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The whole world around me is constantly moving and shifting, never in balance, never pausing, never letting me catch my breath. My life is not my own anymore, and it’s never going to be my own again.
I don't know what I’m going to feel when I wake up each morning. It's just not up to me. It’s always the symbiont who decides about everything, every tiny detail, like what to eat for breakfast or what book to read before going to bed; even what people to spend time with.
I have learned - through trial and error - to give in and to go along. I know that I’ve got no say. It’s simple, really.
Because if I should hesitate or, heaven forbid, refuse to do something… well, it wakes the voices of all the nine people I am. And once they are unleashed, my mind turns into an infinite turmoil from which there is no escape, sometimes for hours.
So instead, I let them sleep during the day. The only thing that can soothe me – the little piece that is left of the real me – is nightfall. At night, the symbiont has almost no influence on my consciousness. My dreams are all my own, unmarked by the traces and habits of the previous eight hosts. It’s like shedding layers and layers of old skin and letting your own skin, pink and newborn and breakable, breathe at last.
And however strange my dreams are, I relish them because they are my only relief. My only escape.
I suppose I’m not the first to make this discovery. Of course not. There have been hundreds of hosts in living memory, maybe even more before that. They must all have woken up disoriented, lightheaded, with a strange sensation of freedom and delight. But I doubt that any of them were as relieved as I was on the very first morning after the Joining.
Normally, joined Trill are rarely in danger of losing the grasp on their own personality under the pressure of the symbiont. The candidates are always thoroughly prepared. I understand that there is a technique that one learns: how to sort out all the different memories and personalities, how to place each host and each recollection on its own special shelf, never letting them intersect or interfere with each other.
But I haven’t had that privilege. In my mind, all the memories and thoughts form an explosive mixture, threatening to take over when I'm awake.
People constantly tell me how wonderful it must be to have such an extensive collection of memories and experiences, how useful they are for my work as a counselor. I have the advantage of eight – no, nine lifetimes full of wisdom and excitement.
But that’s not how it works. Not even for experienced trill. And me… I’m the oddest specimen yet. My head is not a library equipped with a catalogue which tells me exactly where to look for a certain book. I can't just pick up a certain memory to help me solve a problem.
They emerge at random, at the most inconvenient times. Instead of being useful and helpful, I blurt out something inappropriate. No wonder people think me confused, clumsy and foolish.
Sometimes, when I wake up suddenly, in a middle of a dream and it’s still veiling my senses, I feel like me again; me, the girl who was happy and content with herself and her little world. She never aspired to achieve great things, never longed for adrenaline rushes and the glory of the battlefield. She saw the beauty of little things, the grace and serenity of a quiet, peaceful life. This was where she belonged. This was what she wanted.
And this is exactly what I see in my dreams every night. My old life. The life that I can never have now.
I often dream of my family. My mother’s hands. My brothers and their mischievous pranks. The first time I fell from a tree and had to be carried home by my father. My home, New Sydney with its dusty skyline. I used to sketch it on lazy Sunday afternoons.
Sometimes I remember a young man, an ensign on my first Starfleet ship. He had eyes like amber; and in the evening light they sometimes looked like liquid gold. He was my first crush and he never even knew it.
Those memories are mine, all mine… and yet they are not, not anymore. Because the moment I wake up, I begin to see them through a lens. It’s almost a living creature, created and shaped by the symbiont's memories and experiences. And it changes everything.
Something new and fascinating, like a Bajoran temple, suddenly becomes boring, as if I’m tired of seeing its interior for the hundredth time. Books become boring too, even though I have never held them in my hands, let alone actually read them. It’s almost like all the previous hosts are trying to mock me for my lack of sophistication. Maybe they’re trying to transform my mind, my very core, into something more worthy of the symbiont – something more like them.
A very long time ago I (or was it Emony? or Torias? it’s so hard to remember) heard a wise man say: "The more you know, the more you suffer". I’ve come to think he must be right. Maybe being ignorant and innocent – something that I can no longer experience – is the true recipe for happiness. Yes, ignorance is bliss.
Me? I have too much knowledge. Eight lifetimes too much, to be exact. Eight lifetimes that were not meant for me, but I received them anyway, like a misdirected package that no one else could sign for.
The hosts living in my head, each one of them – Lela, Tobin, Emony, Audrid, Torias, Joran, Curzon and Jadzia, oh, especially Jadzia, vivid and present like no other, – warp and taint the world around me. Every moment, every intake of breath, every blink of an eye is spent hanging in between them all.
And that scared little bit that is Ezri Tigan is hiding in the farthest corner of my mind, waiting for the night to come and save her, and hoping that she can dream just a little longer this time.