on_thecouch Prompt 18.3: Picture prompt
Anything inspired by this photo.
You don't know who you are.
You don't know who you are... yet you can't help but feel that this is something that has happened to you before; standing, alone, barefoot, in the middle of a cobblestone street lit by what you can see are bundles of animal fat (how gruesome) with a string sticking out of it, in the middle of the night with no recollection of how you got there. And it is thus, therefore, that the first words that occur to you are not "I'm freezing," it's "Oh no, not again."
Why? Well, you can't remember. Perhaps this person, whoever he is, the person you're technically supposed to be but can't remember being has had this happen a lot to him. If he has, you feel that you have the utmost sympathy for him. As much use he'll have for it. Or you'll have for it.
You make a mental note to stop sending sympathy to a man you don't remember being, and then make another mental note to tell yourself to stop making mental notes like that.
Your head feels muddled and thick as though your brain just swam through a cloud of toffee and then drowned several times before getting to the edge. The strange lack of shoes and socks being the one clear thing through the mess. Therefore your first observation created from the sensory perception of the world is that bare feet and cobblestone are not a wonderful combination. You wiggle your toes to confirm this conjecture before stumbling off in the direction of what might be a pavement, after a large thing with eight legs and wheels and a large box thing attached to its back come thundering past you, shouting and making whipping noises with that thing that looks like a whip protruding from its third head.
Confusing world.
Who am I? you wonder, and blunder blearily along, searching for someone to press this question to.
The first person you meet has four legs, and no arms. He peers at you through large black eyes that are on either side of its long skull and shakes his head, flushing out his hair behind him. You ask him who you are, and he replies "Neigh," before clip clopping his front two feet a bit and snorting loudly.
Neigh? Neigh? No, you can't be Neigh. Whoever that person is, it isn't you. For some reason it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel like it's the name you would find yourself turning your head around to. Whoever this Neigh is, a splendid person, you're sure, he isn't you, and you tell the four-legged person so, and apologise for not being the one he's looking for. He clip-clops his front two feet, totters a bit in one spot and shakes his head again, the mane at its neck fluttering at the movement.
You do the same, shaking your head so that your long curls bat against the sides of your head. Maybe that's his way of saying "How do you do?" You never knew.
Oh. Oh. Perhaps he was introducing himself, perhaps this strange four-legged person himself was... 'Neigh.' You tell him that it's wonderful to meet a man like him, and that if he knows anyone who might be able to tell him who he is? No, well, all right then, and have a good day.
Neigh repeats his name for a bit and snorts, before repeating the gesture and shaking his head. You repeat it yourself, forgoing the name repeating because, well, you don't have one; this is probably his way of saying goodbye. As you walk away, you realise that the reason Neigh's been hovering in one place is because the straps tied to its head are themselves tied to the lamppost. You pick the knot free and Neigh shakes his head, snorts, and thunders away on all fours.
You move on. Someone must know who you are.
The next people you meet are twittering little creatures, with two sharp feet that stick out from under the strange oblong thing they've got over their legs. You ask them who you are, adding a bit of head shaking and feet stamping to the introduction for good measure, and they stop twittering to stare for a moment in sheer blankness at him, eyes observing him keenly with a scrutiny you decide you don't much like. When they see the bare feet that stick out from under your trousers, they begin to twitter again, really rather annoyingly, causing you to frown, just a little. You imitate their twittering, wondering mildly if it's another form of language, and suddenly they burst into laughter and twitter again. But more sensible this time, with something that you feel as though has more meaning. Sounds and beats and pauses and sounds that repeat again at certain intervals.
Good. Word structure. Not just the random sounds they'd been making before. You could decipher that. It doesn't take you very long to piece the language together; it's simple and basic and yet has a certain lyrical quality to it that you decide you rather enjoy. Your ear suddenly catches on a sound, a word, two syllables, and for some reason you really like it. You repeat it. They say some more words and repeat it again.
... Doctor.
Oh are you a doctor, then?
I sup-poss I must be, yes.
It's suppose, love. Are you foreign?
Foreign? You don't know that word. You ask them what it means. They decide you must be whatever it was, and explain the word to you. Different. Not from here. From far away. You think about it. Yes, that must be it. Of course. Far away. So far away from home. Home? A blue box flashes in your mind for a second before vanishing again. What was that? Was that home?
Suddenly, as you stand there miserably in your lack of shoes, for some inexplicable reason, just after you've deciphered their language, the two creatures change their twittering to more of a cooing sound. You nearly rip your hair out in frustration before realising that it isn't a different language, they've just changed their tone of voice.
Confusing world.
They ask you if you have a name. You tell them that you don't know and that you was asking them if they knew. They return to twittering. This is getting annoying. But then they repeat that word again as they turn to twitter to each other.
Doctor.
Doctor. They keep mentioning it as someone to go see, but you feel as though it means more than that. It has the rightness that the name Neigh didn't have and you decide that yes, that must be your name.
Doctor. The word floats idly through your head before it snags on a memory, a recollection, of a time when that word was a choice and brings it to the fore, causing you to yelp and holler at the small triumph.
Yes! That is it!
I am... the Doctor!
Good! If only you knew what to do with that. But at least you're making progress.
The candles from lampposts flicker at you, and you notice for the first time the orange glow they're giving the scene. You frown at them in concentration. Candles. That's what they're called. You remember having something similar, only with... wax instead of that horrible fat in... in... in the...
What?
The annoying twittering creatures say that it's 'time' to go, and if he'd like to stay with them if he's got nowhere else to go.
Time! He.. that... is very important, you tell them. Time.
Yes, they say. Time. As in time to go before curfew.
No! Not that. Time... time as an entity, as a being, as a moveable, confusing line that can be altered in four dimensions and perhaps more, with decisions and forks and fixed places, time. Time! A completely relative undulating thread, a web, depending on where you were. Temporal fluctuations, vortexes, eddies, like spokes and needles. That! There, wasn't that it? Time! He was... he was a lord of time. A... Time Lord? Yes! Yes. A Time Lord with his time machine. His time machine called the...
Called the...
Oh damn. And you'd been doing so well.
Wait, yes! No. Yes! No. No. Yes! Time... Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. The TARDIS. His ship. Your ship.
You pale as the last twenty-four hours (and a good deal more than that, a good thousand years worth more) come rushing back to you.
Oh dear.
***
The Doctor hurriedly sprinted down the street in his bare feet, paused, broke into a shoe shop, "borrowed" a very good, comfortable pair of smart looking shoes, and then continued running.
The Eighth Doctor
Doctor Who
1,417 words
You don't know who you are.
You don't know who you are... yet you can't help but feel that this is something that has happened to you before; standing, alone, barefoot, in the middle of a cobblestone street lit by what you can see are bundles of animal fat (how gruesome) with a string sticking out of it, in the middle of the night with no recollection of how you got there. And it is thus, therefore, that the first words that occur to you are not "I'm freezing," it's "Oh no, not again."
Why? Well, you can't remember. Perhaps this person, whoever he is, the person you're technically supposed to be but can't remember being has had this happen a lot to him. If he has, you feel that you have the utmost sympathy for him. As much use he'll have for it. Or you'll have for it.
You make a mental note to stop sending sympathy to a man you don't remember being, and then make another mental note to tell yourself to stop making mental notes like that.
Your head feels muddled and thick as though your brain just swam through a cloud of toffee and then drowned several times before getting to the edge. The strange lack of shoes and socks being the one clear thing through the mess. Therefore your first observation created from the sensory perception of the world is that bare feet and cobblestone are not a wonderful combination. You wiggle your toes to confirm this conjecture before stumbling off in the direction of what might be a pavement, after a large thing with eight legs and wheels and a large box thing attached to its back come thundering past you, shouting and making whipping noises with that thing that looks like a whip protruding from its third head.
Confusing world.
Who am I? you wonder, and blunder blearily along, searching for someone to press this question to.
The first person you meet has four legs, and no arms. He peers at you through large black eyes that are on either side of its long skull and shakes his head, flushing out his hair behind him. You ask him who you are, and he replies "Neigh," before clip clopping his front two feet a bit and snorting loudly.
Neigh? Neigh? No, you can't be Neigh. Whoever that person is, it isn't you. For some reason it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel like it's the name you would find yourself turning your head around to. Whoever this Neigh is, a splendid person, you're sure, he isn't you, and you tell the four-legged person so, and apologise for not being the one he's looking for. He clip-clops his front two feet, totters a bit in one spot and shakes his head again, the mane at its neck fluttering at the movement.
You do the same, shaking your head so that your long curls bat against the sides of your head. Maybe that's his way of saying "How do you do?" You never knew.
Oh. Oh. Perhaps he was introducing himself, perhaps this strange four-legged person himself was... 'Neigh.' You tell him that it's wonderful to meet a man like him, and that if he knows anyone who might be able to tell him who he is? No, well, all right then, and have a good day.
Neigh repeats his name for a bit and snorts, before repeating the gesture and shaking his head. You repeat it yourself, forgoing the name repeating because, well, you don't have one; this is probably his way of saying goodbye. As you walk away, you realise that the reason Neigh's been hovering in one place is because the straps tied to its head are themselves tied to the lamppost. You pick the knot free and Neigh shakes his head, snorts, and thunders away on all fours.
You move on. Someone must know who you are.
The next people you meet are twittering little creatures, with two sharp feet that stick out from under the strange oblong thing they've got over their legs. You ask them who you are, adding a bit of head shaking and feet stamping to the introduction for good measure, and they stop twittering to stare for a moment in sheer blankness at him, eyes observing him keenly with a scrutiny you decide you don't much like. When they see the bare feet that stick out from under your trousers, they begin to twitter again, really rather annoyingly, causing you to frown, just a little. You imitate their twittering, wondering mildly if it's another form of language, and suddenly they burst into laughter and twitter again. But more sensible this time, with something that you feel as though has more meaning. Sounds and beats and pauses and sounds that repeat again at certain intervals.
Good. Word structure. Not just the random sounds they'd been making before. You could decipher that. It doesn't take you very long to piece the language together; it's simple and basic and yet has a certain lyrical quality to it that you decide you rather enjoy. Your ear suddenly catches on a sound, a word, two syllables, and for some reason you really like it. You repeat it. They say some more words and repeat it again.
... Doctor.
Oh are you a doctor, then?
I sup-poss I must be, yes.
It's suppose, love. Are you foreign?
Foreign? You don't know that word. You ask them what it means. They decide you must be whatever it was, and explain the word to you. Different. Not from here. From far away. You think about it. Yes, that must be it. Of course. Far away. So far away from home. Home? A blue box flashes in your mind for a second before vanishing again. What was that? Was that home?
Suddenly, as you stand there miserably in your lack of shoes, for some inexplicable reason, just after you've deciphered their language, the two creatures change their twittering to more of a cooing sound. You nearly rip your hair out in frustration before realising that it isn't a different language, they've just changed their tone of voice.
Confusing world.
They ask you if you have a name. You tell them that you don't know and that you was asking them if they knew. They return to twittering. This is getting annoying. But then they repeat that word again as they turn to twitter to each other.
Doctor.
Doctor. They keep mentioning it as someone to go see, but you feel as though it means more than that. It has the rightness that the name Neigh didn't have and you decide that yes, that must be your name.
Doctor. The word floats idly through your head before it snags on a memory, a recollection, of a time when that word was a choice and brings it to the fore, causing you to yelp and holler at the small triumph.
Yes! That is it!
I am... the Doctor!
Good! If only you knew what to do with that. But at least you're making progress.
The candles from lampposts flicker at you, and you notice for the first time the orange glow they're giving the scene. You frown at them in concentration. Candles. That's what they're called. You remember having something similar, only with... wax instead of that horrible fat in... in... in the...
What?
The annoying twittering creatures say that it's 'time' to go, and if he'd like to stay with them if he's got nowhere else to go.
Time! He.. that... is very important, you tell them. Time.
Yes, they say. Time. As in time to go before curfew.
No! Not that. Time... time as an entity, as a being, as a moveable, confusing line that can be altered in four dimensions and perhaps more, with decisions and forks and fixed places, time. Time! A completely relative undulating thread, a web, depending on where you were. Temporal fluctuations, vortexes, eddies, like spokes and needles. That! There, wasn't that it? Time! He was... he was a lord of time. A... Time Lord? Yes! Yes. A Time Lord with his time machine. His time machine called the...
Called the...
Oh damn. And you'd been doing so well.
Wait, yes! No. Yes! No. No. Yes! Time... Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. The TARDIS. His ship. Your ship.
You pale as the last twenty-four hours (and a good deal more than that, a good thousand years worth more) come rushing back to you.
Oh dear.
***
The Doctor hurriedly sprinted down the street in his bare feet, paused, broke into a shoe shop, "borrowed" a very good, comfortable pair of smart looking shoes, and then continued running.
The Eighth Doctor
Doctor Who
1,417 words