In a break with tradition - and to celebrate the fact that a certain iconic television series celebrates its 50th anniversary this month - the following short story isn't daft!
#SaveTheDay
Imagine for a moment that two completely different television series do, in fact, tell the same story.
It could go something like this...
You all know me.
At least you think you do.
I've been around for a long, long time now. So long, in fact, that I'm almost like part of the furniture! The sort of furniture children hide behind....
But do you really know me? Do you know what I was like before I was that old man, the one who everybody seems to think arrived fully formed?
There are other "me's" that nobody knows about, not even you. You'll find out about one of them soon enough - on 23 November 2013, in fact. You wait and see. A special day, that will be.
But, as I was saying. A long time ago, before I was old...I was young. Yes, young! Is that really so strange?
Something terrible happened.
You've heard of fight or flight? How, when something difficult occurs, people either fight it or run from it? There was a complicated situation, I was at a low ebb and not ready to fight, so what else could I do?
I ran.
I left my planet all alone, that first time, with no friend or member of the family to stand by me. This was long before I sought company - or company sought me.
I had to hide from my people. Somewhere where they couldn't find me.
Do you know where I went? I bet you can guess.
It is a place which was new to me then, a place you know as Earth. Britain. London. In the 1960s.
My people are - were - a highly advanced civilisation. Few things could be hidden from them, and it takes a special sort of skill, or person, to remain at large without their finding that person. I'm good at that sort of thing now, of course - or at least, I think I am. But in those days it was all new to me. I needed to hide, time to think, time without them breathing down my neck - and so I determined to become somebody that they would not find.
Travel might have been an option, but that would have involved leaving a trail, so the first thing I did on Earth was to make my mode of transport undetectable - shut her down, as it were - and to shed myself of the trappings and technology which come with being from a so-called advanced civilisation.
I immersed myself in human culture. I nested, made a home and endeavoured to appear to be, to all intents and purposes, a human being.
Now, you know me. Sort of. I do get bored quickly, don't I? I crave adventure! Even then, in hiding, I had a thirst for adventure.
So what did I do?
I found a job! No ordinary job of course - it had to be diverse, interesting, exciting, perhaps even dangerous...a lot to ask for, you might think. But I found that job and with it an identity - although in truth it was more of a non-identity.
Yes, back there in swinging, 1960's London, I became a man whose job it was to be anonymous. Good, eh? My work was hush-hush. Secret stuff. And it mattered, too.
For a time it all went swimmingly. But, of course, then it didn't. There was conflict, you see - as there always is. Eventually, that conflict could not be resolved and so, one day, I found myself with little choice other than to confront a man behind a desk and slam an envelope down in front of him.
I resigned.
I had no plan about what to do next, other than to get out of London for a while. I still needed to lay low - perhaps even more so than ever before.
I packed a suitcase. It was time to take flight again.
What happened next is a blur. There was gas, I think, coming through the keyhole. Somebody was trying to drug me.
I lost consciousness.
Then after a time, I woke up again.
When I awoke, I appeared to be in the same place; same room, same furnishings.
And yet, when I looked out of the window, I discovered that I was somewhere else.
Now, as you know, this sort of thing can be par-for-the-course when you've got the sort of time-space machine that I flit about in. But I hadn't programmed the old girl to take me anywhere on that occasion - to my mind, she was still dormant - and yet suddenly, there I was, somewhere else.
Had my people caught up with me? Or was somebody else behind this? Was I even on Earth? It looked like Earth, but I really wasn't sure.
I looked around - in a bit of a blind panic, at first, I have to admit. I went outside and explored my immediate surroundings; what appeared to be a pretty little village next to the sea. My first guess was that persons unknown had abducted me and relocated me to Italy, but the air tasted wrong - and the climate was a bit more, well...British. Welsh, even. It was a beautiful place; colourful, delicate. But there was a sense of underlying menace too, and I knew right from the moment of my arrival that something was very wrong.
Over the coming days, I discovered that I had indeed been abducted. I still don't know for sure, who by. Years, decades, centuries have passed since then - but still there are questions which remain unanswered. My captors claimed that they wanted to know why I had resigned from my job and, quite possibly, they really did want to know. But I did not know whether they were on my side, or whether they were enemies I had made during my time working on Earth, or, more disturbingly, whether they were from somewhere else altogether. They could have been from my home planet! Or an enemy of my people. Or somebody from Earth perhaps, who suspected I was not quite what I appeared to be.
Lots of questions, but no answers.
Who were they? Who was in charge? What did they want?
We played cat and mouse. Oh, how we played! They were my captors, I was their prisoner. I say "they"...for a time I wondered whether I was delusional and whether it was all in my head.
Imagine that, for a moment. What if I'm not really over a thousand years old after all, that my memories are all delusion! Too much...? Perhaps it is best that we assume, for the sake of keeping this simple, that I'm not delusional.
Even though I may be.
They entertained me, fed me, acted courteously - sometimes - and even appeared to be sporting. How did I respond? I was sporting too. Devious. And British, too - I had to keep them guessing, after all. Always got to keep them guessing. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Keeping people guessing.
Then it got a bit nasty. Interrogation and stuff - you know the drill. Metaphorically speaking, they turned me upside down and shook me until every last penny and piece of fluff fell out of my pockets. Ah...my lovely, deep deep pockets! But I digress. They played with my mind, and I played with theirs.
Of course, me being me - or whoever it was that I was back then - I didn't take any of this lying down, you know? When have you ever known me to take anything lying down? Except, of course, for that time on Prefect's Pleasure Planet, three light years out from Metebelis...but we don't talk about that! "What happens on tour, stays on tour", eh? "Unlimited rice pudding, etcetera, etcetera!"
Sorry.
Must stay focused.
So.
We played a game, my captors and I. For all their playing with my mind, I did my best to play with theirs too.
I prodded and probed - sometimes playfully, sometimes violently - because, in as much as they wanted answers from me, I wanted answers from them.
Who were they? What did they want? Who was number 1? Was it still The Beatles? Or perhaps...The Who?
I didn't get an answer to any of those questions. Not really.
They let me escape. Then they brought me back. They gave me drugs and the game continued. I worked out my location, so they changed it. This happened several times. Sometimes I got mad. Once or twice, I thought I'd got the better of them - to the extent that they replaced the fellow who appeared to be in charge. Assuming they actually did change him, of course - what if it was the same bloke all the time, only with a different body? That is certainly a possibility, particularly if he was like me...
But let's not go there! So many questions.
So few answers.
Like...
Why were they so fond of umbrellas?
Mini mokes?
Games of Chess?
Cups of tea?
Ooh! Could I trouble you for a cup of tea? Better make a pot. And if you have any of those biscuits, you know, the cheesy ones...
Much obliged! Now, where was I?
Ah yes. In that village, I suppose you could call it.
They kept me incarcerated for a long time, you know. In the village. How long, I have no idea. The game continued, became less playful, became nothing if not downright absurd - but it continued nonetheless, and before long we were playing for much higher stakes. Yes indeed - the terrible Zodin had nothing on that lot, I can tell you. Unless of course my captor was, in fact, the terrible Zodin...
Lovely cuppa, by the way. Thank you.
Well, after a protracted period of mind games, one day I appeared to earn the right to stand face to face with the person who was really in charge. Not just the nominal person in charge, mind you, but the head honcho. Numero Uno.
"Who was number 1?" I hear you cry! Well, that too is rather hard to explain. There was a tussle...a thing going on with a mask...and a rocket...and somebody that looked awfully like me. He could have been me, I suppose, if we/he/I had broken the laws of time. Who knows? This timey wimey stuff does so addle the brain, don't you find?
Was my captor me? For so long I had suspected that my captor might have been like me, but never for a moment had I considered that they or he might have actually been me. Me, me, that is. Not that grumpy one with the silly headgear and a fondness for calling people "sagacity"...
Sorry. Rambling again.
Mmm - yum! Lovely biscuits. Oh, and Battenberg too? You do spoil me - how kind! I'll come here again.
Perhaps best not to hold me to that.
Oh, dear me, yes. Me. Me! But of course with me being me, it is entirely possible that my captor really was me. But which me? A me from the far future, or from a week hence? Or was it not me at all, but just another mind game?
I had no time to reflect on this. Everything began to fall apart, the walls of my prison quite literally falling away. I had a chance to escape, so I took it. I ran again. Fight or flight.
I returned to London. My home was still there - but of course, it would be, wouldn't it...because my home was my mode of transport! As I say, she was younger then, just like I was - and she could do that sort of thing. But had she been there all the time, where I had left her, or had she been with me, in that village place? Had I even left her at all, or been inside her all the time?
Oh, dear me - the mind truly does boggle, doesn't it?
Well, of course, I couldn't think straight. Still can't, you say? Well, I certainly couldn't think then, except to know that I had to get away again. Not just from London either, but from Earth. So, yes, I got out. But - I must to you this - wherever I went, there was always a nagging feeling that I had never escaped, that I was still, in fact, a prisoner. Even now...
Just imagine that.
What if, after all this time, all these stories about me - the stuff of legend! - is all just in my mind! What if I'm not even sat here talking to you now?
Oh, but, surely not? How could the universe survive without me? A saviour, a hero, friend, foe, somebody to be trusted...or feared - that's me! I am many things, aren't I?! I'm great! But, who am I really, eh? President of the High Council of the Thingummy Wotsits? Last of the Whatsernames? Am I actually just a loon? Am I incarcerated? Is it all a game? Are we playing a game? Am I playing with myself?
Gosh - is that the time?
Oh, good grief - time!
All this talk of me and possibly another me and all these other variables - timey wimey stuff, mind games, the old days, and fight or flight... I almost forgot!
I was going to tell you about a special event!
A very special day is nearly here.
23 November.
You might want to #SaveTheDay ...
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