The Doctor knew better
than anyone that the TARDIS’ rooms and passages tended not to be
fixed points in space, but he had always felt as if he knew every
nook and cranny like the back of his…well…whatever the back of
his current hand looked like.
He had been traveling
longer in his TARDIS than any other Time Lord had ever spent with
theirs, and so he presumed he had a handle on the rooms and passages
not always being where they were the last time they
were…well…wherever they were. It seemed now that he was
mistaken.
It was a problem the
Doctor mulled over as he wandered down one unparticular passage he
was sure he’d never seen before. Well, he couldn’t be too sure,
but he thought he was sure, at least so far as he could be sure that
he was sure. Perhaps he was just in a daze since the urge to see it
again had struck him suddenly out of nowhere. It had been nagging at
him like a ceaseless whisper in his ear for long enough to become an
incessant itch that needed to be scratched. He had to see it!
He was starting to get a
headache. He’d been wandering around for what felt like a decade
and he still hadn’t found what he was looking for. What confounded
the issue was that the Doctor could find some rooms without any
problem—or too much of a problem. The control room, for example,
always seemed fairly simple to get back to, although there was that
one instance, just after having regenerated for the fourth time, when
he used his previous self’s absurdly long scarf as a sort of
breadcrumb trail to find his way back. But he had attributed that
bout of disorientation to a particularly traumatic regeneration. All
in all, the control room always seemed to be where and when he needed
it. Likewise, whatever rooms his various companions used as their own
personal space during their stay generally kept close to the control
room and could easily be found. The bathroom, too, always seemed
within a hop, skip, and a short jump. It was a feature all his
companions had always seemed thankful for.
Even the swimming pool
tended to stay in the same general vicinity of wherever it previously
was. The Doctor presumed it had something to do with drainage but he
wasn’t completely convinced. And the library was always two lefts,
five rights, and down the spiral stairs. Except for that one time it
wasn’t, but that was K-9’s fault. The silly little dog though it
was unnecessary for there to be a library when he had already stored
all the books in his databanks, and subsequently decided to delete
it. Luckily the Doctor was able to restore it, although not without
the tragic loss of an entire collection of choose-your-own-adventure
novels. He quite missed those.
The Doctor rounded a
bend, strolled down a corridor, made two left turns followed by three
right turns, and had no idea where he was. How was this possible?
He wasn’t sure it was even remotely probable. Nevertheless, it was
undeniable. He was lost in his own TARDIS. If
the Corsair was still alive to hear about this the Doctor would hear
no end of it!
He sort of recognised the
area; this part of the TARDIS, like most areas, wasn’t quite the
same as the rest. All the surfaces here were a coppery color, and
the floor was made of fibercrete grating that
allowed the blue sub-lighting to rise up and illuminate the corridors
in a pleasant, if not haunting glow the Doctor always found soothing.
He was pretty sure he’d been here before. Yes, he had been here,
he was sure of it! A particularly nondescript door to his left
looked very familiar indeed. This was it. This was the room he was
looking for!
The Doctor rushed over
and slammed the heel of his fist onto the access key and stood there
with a broad, delirious grin as the door slid open. His joy waned,
as did his smile, the instant he saw that he had only found the
pantry. Not what he was looking for, although quite useful if he
could ever find his way back. He wasn’t sure he could. He starred
blankly as the door slid closed. Feeling defeated, he continued
onward.
The Doctor kept walking
until things started to look different again. This area of the
TARDIS was stark hospital white, with a repeating pattern of arrows
every two feet along the center of the walls. The arrows on both
walls all pointed in the same direction, and although the Doctor
couldn’t be sure they were pointing in the direction he wanted to
go at least there was a general feeling of heading towards something.
So when he skidded to a halt the instant he recognised a door he had
just taken two steps passed, optimism quickly took hold. This was
definitely the door he’d been looking for!
He slammed the heel of
his palm on the access key, and this time he was surprised to be so
pleasantly disappointed. It still wasn’t the room he was looking
for, but it was a room he had completely forgotten about for some
time, a room that had once brought him, as well as a few of his
companions, great joy.
The Esher room, as they
had called it, was an example of insanity expressed through
architecture; stairways going horizontal, or coming down from the
ceiling, walkways doing the same, and all sorts of bridges, tunnels,
and crevices that defied any rational orientation of a
three-dimensional structure obeying the laws of gravity. He had the
TARDIS construct it on a dare, so to speak, or more aptly, to prove
to his companion Tegan that such a structure could indeed exist. The
inspiration came from the mind of M. C. Esher, one of Tegan's
favorite artists. Even after fully accepting the TARDIS as an extra
dimensional space she didn’t believe it was possible to actually
build a room like those in Esher’s paintings. But the Doctor had
done it, or, more accurately, he had loosely programmed the concept
into the TARDIS and the TARDIS had managed to construct it.
The Doctor took a step
into the room but froze before the heel of his shoe landed. All the
memories of the times he, Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric had in this room
flooded back to him. He suddenly didn’t want to go in. He
remembered how it had made Adric smile, which was something of a
small miracle. The boy was insufferably serious all the time, but the
Esher room had coaxed to the surface the simple folly of youth he
kept sequestered deep within himself.
The games of
hind-and-seek that had taken place here were the stuff of legend.
If he listened carefully, the Doctor could still hear the
echoes of laughter reverberating throughout the infinite hallways and
passages.
With the ghosts of joy
still ringing in his mind he backed away from the door, letting it
slide close with a whimpering hiss. He wasn’t sure he could ever
step inside the Esher room again. The thought of jettisoning it
briefly came to mind before it was chased away by nostalgic ghosts.
The Doctor dragged his
feet down the corridor and stopped at a five-way intersection. With
his hands on his hips he took stock of the situation. At the rate he
was going he wasn’t sure he’d ever find the room he was looking
for. He almost wanted to turn back. It would be easy now. He could
chalk it up to a valiant effort thwarted by his ancient memory and
the TARDIS’ folly.
No, he had to go on. It
called to him.
The passage gradually
turned to dull silver as he continued searching for his destination,
and with each door he passed, and each turn he took, he became more
certain he would never find it. And maybe that was for the best, he
thought. It wasn’t as if what he was looking for was going to make
him happy, in fact, it would probably make his mood even more sullen.
But that didn’t matter, not really. He wanted to see it. He needed
to see it.
His mind wandered towards
darker memories until he happened upon a door after rounding an
awkwardly angled bend in the corridor. He didn’t let his hopes get
the better of him as he approached the door with suspicion and slowly
placed his hand against the access key. He hadn’t realised his
eyes were closed until the door hissed open and he didn’t see
anything. Slowly, he peeked out from between his hopes and fears.
Once again it wasn’t
the correct room, but the faint aroma of popcorn was too enticing to
ignore. With his mouth watering, he stepped in.
The Doctor reached out to
his sides as he walked down the gently sloped center aisle that was
lit by a row of sequent lights on either side, and brushed his hands
along the backs of the wide, comfy seats as he made his way towards
the wall-filling screen at the far end of the room. He walked all
the way down to the bottom of the slope where the massive screen was
just a few meters away and took up his entire field of vision, and
plopped down in the aisle seat to his left.
He chuckled at the memory
of Romana protesting such close proximity to the screen. “It will
ruin your eyes”, she always scolded. Only occasionally could he
convince her to sit so close, and although she said she hated it, he
caught her wearing a smile more than once as her eyes grew wide and
filled with awe.
The two of them had come
here many times to watch old Earth films. Some she enjoyed, some not
so much, but he always had fun watching movies with her. He
thought films should be watched with friends, and he never liked
watching them alone. He had taken most of his companions here at one
time or another, and his greatest joy was seeing how each of them
reacted to all kinds of different films. Adric adored westerns; Sara
Jane loved murder mysteries; Jamie made him play Braveheart nearly a
dozen times. Tegan and Nyssa made him watch romance films from
countless eras of Earth’s history. He only watched one film with
Captain Jack. It was the Captain’s choice and The Doctor thought it
was a tad too gratuitous.
For an instant he thought
he heard the projector’s mechanical thrum and the flapping of film
from behind him, but when he turned to look all he saw was rows of
empty seats. The room suddenly felt too big and too small all at the
same time and with that the Doctor left the cinema room with the
sounds of laughter and good conversation echoing in his thoughts, and
continued on his trek to find the room he was looking for. He was
starting to think seriously that he might not be able to find it.
Maybe the TARDIS was trying to tell him something by messing with its
arrangement.
'You would do that,
wouldn’t you?'
As if the TARDIS
understood, a fluorescent orange glow swelled from down the corridor
to his right. 'Thanks, old girl,' he said, before darting off in the
direction of the glow.
As he carefully took one
step after another he began to get the feeling that he might be on
the right path after all. The sweet, faintly coppery scent that
swelled the closer he got to the orange glow caused rippling waves of
nostalgia to wash over him. The Doctor’s hearts fluttered in
response, and he knew that he was indeed headed in the right
direction at last.
~~~
A staircase leading
downward before veering diagonally to the right brought him to a dead
end that was filled with warm orange light. The light came from a
thin illuminated strip bordering a door he hadn’t seen in far
longer than he cared to remember. The wistfully familiar smell was
strong, and he knew that once he opened the door it would be
overpowering. The door itself had no access key to open it because it
didn’t need one. This door would only open in the presence of
someone from the planet Gallifrey. He had never shown the room to any
of his companions as it was a secret too powerful to entrust even to
his closest friends, to even his family.
As the Doctor took
another step closer it hissed open. His knees buckled, and he leaned
on the wall to his right for support as the rich, powerful aroma of
his home planet filled his lungs. Beyond the door was a room of
unremarkable proportions, at least in no way unusual for the TARDIS,
but still beautifully designed. Seemingly endless rows and tiers of
vibrant, richly hued plants filled the space. Colours ranged from
deep maroon to fiery orange, blazing yellows to luscious pinks. The
occasional purple and blue flowers with contrasting leaves rounded
out the full range of the typical Gallifreyan colour palette.
The Doctor
slowly—humbly—walked through the arboretum, occasionally grazing
a leaf with his fingertips, or bringing a vibrant flower up to his
nose for a long sniff. As he inhaled the aroma of a particularly
spectacular Sun-Nova orchid, a single teardrop splashed onto one of
its fluorescent petals. He could barely bring himself to speak in
its presence, but managed to clear the lump in his throat just enough
to softly utter a few precious words. 'Mother always adored you.'
He continued through the
maze of lush foliage, taking less notice of his surroundings the
closer he got to what he was looking for. Eventually he happened upon
a small circular grotto. It was only a few meters across, but the
glimmering ball of light that hung above it made the space feel much
larger. This was the place he was looking for. The sight of it made
his hearts twinge and quiver. Now that he was here he almost didn’t
want to go any further. He wanted to turn and run away. He didn’t
want to see it, but he did. He really did.
There
was a semi-circular stone bench engraved with High Gallifreyan
symbols upon which the Doctor sat reverently. He focused his
water-logged eyes on the squat bluestone pillar in the center of the
grotto, which was filled with dark moist earth perfectly level with
its walls. In the center grew a single plant with dagger-sharp
thorns, it’s only flower a cream-white rose with yellow-edged
petals.
written by
MICHAEL FALINO