - 'OPERATION - ANNIHILATE!', 1967

         AN EQUITABLE TRADE

First Prize Winner, Midcon, Leicester, 1988

I close my eyes tight
As light
Lances through my brain.
The pain
Declining -
The entity within me entwining
Is withering and dying.
My whole body purges
In violent surges -
But from pain and possession
At last I am free.

I open my eyes
And realise
That the brilliant white light
Has taken my sight.
I rise from the chair
To where
I hear Jim and McCoy's voices.
I stumble into a table;
I am unable
To move unassisted.
Aid must be enlisted from Jim.

I confess to them I find
That I am quite blind.
I feel their emotional pain
That I will never see again.
Nurse Chapel comes near
And from her we hear
The results of the test
That show ultra-violet light best
To kill the infestation.
Kirk turns on McCoy in consternation -
I need not have been blinded at all.

Now in the darkness
I see with clear starkness
How the rest of my life must be spent.
I must resign my commission
And without hesitation
Return to Vulcan to stay.
I will there find a way
To live a useful and meaningful life.
McCoy has bitter regrets;
He sits alone and frets
But the ultimate decision had been mine.

All aspects I had weighed.
Action could not be delayed;
I could no longer enure
The pain and possession to endure;
The alternative was agonising death;
Each breath
A crescendo of pain I could not fight;
My life for my sight -
The decision I alone made;
And it is indeed
An equitable trade.

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