ruler of the fourth dimension

There was once a man. The most amazing man. A man who’s saved many civilizations and improved so many lives.  I imagine he’s still out there somewhere, gallivanting around the universe with his screwdriver.  I met him once, a long time ago, in the summer of 1963.

It was a bright, sunny day and I was walking down the street, watching as the usual army of cars whizzed past and neighbours crossed the road with their dogs and It was then that I spotted the blue police box blocking the path. I knew for a fact it wasn’t there before.

As I stared with interest at the police box that stood in front of me, a young man wearing a bow tie stepped out and walked towards me.

'Well, don’t just stand there gawping at my blue box. This is the 1960s, isn’t it? You must have seen plenty of them before.'

'I’ve never seen any on this street, though.' I replied.

The strange man took out a wallet and told me he was ‘PC John Smith’.  Of course, I didn’t believe him for one minute, although to be fair, his ID inside the wallet did seem to confirm it. Then he asked me the strangest of questions.

'Have you seen a young brown haired woman anywhere? Has a craving for soufflés?'

'Soufflés? No, I don’t think I have. Sorry.'

'Ah. I’ll be off, then. Sorry to disturb you.'

He walked towards the blue box and It was then that I heard the strange wheezing noise. Fearing this man was in trouble, I ran inside after him and closed the doors behind me.

'What on Earth is this place?' I wondered out loud, as I looked around the strange environment I had found myself in. It was moments before I noticed the young man standing in front of me, grinning as if this was all perfectly normal. This police box seemed to be bigger on the inside, with strange markings on some round, twisting things above.

'This is the TARDIS. Bigger on the inside and all that. Now, question is, why did you follow me in here?'

'I heard a strange noise. I thought you might be in trouble.'

'Ah. Typical companion.  Well, seeing as you’re in here now, I may as well tell you who I am. I’m not PC John Smith. I’m the Doctor. I’m from a species called Time Lords. I’m the last Time Lord. And you are?”

'Oh, I’m David. David Chesterton.'

'That’s strange. Really strange. I had a companion with the surname Chesterton. Ian Chesterton, to be precise. Are you related?'

'I’m his brother. You know, Ian? He’s never told me about you. Are you close?'

'Erm, I wouldn’t say close as such. It’s complicated. Probably best you don’t know.'

I had already forgotten my surroundings intrigued that this man, somehow knew my brother. He moved over to what appeared to be a control panel set within the centre of the room and continued to adjust them while I continued with my questioning. 'Complicated?'

The Doctor’s face twisted into a strange, guilty expression. 'Well, let’s just say I…borrowed him.'

'Borrowed him? Doctor, what did you do to my brother?'

'I borrowed him. You know, like a library book. Only I didn’t check him out anywhere. In fact, maybe borrowed isn’t such a good phrase to use after all. Sounds too library planet-esque.'

'There’s a planet based around a library?'

'Yes. Although, it’s not exactly the best place to visit. Unless you like flesh eating shadows living inside books.'

'Well, that sounds like an ideal holiday location.'

'Are you sure?' the Doctor frowned at me.

'Sarcasm.'

'Oh, of course. How could I be so stupid? Why are humans so complicated? Anyway, shall we explore?'

'Explore?' I asked at the sudden change in direction in which the conversation was going.

'Yes, explore. Through those doors' he smiled and indicated the doors in which I had entered and he promptly ran over towards them.

'Hang on! What's to explore?'

'Another world. Another time.' he whispered.

It suddenly dawned on me that something had occurred during our conversation  and that the Doctor was expecting something to have happened beyond the doors.

'What? We don’t know what’s out there.' I was confused.

'You sound just like your brother. Come on, David. Exploring is cool. Especially when anything can be out there. ANYTHING!'

The Doctor ran outside and I followed obediently, like an intelligent dog without its lead.

~~~

We found ourselves amongst a large group of people striding past, wearing strange, dark glasses with blue streaks running over the rims.

'They’re wearing multi-glasses.' The Doctor explained. The same way he explained that we had somehow travelled though time to the future in such a matter-of-fact way that he simply expected me to accept it regardless. He continued:

'They project things in front of their eyes.  Weird sensation. I personally think that bow ties are much cooler.' he said adjusting his tie as if to make a point. 'Virtual Angry Birds is the nearest contender.  Especially the bow tie DLC pack.' he continued and smiled.

'Why would anybody wear them?' I asked.

They all looked rather stupid to me; they stuck out like sore thumbs. According to the Doctor, Google had started it all with glasses they released in 2013 and now, in the year 2043, every company was now producing them. Yet people were wearing them for some strange reason.

'They can do everything, David.   Right in front of your eyes, too. Humans from the twenty first century onwards love things happening right in front of their eyes.  That’s why 3D took off.'

'3D took off? But there’s no 3D stuff where I come from.'

'There will be in the 21st century. Nearly every movie from 2008 onwards was released in 3D. 3D TV is a bit limited, though, unless you have Sky and you’re David Attenborough’s biggest fan.'

'David who?'

'I’ll explain later. Now, shall we explore a bit more? Do explore-y things?'

'Explore-y things? Have you been drinking?'

'Well, explore, then.  Blimey. Try to create a new word and you get no thanks in response.'

I looked above me. In the sky were millions of cars which flew amongst hovering traffic lights and pedestrians flying across the cars waiting for the green light. On the ground were a few parked cars, in all colours of the spectrum some were even multi-coloured. The Doctor and I continued to walk down the street, when we noticed something odd. All the cars above us had stopped moving forward and were  now instead, all moving backwards. The pedestrians on the ground appeared to be mimicking them, as did the pedestrians in the air. Everything was moving backwards. Everything, apart from the Doctor and myself.

'Doctor, what’s going on?' I asked curiously.

'Time appears to be moving backwards.' He told me simply, whilst indicating me to follow.
I duely followed him and we jumped on top of a black hover car just as it was about to reverse out of a parking space and take off into the sky.  The hover car moved backwards at such a speed that I almost  fell off.  After a while, the hover car seemed to strangely devolve into just a car as we found ourselves back on the ground, in what the Doctor had told me was twenty-first century London.  We remained on top of the hover car that was just now an ordinary car as it whizzed past twenty-first century London and into a place that looked far more familiar to me, that of 1960s London.  It was then that I noticed him. My brother, Ian Chesterton, walking into a scrapyard entitled “IM Foreman” with a woman.

'Ah, the good old days!' the Doctor muttered, sounding strangely like an old man.

After a long period crossing through time, the car yet again transformed, this time into a horse and carriage.

The Doctor told me we were now in eighteenth century London, which explained the old fashioned buildings and people wearing top hats and bonnets. Further into the past we travelled, until the horse and carriage was replaced by a galloping horse; a horse in which we found ourselves standing on, although we didn’t stay standing up for long as we immediately dropped down into a seated position.

After we rode backwards through the BC years, the horse became a triceratops.

'We have to find a way to reverse the process.' The Doctor said to me, 'If we go any further back, we’ll end up in the big bang and all the people from 2043 will die. Even I will die. Although, at least my last moments would be riding a triceratops again!'

'Again?' I asked.

'Oh, did I tell you I rode a triceratops…on a spaceship?'

'I love how you say that casually, like riding a triceratops is totally normal.'

'It is totally normal.'

'So, you say we need to go forward? Well, how about we make the triceratops go forward?'

'Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?' he said slapping his forehead, 'Sometimes my mind seems to be thicker than a thin tree branch. Sometimes even thicker than that. Why am I so thick sometimes? Last time I rode a Triceratops, my friend’s dad threw a ball. Do you have a ball?'

'It’s not really the kind of thing I carry about, to be honest.'

'Okay. So no ball. In fact, we don’t even need the Triceratops.'

'We don’t?'

'No. We have legs, remember?'

'So?'

'Just run forwards.'

And so we ran through the years, as the horses and the horse and carriages and the cars around us followed our direction. Eventually, we found our way back to 2043 and everything was normal. However, there was still one more thing we had to deal with.

'So, who did this I wonder?' the Doctor looked at me and smiled,  'I think it’s about time we found out. Don’t you, David?'

~~~

The Doctor had used the TARDIS to latch onto the source using the power needed to rewind back time. Well, that’s what he told me, anyway.  It was a bumpy journey, one that sent us flying all over the place. I think I ended up landing in the TARDIS recycling bin.  That bin couldn't have been emptied for years, it was piled to the rim with so rubbish. I don’t think the Doctor had any knowledge of who binmen were. Either that or there are no binmen in space.

As the Doctor latched the TARDIS onto the power source he blurted out, 'If my calculations are right, we should be landing anytime….soon!'

'Erm, Doctor, I think we may have landed already.'

'Have we?' a look of disappointment crossed his face, before it became fraustration.

'Well, that weird grinding noise has stopped.'

'So it has. Well, don’t mind me, David. I’m clearly going deaf. Which isn’t a bad thing, because there was plenty of deaf Time Lords before the time war. Although, those deaf Time Lords who sang “Walk this way” whenever they decided to go anywhere were cringe worthy. Anyway, let’s find out who caused the wibbly wobbly timey wimey backwards thing, shall we?'

~~~