New Hollywood, Ivor Prime, Stardate 2266.218

From the apartment in the glass building in the small city on Ivor Prime, they moved to a small house in town to the north. The house had sliding glass doors at the back that opened onto sandy, shrubby ground. If other buildings hadn't blocked the way, Velekh would have been able to see the ocean from there. But in between the house and the ocean were other houses and a large, glass shopping center. He didn't attend school then: their constant moving didn't allow for it. His mother created lessons for him; she was the organized one. His father disliked structure and believed in learning by observation and experience. His parents' differing approaches to his education often led to disagreements between the two of them. He distinctly remembered his mother calmly sliding open the glass door and walking out along the shrub lined path that eventually led to the ocean after one such disagreement. She never got angry; he later wondered if this was a personality trait or a result of her Vulcan upbringing. Letting go of things deeply ingrained in childhood was difficult.

His father was more emotional. Though rarely angry, he was often impatient. Velekh was sure, however, that he would be angry if he found out about Christopher's hat. The first time he left the new house to explore the neighborhood, he made sure it was well hidden under his shirt, tucked into his pants. It was unlikely any children he met would ever see his blood, he reasoned, but perhaps they know from his ears that his blood was green. He walked past a few houses before pulling it out and putting it on his head.

The Hollywood Mall was the name of the shopping center between Velekh's neighborhood the ocean. Its overly ambitious builders seemed not to have considered that there was already a glut of shopping centers sitting half empty in the newly established suburb of New Hollywood when they began construction. Though it had been open several years by the time Velekh moved to New Hollywood, the upper floor remain unoccupied. During the rainy season or when it became too hot in the dry season, children could always be found running around the top floor playing old Earth games like tag and duck duck goose.

It had been on one such hot day in the dry season, a few weeks after they had moved to New Hollywood, that Velekh found himself inside the mall playing with some of the neighborhood children. As always, he was wearing the white sun hat that had once belonged to Christopher. The sun on Ivor Prime was very strong so sun hats and caps with large brims were common. The hat seemed to be working; the other children had accepted him.

They were playing the game called tag and Velekh was running from a thin, curly-haired boy named Rafael.

"I'm going to get your hat, Velekh!" He yelled.

"No!"

"Yes! I'm going to get it!"

"No!" Velekh held the hat to his head as he ran from Rafael. He ran down the stairs and out the entrance to the shopping center that faced his neighborhood. Rafael, unable to keep up with Velekh, had abandoned his chase at the top of the stairs though Velekh hadn't noticed. He had been so terrified that Rafael would rip the hat off his head. Then everyone would know. He didn't look back but continued running straight for his house. Out of breath, he stopped at the shrubs along the side of the house where he kept the hat hidden.

"Velekh, where did you get that hat?" His father emerged from behind the low concrete wall that projected from the side of the house. Velekh stared at him blankly for a moment.

"I found it."

"Where did you find it?"

"In the grass."

"In the grass where?"

"At the apartment."

"Why didn't you tell us you found the hat before we moved? You know it probably belonged to someone. You should have left it there for them to find it." Velekh did not reply. "Why didn't you tell us about the hat?"

"I don't know."

"I haven't seen it before. Where have you been keeping it?" When Velekh still did not answer he continued, "I'd rather you tell me but you know I will find out the truth anyway." Velekh couldn't bring himself to say the words. He knew he should try to tell part of the truth at least - maybe then his father would leave the rest alone. But he found that he could only stand with his mouth frozen open. He was overcome with embarrassment. "I won't be angry. I just want to understand." But Velekh wasn't going to budge. He couldn't bring himself to tell his father how embarrassed he was to be different. "Very well," his father sighed.

"You took the hat because you knew it belonged to one of the boys who has been unkind to you. You hate him and the other children for their unkindness."

"Yes." If he admitted this much, it might not be so bad. He would admit it was wrong to have taken the hat and his father would not discover the rest.

"Children can be cruel. They don't always understand or accept differences. They will learn as they get older. You have acknowledged the hate you feel for them - now you must let it go. If the hate consumes you, you will only be hurting yourself, not them. Do you understand?"

"No."

"Carrying around that hate is a burden, is it not?"

"I guess."

"You must tell yourself that their unkindness has nothing to do with you and you will not let it hurt you or make you unkind. This will seem difficult at first but will become easier with time. Each time it will be easier. Remember that."

"Alright." Velekh turned to move toward the house, hoping this was the end of the discussion.

"Velekh, don't let them make you feel embarrassed by who you are. Just as they shouldn't be embarrassed if they were the only humans on a planet of Vulcans. The universe is infinitely diverse and humans and Vulcans are just a small part of it. Kol-Ut-Shan, infinite diversity in infinite combinations - that is something Vulcans embraced long ago."

"Then why don't we go to Vulcan?" Prior to that day, Vulcan had been somewhat of an abstract concept to Velekh - he knew it was the place from which his parents came but it meant nothing more to him than that. It was no different for his playmates - many of their parents came from Earth, a place they had never been.

"I can never go back to Vulcan. Things are different there than here. And different, also, from all of the places we have lived. On Vulcan, people are not free to express their emotions. They can't laugh or cry or smile. To do so is considered embarrassing."

"People don't laugh or smile or cry there?" Velekh could not imagine a place where people did not laugh or smile or cry.

"No."

"So what do they do?"

"They repress their emotions, pretend like they don't exist."

"Why do they do that?"

"They think it's better that way. At one time there were many wars on Vulcan. Many people died. So Vulcans came to believe that emotions like hate were the cause of wars. They thought if people didn't let themselves feel emotions, they would have no reason for wars."

"And they don't have wars now?"

"No, not for thousands of years."

"So maybe they were right."

"The problem is that all beings have emotions, whether we want to or not. We are not machines. We can't deny something that exists - if we do, we will suffer in the end. Instead, we have to try to learn from our emotions. I can see that you do not understand this. But you have already learned something from your feelings of hate towards the children who were unkind to you. Was hating them a good feeling?"

"No."

"So, you see, you have learned that hate is not a good feeling. Now you must learn to let it go so this bad feeling doesn't stay inside you."

Velekh was anxious to have the conversation steered away from the topic of his emotions. He did not think it possible that he would ever not hate Christopher and the other children. "So they won't let us go to Vulcan because we might laugh or cry or smile?"

"Something like that."

"So we can never go there?"

"No, but we wouldn't be happy there anyway, we wouldn't be free. It's better to be here. Now, give me the hat. It isn't right to keep what doesn't belong to us."

The following day, Velekh was unsure what to do. He didn't want to leave the house without the hat. He was staring out the sliding glass doors when his father approached him.

"You can't hide forever."

"Maybe I can." His father laughed.

"Tell me, what is the worst that could happen if you go out now and the other children see you without the hat?"

"They tell me I'm weird and they won't play with me."

"If you try to hide in the house all the time, you won't have anyone to play with either."

Velekh could not be persuaded to go outside - the thought of going out without a hat on was unbearable. It would be like going out with no clothes on at all. For five days he spent hours reading everything he could about Vulcan and asking his parents an endless series of questions about it. When he sensed they were getting annoyed, he would go back to reading. By the third day he was tired of being inside all the time and yearned to go out, but was still unable to bring himself to do it.

On the sixth day, he was reading in his bedroom when he heard his mother speaking to someone, the voices too low to make out.

"Velekh, there's someone here to see you." His mother pushed open his bedroom door.

"Who?"

"Your friend Rafael."

"What does he want?"

"He wants to know if you can come and out and play."

"I don't want to go out."

"You don't have to be afraid. Rafael knows you are Vulcan. He has seen me and your father."

"Really?

"Yes. Did you imagine the other children didn't know where you lived and had never seen us before?"

"I don't know. Maybe they will know we have green blood now." His mother smiled.

"If they don't, you can explain it to them. Remember what I told you about copper and iron?"

"Yes. I read about it too."

"Go on out. It's rude to keep someone waiting."

Looking back, Losha could laugh at how ridiculous it had been that he had somehow imagined the other children wouldn't know he was Vulcan. He didn't even have a human name. It had not been easy to leave the house without the hat on - he remembered feeling completely exposed. Rafael, however, did not seem to notice his ears or make any connection between having pointed ears and green blood.

"Your hair is kind of curly but not as curly as mine." He said as they walked down the street together. I never noticed because you always had a hat on before."