Stories

Untitled Doctor Who Fan Fiction (2012)

Untitled Doctor Who Fan Fiction

by Adam Richard

She was dying the day they met. Full of bluff and bluster, claiming to be a famed virologist. Even before he dismissed the lie as nothing more than that, even as she admitted she was actually a journalist, pretending to be her famous aunt, she was crumbling to dust. As he got up to make the coffee she refused to prepare, he was lying to her about being a teacher, forty years later. He looked into her eyes, her eyes that were still so alive, even though the face that framed them had succumbed to decay. He is goading her into action as she becomes stuck in a tube, centuries beyond civilization, high above the earth. She was so desperately independent, even the mere implication of fallibility from someone she perceived as male could push her on to remarkable feats. Watching her pick up the stuffed owl, he knows she is breathing her last breath. As she stands alone and forlorn with her battered suitcase and her worn tennis racquet, she is battling the might of a psychic spider and drunkenly wondering how she can possibly be speaking Italian. When a lifespan can be counted in millennia, the life of a human female passes like the blink of an eye. Try not to blink. It’s impossible. If you hold your eyes open too long, they fill with tears, and close anyway. She was long dead before she even told him her name.


“Sarah Jane Smith,” she said, her hand held forward, waiting to be grasped, “I’m a journalist. How do you do.” He lurked behind her, distractedly biting the head off a confection shaped like an infant. This latest body had come with a blood sugar imbalance.


“Miss Smith.” The reply was altogether too brusque. The man took her hand between two fingers, like a wet lettuce leaf.


“This is the Doctor,” she said, and he leaned in to grasp not only the man’s soft hands, but his surprised elbow.


“Mister Preece!” The Doctor’s face was far too close to this human’s, but it was an effective way of eliciting the truth. The Kalathians believe that it is much harder to lie directly into the mouth of another person. No doubt he had terrible jelly baby breath.


Preece attempted a smile that came off more like a sneer, contempt barely masked by a veneer of courtesy.


"Yes," he said, "of course."


* * *


The Doctor made grandiose but derogatory references to Beethoven and Disraeli, who it's quite possible he may have met, but Sarah Jane very much doubted it. When she'd first met him, she would have been utterly convinced that Wolfgang and Benjamin, as he insisted on calling them, were enlisted in his retinue. Since that business with the spiders, since he'd changed, she wasn't sure anymore. Now he talked to shoes and bananas, sniffed telephones and computers. She'd once seen him have a stand up argument with the TARDIS. The TARDIS had lurched violently at one point, effectively ending the argument, so maybe there was some method in his madness.


He seemed so uncomfortable now on Earth. He regarded this business with Preece and his agriculture machine as little more than a distraction. Preece had developed a device that could increase the size of fresh produce to the power of ten. The Doctor assured her it was an impossible machine, and that the molecule chains in the vegetables would have been pushed past breaking point. The three foot ear of corn on Preece's desk, according to the Doctor, should have imploded into a yellow pulp well before now.


Preece was explaining the theory to the Doctor, who patently wasn't listening. He interrupted while Preece espoused the virtues of what he was calling The Maxinator.


"Can you do the same thing to my Jelly Baby?" The Doctor enquired. "I do so like the idea of ten pound Jelly Baby."


"Yes, Doctor, of course!" Preece developed a smirk of smug self-satisfaction.


The Doctor shot Sarah Jane an unmistakable glance; he was in distraction mode. As Preece led him away to make his ungainly sweet, Sarah Jane snuck out of his peripheral vision and through the first door she could find marked Staff Only.


* * *


The old Doctor wouldn’t have done this. He would have left the distraction up to Sarah Jane, while he disappeared into parts unknown, throwing wooden shoes and spanners into the works and eventually causing everything to explode. No matter how benign his intentions, sadly all things with the Doctor eventually ended in conflagration and carnage. Sarah Jane had a lighter touch. She rattled all the filing cabinets she could find, until she found one that was locked. She waited until the area was devoid of white coated lab assistants and began jamming a nail file into the lock.


No doubt the Doctor would have used his sonic screwdriver. Well, the old Doctor. The Doctor that was no longer. She still adored him, wanted to see all the things he had to show her, but she couldn’t help but feel their relationship changed when he did. He used to be paternal, thoughtful, caring, now he was reckless, abandoned, impulsive. He still had flashes of anger and frustration, but where he once was authoritative and comfortable with authority, now he eschewed it altogether. She’d been travelling with this man for months, and she knew that he held the same mind, the same consciousness as the one she had known as The Doctor, but he was no longer that man. She wanted to mourn her friend but he wasn’t dead. He was still here, all teeth and curls. Something in his eyes, something in the way he cared for her, like a combination of parent and cheeky school chum, something about all of that still reminded her of the man she once called Doctor. This new man was taking some getting used to, and maybe that’s why she was missing her Doctor so much now.


Before she had time to ruminate too long on the Doctor who was and the Doctor that is, the filing cabinet popped open and she found exactly what she was looking for.


* * *

Sarah Jane entered the room just as the Doctor spat out a lump of purple goo. Behind him, lying on a bench, was the source of the spit; a purple jelly baby the size of a Volkswagon.


“Horrible!” he exclaimed! “It tastes like a sock dipped in seaweed.”


Preece was utterly affronted. He didn’t get time to utter a word, however, as Sarah Jane interjected.


“Doctor, have you changed the settings on Mister Preece’s prized Maxinator?”


“Oh, Sarah Jane! You clever girl!” The Doctor looked delighted, mischievous sparkles dancing in his eyes. He leaned on Preece, folding much of his substantial height down to make eye contact with the chagrined man. “I may have bumped a couple of your dials. The ones that were injecting the flavour. I am terribly sorry.”


“Injecting the-- I don’t know what you mean...” Preece flustered.


Sarah Jane held the documents she found in the air.


“Of course you do Mister Preece,” she said, “You aren’t actually making anything bigger. You’re extracting the flavour from the items you place in the machine, and what comes out the other end is manufactured. Based, mostly, it seems,” she flipped through the pages, “on the protein of a soy bean, which has been moulded into the shape of the source material, then coloured and flavoured artificially.”


“This isn’t a giant Jelly Baby, Mister Preece,” the Doctor wailed, “it’s a big purple tofu baby. Now, I ask you, who wants to eat a tofu baby?”


Sarah handed the papers to the Doctor. He flipped through them absently as he watched her age and die. She was calling out to him in the snow after the Krynoid had exploded, running from the school as K9 exploded, bolting into the TARDIS as the priory exploded. Everything burns, in the end. Is she with him as he falls from the tower? He doesn’t understand how these creatures can be so unaware of time passing through them. Keeping his consciousness focused on their linear existence exhausted him, but explaining to any of them exactly how he perceived the universe would have been even more difficult, so he struggled on regardless. As he pushed the rest of time out of his mind, and concentrated on this one moment, following the ebb and flow of causality as these humans experienced it, he felt giddy. It caused him pain. It was not like closing your eyes or covering your ears, it was like being underwater too long and not knowing where the surface was. That was always when he lost his temper, when he felt as if he were drowning in their limited, linear existence.


“This technology is beyond your time, Mister Preece. This kind of food synthesis will not be available to your species until well into the twenty-first century. Where did you get it?” The Doctor spat as he imposed himself on Preece’s personal space. The once haughty executive stumbled over his words, flustered.


“I, um... you see...”


“I recognize this design, Mister Preece, and you have laid down with dangerous bedfellows indeed.” He threw the paper on the floor and strode out of the room.


“Sarah Jane!” he called out as he left, as his consciousness slipped from the room, from the hour, from the little pocket of time the humans slowly made their way through, like ants through honey. She was picking up the papers he dropped, she was helping him sabotage a Cybership far above the planet, a ship that had planned to enslave the humans with giant tofu fruit replicas. She didn’t understand how they hoped to achieve it, and as he explained their plan to introduce a mind-controlling substance along with the synthesised flavour, she was attending his fake funeral, and he was attending her real one, and she was standing in the snow in her bikini, and she was stumbling sightlessly around a castle and fleeing a Sontaran in that blinding yellow jacket and chastising Harry for calling her an old girl and with that jacket folded over her wrist she is standing alone outside as he leaves her and he blinks. She is gone. There shall never be another like her. She blazed like a star, and though he tried not to blink, tried not see the whole of her existence in a moment, she was too bright, and he had to close his eyes against the light. He blinks and she is gone.

Distant Laughter

This is a story I wrote in 1996 while enrolled in the Professional Writing and Editing course at RMIT. It was one of the winners of the Outrage Magazine Short Story Competition in 1996 in the category "Best Short Story by a writer under 25." It deals with themes of loss and grief, and the effect they have on our perception of time, which appear frequently in my work.

Distant Laughter

By Adam Richard

Tomorrow at eleven past eleven, I drop the cup of coffee on the floor. I watch as the almost-full mug splinters apart. I see the coffee explode out of its ruptured container. Spewing across the floor, the hot brown liquid saturates my socks. In eleven minutes I forget I have dropped the cup. I cut my foot on a shard. I watch blood mix with water and milk and sugar and instant coffee. Salt water, disgorged from my left eye, borne down my nose, drops into the puddle. This happens in eleven seconds, after I cut my foot, Ruby is calling my name.

Eleven months before Brie calls me a fucken wanka, I am standing in Carnaby Street. The shop smells of leather. I am holding a Blundstone boot and the sales assistant says they are eighty pounds. With my still broad accent I tell him they are forty dollars. He looks as if he is standing outside, where there is a chill wind blowing.

Brie is wearing shoes like this. Brie is laughing. I smell the bay and water falls on the boot. The tan leather now has a dark spot. In eleven minutes Spider will ask why I am crying and I won't be able to remember.

In Eleven years I drop the cup of coffee. Brie and I are fourteen. We are carrying Lori. She has sick on her. Someone says she will choke. Someone else says she should. Brie is laughing. She is driving her car eleven days before my mother scrunches the bullfrog. Brie is drunk. We are both drunk on KAHLUA and milk. She laughs when we crash into the fence, the one outside the Mornington police station. When she is breathalysed, she laughs even more. Her BAC says she should be dead, not driving a laser through a fence. I don't laugh much.

In eleven weeks her boyfriend will steal her car and write it off. She will stab him in the foot with a steak knife. He will rape her. She will throw his clothes into the gutter. They will make up, eleven days later, and he will stab her with a second-hand syringe.

I am kneeling inside Mornington police station. I am vomiting KAHLUA and MCDONALDS into a rubbish bin. A male officer calls me a faggot. Other male officers laugh. I see my reflection in the spilled coffee. I can smell the beach. Brie is laughing.

Eleven months ago Lori is passing out. I am stoned. It is my first time. It tastes like burned crumpet. The smoke makes my eyes water. Everybody laughs. It is Matthew's fault. I do anything he tells me to. I am infatuated with him. In eleven weeks, Brie is losing her virginity to him. He is drinking coffee. The smell goes through me. I am standing in it, bleeding. In Ruby's lounge room, Judson's band are playing JUMPIN' JACK FLASH. Again. I hope it is not the only song they know.

In eleven minutes, Brie collapses, laughing. My eyes water. I hold my stomach. I watch gravity pull the coffee to the kitchen floor. Fat Rayleen is singing HOTEL CALIFORNIA. The band refuses to play ENDLESS LOVE. Fat Rayleen refuses to sing JUMPIN' JACK FLASH. The cup tumbles slowly. Fat Rayleen finishes the song. Ruby and Kerryn are clapping. I squeal. Rheeeeeayleen. Just like a pig. Brie snorts. Brie is laughing. My eyes water and the coffee soaks my socks.

In eleven months, Fat Rayleen will become bulimic. She won't lose any weight. Eleven weeks later she will be admitted to the Melbourne Clinic. In eleven days she will go to Byron Bay. She will still be there when I drop the cup of coffee. She will still be fat.

The female officer hands me coffee in a styrofoam cup. I am crying. I am replacing the boot on its shelf. I am watching waves roll on the bay there is blood and coffee on my foot a tear has fallen on the boot in London. Brie is laughing. I squeal like a pig and Brie is laughing. There is a crease on her forehead.

Eleven weeks before I cry over the boot. I am showing photographs of Australia. Brie is frozen on paper. She is standing on sand. Middle Park. Brie is laughing. Spider is making tea for my friend. He is being surly. I have chocolate in my mouth. Julie waves no when I offer some. Spider brings the tea. He denies having put sugar in it. I taste it. I can't taste tea. Only sugar. A tablespoon maybe half a cup Brie is laughing. Julie is passing the photo to Spider. He says fuckin mole he closes his fist I snatch the image away. There is a crease on Brie's forehead.

There is milk and coffee and sugar on the floor the sea is blowing in the window I am crying. We don't live near London. Spider never has. He says fuckin mole without a jee. Eleven months after I see the boot Brie will call me a fucken wanka. I will have and accent. I will say ing without a jee. She will laugh. I will laugh. It will be the first time since November.

my mother's hair is wet and she screams while the coffee slips from my fingers and the blood slips from my vein brie is laughing at the policeman who calls me a faggot fat rayleen is singing hotel california when my mother scrunches the origami bullfrog there is a crease on bries forhead the cup cracks into eleven pieces the liquid seeps into my sock the chip goes into my foot the blood mixes in with the sugar the milk the water the speed the smack the

saltwatermilkcoffesugarbloodsugarcoffeemilkwatersalt

the slap in the back of my head the blood flowing onto the floor the salt air blowing into the room the day the phone rings and gravity pulls the cup from my hand it is lost like the money from the till she can't repay and her virginity brie is not laughing I am not laughing as the wind blows in from the bay I leave footprints of blood and coffee on linoleum it stings I sniff water from my fingers my eyes weep from the burned crumpet brie can do it herself ruby is calling my name

Eleven months after Fat Rayleen sings. I copy Brie and put the straw up my nose speed looks like caster sugar it stings. She inhales water through her nostrils. Drops on the tips of her fingers. Lori is smiling. Brie is laughing. Hours pass like minutes. I am a superior being. I cut my foot. Before dawn Lori is missing for hours she is smiling when she returns the pubes of a stranger are caught in her braces. Brie is laughing. The bay blows salt into my face.

In eleven months Lori will be pregnant. She will be coming down. She will abuse me she will abuse Brie. Brie will have occasional contact with her. I will see her on the street she will call my name I will walk the other way.

The pubes of a stranger. I am coming down. My mother is harassing me. I throw hot dishwater at her. She throws me out. Spider says he loves me. Spider has only got enough speed for himself. I do this because I love him. He loses his virginity to me. I lose my soul to him. He puts half a cup of sugar in Julie's tea. She is diabetic. It is raining on the bay. Light rain. I am getting wet.

Eleven months before I leave. I am sitting down in K-MART on the floor in the toy department my mother is pulling my hair. She tells me to get up you idiot. I am nearly twenty. At home I am trying to fold a piece of toilet paper into an origami bullfrog. My mother throws a dishcloth at my head. She slams her coffee mug on the table. She snatches the paper from my fingers she says loudly I don't know what you're sticking up your nose or in your arm but stop it just stop it. In eleven hours I am telling Brie. Brie is laughing.

In eleven weeks I will be tripping again. I will meet Spider. We will fall in love. Eleven days later Spider will meet Brie. They will hate each other. Eleven days before gravity snatches the coffee from my hand I will hate both of them.

Eleven days before I meet Spider I am lying in grass. In Mornington. The stars are moving. My pupils are dilated. Brie is laughing. I am trying to explain what little I know of relativity. We have been watching videos of DOCTOR WHO. The hairs on my arms are crawling. The cup hits the floor. It cracks. I tell Brie how gravity affects time. Ruby is calling my name. A clock on a tower a clock in a well they keep different time the clock in the well is slower. Brie is laughing. She says I'm hilarious, like rhubarb. The grass won't keep still. The coffee spews out of the cup as it splinters. I am crying.

Eleven weeks before I leave, I hold my arm out and my breath in. Spider knows exactly what he is doing. He has the pick between his lips and his belt wrapped about my arm. My veins are going blue and lumpy, like they do on my dick. He is concentrating. He is completely absorbed. I want to fuck him right now. He has never been more sexy. Eleven weeks after Brie calls me a fucken wanka, we are discussing her boyfriend. She says watching him have a whack gets me wet. I laugh. She can do it to herself now. Brie is laughing.

Spider is pulling blood from me. It is swirling into the milky liquid. He is pushing it back in. Slowly. He pulls blood out and pushes it back in several times. It takes forever. I takes a whole eleven seconds. Something slaps me in the back of the head and I fall off the toilet seat. I'm doing it because I'm in love with him.

We will be clean the whole time we are in his country. He will not be as attractive as before. It will have been smack that made him beautiful. I will have anal sex without a condom. It will be in a lane behind a nightclub. He will be a stranger from Liverpool. His accent will be a narcotic. He will buy me a beer and a hamburger. I will owe Brie twenty dollars.

I fall off the toilet seat. The cup falls out of my hands. My blood flows into the syringe. The coffee flows into my sock. Brie is wet. My mother's hair is wet. I am wet. It is raining on the bay. The window is open and I am bleeding into coffee.

Eleven weeks before gravity claims the coffee, I am laughing. Brie is laughing. She needs money for the bond on her new house. It seems an innocuous request. She has a cash job and the dole. Eleven days before I lose control of the coffee, I am still waiting for the money. I am in the shower, trying to calm down. Water runs down my body, but it does not wash away feeling. Brie looks hollow. Her eyes are dark cavities and her bones jut out of her flesh. She is pale and wears too much makeup. Her head bobs forward when I speak to her. She has no money to give me. It is all tied up, invested in the black marks on her arms.

Eleven hours before I get in the shower, Brie rings my flat. She is at work. She has taken two hundred dollars from the till. The guy she sent to get the shit has fucked off. She needs the money or she will get the sack. I lie and say I haven't got it. She becomes abusive and I put the phone back on the wall. Ruby is calling my name.

Eleven years ago I will meet Brianna for the first time. We will be fourteen. We will be pissed and stupid. Rhubarb will be the funniest word we have ever heard. We will spend the next eleven years growing closer, until it seems there is no more important person in the world. I will lose boyfriends over her and she will do the same for me. We will hold each other when we need to cry, but we will always be laughing. Brie is laughing. We will wake up in strange suburbs with hangovers that could kill sheep. We will tell each other things that nobody else knows. Ruby will call my name and I will drop the coffee on the floor.

Tomorrow I am standing in the kitchen. The tupperware colander clatters to the floor, rubbery pasta trailing it from the sink. The window is open, I can see dark clouds tumbling over the bay. It looks like it will rain. I stand in the salt wind and blow into my coffee. It is still too hot and bitter. I overdose on sugar and milk. Now the beverage is anaemic and diabetic.

The phone is ringing and I am picking it up. Ruby is talking. About Brie. She is saying found and this morning. She is saying kitty litter and battery acid. She is saying nothing she understands. She is saying ambulance and too late. She is calling my name. The receiver is dropping to the floor, resting beside the yellow tupperware. Ruby is calling my name. I am watching the cup tumble toward the floor at eleven past eleven Tomorrow.

©1996, 2020 Adam Richard