Horror.

Wrapped in the blanket of space lay the Doctor, on top of his blue box, starring upwards with his hands linked behind his head and both his legs bent at the knee, dangling over the side. Above and around him hung the universe full of promising stars; those tantalizing rocks spinning through space around their respective suns. Even he could not know the full size of the universe as it was still expanding and would do so until it eventually ripped apart. Great fathoms of space lay uncharted beyond his lean pathways. There he would find vast solar systems containing the seeds of future civilizations just beginning their journey from sea to land, then land to air and inevitably from air to space.

He considered Earth, his obsession, why did he keep going back? Why did that planet in particular enthral him so much? There was so much darkness there, so much horror. He felt his skin crawl with recollections of Earth-bound wars and genocides that had nothing to do with any visitors from other planets. He had seen horror in one form or another from all sentient life forms across the universe. It was the inevitable struggle for survival against the odds, but with Earth there was something different. They had relatively short lives. They required two genders, who often did not agree on much, to procreate. They were capable of meeting and exceeding the extremes of good and evil. The same person could eat a lamb and on the same day save a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. The same country that brought the world great inventions like the steam engine or the silicon chip could also invade other countries, destroy indigenous cultures and reap their treasures for themselves.

Earthlings were mesmerizing, delightful and infuriating. Ah! But there was the music, oh the glorious music that echoed through the millennia … and the stories, all those wonderful tales of beasts and bears. And then there was fashion with all those buttons and you cannot forget the gadgets, with all their buttons too. How he loved buttons! And how he adored the jokes and the laughter, and that time when he laughed so hard he thought his lungs would burst ... and yet there he was laughing, on the roof of his blue box, thinking of his human friends that belonged to the same species that could look on as children, ignorant of their fate, were led from a train to a gas chamber, making them sing a childish song in unison as they walked hand in hand towards certain death. He choked on his laughter and felt his hearts breaking again. Horror! Horror! Horror!