TDP 750: MARGINALIA #DoctorWho short story by Michael M Gilroy-Sinclair

TO CELEBRATE 750 @TinDogPODCAST S HERE IS A SHORT STORY  MarginaliaMarginalia by Michael Gilroy-Sinclair   The fake monk was not happy. The school party was late and he had been reduced to simply staring out of the window. In the brightly lit education suite, he had neatly laid out a collection of fake parchment and quills in order to give the primary school children a taste of life as an eighth-century monk. It felt to him that he had been doing this, day in day out, for months and he was frankly bored. He knew from the minimal research he had been required to do, that the real monks had used goatskin and octopus ink, but such extravagances were beyond most education department budgets. Idly, he straightened a pile of A4 paper, which didn’t need straightening, only to return to the window and glance across the car park for the fiftieth time that morning. The sky was the clearest blue with only wisps of white dancing in the heavens. Surely, that blue portaloo hadn’t been there this morning. How could he not have noticed it until now? Maybe the council were finally going to fix those potholes? Only… Now that he could see it properly, there seemed to be a flashing light on the top and it clearly wasn’t a portaloo at all.   Rose was not impressed with the Doctor. He had landed the TARDIS without any of the usual build-up about their destination and headed for the door. There had been no talk of strange creatures or stranger lands. The Doctor’s behaviour may have been out of the ordinary, but Rose reasoned that it must have had something to do with the sound. Moments earlier, the extraordinary time and space ship had made an extraordinary racket that sounded almost exactly like it had a stone in its shoe. Rose knew fine and well that the TARDIS didn’t have shoes to get stones into, so this was a worry. She had come out of the kitchen and headed straight to the control room, where she saw the Doctor heading past the pale coral roof supports and out of the old wooden door and into the daylight beyond. “Oi, hold on!” “Hmm,” replied the Doctor; he was distracted by his sonic screwdriver as it bleeped and flashed in a way she had never seen it do before. “Do you have any idea what we are looking for?” asked Rose in her most patient voice. “Err… no…. but I will know it when I see it.” He seemed very positive about this. “And the bleeping helps?” “The bleeping will tell me when we are close to the source.” Rose’s patience was wearing thin, “The source of what?” The Doctor stopped walking and looked directly at Rose as if she were a child. “The source of the temporal disturbance. Honestly, it’s like I don’t explain anything to you…” “You don’t. All I know is that the TARDIS started making a weird noise and then we stopped and you stormed off with that thing in your hand.” As if it were joining in the conversation, the bleep of the sonic screwdriver suddenly became slightly more frenetic, taking away the Doctor’s concentration and causing him to walk off in a new direction. “Where are we anyway?” demanded Rose as she raced to catch up with the Doctor. “You tell me, Rose Tyler.” Rose looked around. “It’s cold. And it’s Earth… England.” “Why do you say that?” “Because… unless we are in some pretty weird parallel universe, that’s a Ford Escort and that’s a Volvo.” Rose was on a roll. She took a deep breath and smelled the air. “We’re near a river or close to the sea.” “Correct on both counts,” the Doctor said, beaming. “Anything more specific?” She looked over the Doctor’s shoulder and said, “We’re in Jarrow at a place called Bede’s World, near the river Tyne. Quite close to the tunnel, apparently.” “Amazing! And how do you know that?” “There’s a whopping great sign on the other side of the road,” said Rose smugly. The Doctor beamed with delight. “Fantastic! Anything else?” “It’s a World Heritage Site and it looks like the tea shop is open. Fancy a Hobnob?” The Doctor flicked at the screwdriver until it stopped making a noise. “I don’t mind if I do. Grab your coat, you’re paying.”   Calder, son of Eric, had not always been the Viking warrior he was today. He had been nothing more than a farmer with a sideline in jewellery making, when the Northern Lights had come down to the land to visit him and him alone. It had been an ordinary afternoon in the fields when the storm had risen. It was a tempest unlike any he had seen before. In a single heartbeat, the sky had ripped apart causing his flock to scatter and Calder to shelter under the nearest tree. From his refuge he could see the incredible colours swirl and pulse as the afternoon sun twisted and bent in the storm. Suddenly, a gash of darkest night filled the air above him. Beyond the hole in the sky, the stars swooped and curved, with a single shooting star at its centre, resembling a pendant of the gods. And then it was gone. Like a vivid dream, it passed and seemed to leave nothing but a memory. Calder shook his head as if to shake something loose, only finally ...