December 27, 2008

There is no one, not a single person on this entire planet, who will ever believe what has happened to me.

Okay. I have to calm down. I have to start at the beginning. This isn't going to make any sense otherwise and I need this as a record to prove, to myself at least, that I'm not insane. That is… I'm pretty sure I'm not insane….

If anyone is reading this, my name is Noelle Kelley. I'm 21 years old and was about to finish my senior year in college with degrees in physical biology and English literature. I know it sounds like a weird combination but what can I say? A lot of things interest me. I'm an author. Don't check your local libraries or anything, I haven't been published yet and who knows, now maybe I never will, but I love to write. If I slip into narration while I'm trying to describe what's happening to me, it's just because it's easier for me to structure my thoughts that way. I'm from California, USA, Planet Earth and this all started a little over a week ago.

Wait. There's a bit more background information I need to get out there if this is going to make any sense later. I'll admit it – I'm a totally and complete geek. Can navigate computers better than my own neighborhood- , spent more time with online friends than real life ones during my teenage years- , had lined up a job with a high tech company (at least until I can get published) near my hometown-Geek. And I like geeky things too. Computer games, Star Wars, Harry Potter (can't get enough Harry Potter, it was a complete obsession for over ten years – and if you're counting that's since the first book was released. Okay, I lied, you can find something I've "published" but I won't tell you where exactly – but online fanfiction is a good place to start) and this television show called Doctor Who.

You've probably heard of it. Doctor Who is this program on the BBC (in England) and the SciFi channel in the US. It's the longest airing sci-fi television show ever and has been running, with a couple of years off, since the 60s. I got hooked about a year ago when I proceeded to watch the last three years worth of episodes in about a week. The main character is a man, well, alien, called The Doctor who is an interplanetary space explored who can travel across the universe and through time. He's not human but looks like one, and has an uncanny knack for saving the world. But it's your fairly typical science fiction TV show. I, of course, was hooked instantly and spent a happy year rewatching my favorite episodes and trying to convince my friends that it wasn't a waste of time. God. I have never been more right about anything in my life.

When I got home for Christmas, my family, who is generally pretty understanding if not appreciative my of tendency to obsess over movies, television shows, books, computer games, etc. (don't even get me started on Lord of the Rings) got fed up with my DoctorTalk pretty quickly. That is until my sister discovered that she could make me jump about a foot in the air by mimicking the gravely robotic voice of the bad-guy aliens from the show. (They're called the Daleks and go around shouting "EXTERMINATE" at anything that moves. Trust me, they're not a pleasant bunch.) That entertained everyone, myself excepted, up through Christmas. That's when things started to get really weird.

It was the day after Christmas and my mother talked my little sister and me into braving the mall to go shopping. She's a sucker for sales, but only when someone else can go deal with the parking and crowds and annoyed sales clerks. Let me say upfront, I am a huge fan of fashion and shopping but I am definitely not fashionable. Maybe if I were skinnier, or taller, or hadn't spent half my time on earth in front of a computer I'd have a better idea of how a young woman is supposed to dress. But it doesn't really matter, I'm just saying, I'm not exactly model material and I usually get pretty frustrated when I go shopping because nothing really fits right or looks good.

But that was how it started. For the first time I can remember, everything was perfect. I would try on something that looked good on the hanger and – believe me, it was a surprise every time – it looked good on me too. I must have made my sister go into about twenty different stores, and she could barely get me out of them. If you're a girl, you understand the absolute magic of having a good shopping day. If you're a guy, well, just take my word for it, there's nothing like it. Finally my sister got so bored (and so nervous about the amount of money I was spending) that she went home, promising to pick me up later. I must have been in the stores for hours and it had gotten dark ages before. Every time I went through the checkout line, I promised that was it, I'd call my sister to pick me up and go home, and then I'd see one more thing I just had to try on.

Finally, I knew I really had to get home. Most of the stores had already closed and I was up on the top floor of this huge department store. I called my sister and told her I needed her to come pick me up.

"Thank god you're finally done. What's the point in having a real job if you're not going to save any of the money you make?" she said. Those were the last words I heard from her.

I was just finishing up in the changing room, then, and that's when I heard it. That gravely robotic voice outside the dressing room. It sounded like it was far away and at first I thought, rather stupidly I suppose, that someone was watching the television show Doctor Who. Except the voice was getting closer.

"Emergency dimensional shift completed," I heard it say. "Human life forms detected. EXTERMINATE!"

"Alright Clare, you got me. I'm sorry I took so long," I said because of course I thought it was my sister. "Have you been watching my DVDs? You're getting good at that voice. It's kind of scary."

"The human is speaking nonsense. Brain function may be impaired. Do not assimilate brain matter." I wasn't sure exactly how I could tell, but it was definitely another voice. More confused than anything else, I gathered up my bags and stepped out of the dressing room into the hallway.

At this point, I would just like to say, for the record, that I don't think staying in the dressing room would have changed anything. Maybe it would have been the smart thing to do. Maybe I would have just died then, eleven days ago. I don't know for sure but I'd like to think that my actions didn't really change anything. That much.

In the hallway, every single possibility of what could be going on crossed my mind. I mean everything. Extra television props, a promotion for an upcoming movie, bad fish in my salad at lunch… everything except the possibility that three alien Daleks in the hall in front of me.

"That is the human. We have been detected. EXTERMINATE!" The raised their gun… arm… thingies up towards me (bear in mind that at this point I still didn't actually buy that they were the real deal. Being that they're fictional and all) and I still hadn't settled on an explanation for their presence that made any sense. My head was really starting to hurt.

"Yeah, I've thought it over and I can't figure out why there is a band of Daleks on the third floor of a Macy's department store," I said out loud. They don't really have eyes… it's more of an eye stalk, but I'm pretty sure they all stared at me.

"She KNOWS us. Daleks do not exist in this dimension. How do you know the name Dalek? EXPLAIN!" This, at least, was familiar. Seeing as there was a Doctor Who episode where someone bought themselves some time by surprising the Daleks with knowledge of their species. My thoughts were moving pretty slowly at that point so I wasn't exactly sure what to do with that bought time when there was a heartwarmingly familiar sound – sort of like playing a tape of someone blowing their nose forwards then backwards again and again while in a wind tunnel – and a 1960's blue British police call box appeared in front of us.

You don't believe me. I know. I don't believe me. It's impossible. It's fictional. It's NOT REAL. But it's true and I can't say it any more plainly than that. Because at that moment a man who could be no one but The Doctor stepped out of the box or, should I say, the TARDIS (name of his spaceship. It's an acronym, there's fan sites, look it up).

"Ooh ho, that was clever!" he cried, brandishing some sort of metallic globe thing.

"It is The Doctor." One of the Daleks spoke, and all three turned away from me. This was helpful. It gave me a chance to focus on my thoughts which were taking me to absolutely impossibly unreal conclusions. "How did he follow? HOW?"

"Ah, well, fortunately I figured you might pull a stunt like that. So I just hitched a lift, well happened to be in range of your dimensional shift, well, accidently got pulled along for the ride. But here we are then! Where were we?" He wound it his arm to throw the metallic globe and the Daleks began to wave their arm… things frantically. It was at that moment, for better or for worse, that I found my voice.

"No. Way," was all I could manage at first. Five eyes stared at me (that's three eye stalks and two from The Doctor). "You can't be."

"Can't be what? As busy as I am right at this very moment concentrating on saving your life? Actually…" he started but I cut him off.

"The Doctor!"

He whipped around to look at me straight on, mouth agape. The metallic ball fell from his hand and rolled into a corner where it sat innocently for approximately half a second before vanishing – along with the entire row of changing rooms.

This is taking much longer than I thought it would to explain and I have to go. I'll write more later today. At least, I hope I will.

Later

Not dead yet. Well, at least I think I'm not dead. Maybe I am and they have internet access in heaven. Maybe I'm not in heaven and they have internet access in purgatory. Anyway, back to the day after Christmas.

I'm starting to get the sense that the dates I'm using to tag my journal entries don't mean anything. For all I know, it's twenty years in the future, or two days in the past, or half past noon at home. But this is the only sense of "real" time I've got. Twenty four hours goes by on my watch and I count it as a day. Come to think of it, if we're not going around the sun – well, the sun in our solar system, then 24 hours is pretty arbitrary. Hm. I've always wanted more hours in a day. Maybe I'll make my days 42 hours. Always liked that number.

Where was I? Right. Disappearing dressing rooms. And angry aliens (yeah, that would be three Daleks and a Time Lord).

"How do you know I'm The Doctor? No, wait, you made me waste my one dimensional transporter on a row of changing stalls when it was the only thing I had to get the Daleks back to the right dimension without, oh, you know, using the energy of a dozen suns. No. Wait. How do you know I'm The Doctor?"

The Doctor looked quite like the most recent actor to portray him on television, David Tennant I think his name is. His hair was slightly blonder and his nose a little longer but other than that the resemblance was uncanny.

"Well who else would you be? And…" I glanced back at the Daleks who seemed to be recovering from their scare with the metal ball. "Does that mean those are real Daleks?"

"What?? How do you know about Daleks? This is impossible!"

"EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR!" The Daleks had gotten us back on track.

"Doctor! Duck!!" I shouted and just in time as a green bolt of energy shot out of the Dalek and towards the Doctor who dove to the side, towards the TARDIS. The Daleks continued to shoot, but the deadly energy bolts bounced harmlessly off the force field surrounding the TARDIS keeping the Doctor safe. I had a stray thought about all the wonderful clothes I had just bought and how it was seeming more and more likely I might die before I had a chance to wear them when the Daleks resumed their attack stance towards me.

"The Doctor will come forward to be exterminated," one said.

"The Doctor most certainly will not," he responded. If I hadn't been about to die, I definitely would have taken the time to appreciate his British accent. I love accents.

"The Doctor will obey or the human girl will be exterminated."

"Yes, well, that would be a shame, seeing as she seems to know all about us. That's rather interesting, don't you think?"

"The Doctor is correct. We evaluated this dimension and selected it because no Daleks or Time Lords currently exist. We can start a new world."

"Ohh, is that what the plan was? Clever. But, you are wrong about one thing." I was starting to lose track of the conversation. It wasn't that I was confused by what they were saying (although I was pretty confused by what they were saying). It was just that I was pretty sure I was about to faint.

"The Daleks are not wrong. There are no Daleks or Time Lords in existence in this dimension. The human brain function may be impaired but it is necessary to assimilate brain matter to understand this dimension. Proceed."

I was pretty sure I knew what that meant and I really really didn't want my brain to be sucked out of my head. From the look on The Doctor's face, I'm fairly certain he felt the same way. Unfortunately, there were three rapidly approaching Daleks between the two of us extending what really looked like toilet plungers. I really didn't need The Doctor yelling it at the top of his lungs – believe me, I was already running.

I got about as far as the end of the hallway before turning back around. Again, probably should have kept running but come on, what would you do? It was The Doctor himself and as any true fan of the TV show would agree, I was certainly not going to let a few Daleks get in the way. It was fortunate, then, that The Doctor had already dashed past them completely ignored in their attempts to absorb my brain, and caught up with me. Before I knew what had happened, I felt his hand grab my own and begin to pull me along.

I had always imagined it would be difficult to run hand in hand with someone but something happened when he touched me. I can't really explain it, more than a jolt of adrenaline, it was like a jolt of adrenaline with a shot of… something else. Hope, maybe. Or just time and speed and space. Whatever it was, I was running again, faster than before and now weaving through racks of hanging clothing as the Daleks continued their pursuit.

"EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE!"

I don't care what planet you're from. That is the creepiest thing I have ever heard.

"Hullo," The Doctor said cheerfully, still pulling me along and narrowly missing a tall hanger full of glittery dresses. "You seem to have a distinct advantage here seeing as you know who I am."

"I'm Noelle," I gasped. "Noelle Kelley. What are they doing here?? What are you doing here? Not that I'm complaining."

"Quick in here," he said, practically throwing me sideways into a service elevator. He pulled out a small metal rod with a bright blue light at the end which buzzed loudly as he waved it around the exterior of the elevator door. There was a slight jolt and the elevator began to descend rapidly down the shaft.

"Oh my god. I don't believe it. You actually have a sonic screwdriver," I said.

"What?" he asked incredulously.

"That thing you used, it's a sonic screw driver. Right?"

"What??" he demanded again, sounding completely perplexed.

"You. Doctor. TARDIS. Sonic screwdriver. Is this like the episode where you made yourself forget about being a Time Lord?" I was starting to get frustrated. Being confronted with a dressing room full of deadly aliens is one thing, but being confronted with a dressing room full of aliens and the one person in the universe you thought might save you only to find out that he's just as confused by the situation as you are is entirely another.

"What?"

"Would you stop saying that!" I shouted, losing control entirely. With a rush of embarrassment I realized I was about to start crying. I think The Doctor might have noticed as well because he looked first horrified, then consoling as he replied, "excuse me. What I meant to say was: how could you possibly know about me? About the Daleks? About my sonic screwdriver?!"

"Well, if you're real, and, unless I've completely lost it, it's looking more and more like you are, this must happen all the time. I mean, most people have heard of you, even if they don't know the details."

"Interdimensional travel," he muttered, seemingly to himself. "Never ceases to surprise me. Um, Noelle, there is a reason the Daleks teleported themselves to this dimension. There's ways of sort of, checking ahead, monitoring the space-time continuum of any given dimension. They picked this one because in all of space and time, there has never been and never will be any Time Lord or any Daleks. We don't exist. There is no possible way you could know who we are."

I stared at him, trying to take it all in. This sort of talk certainly wasn't consistent with the television show I had been watching which was truly unnerving. It might sound weird, but as long as I could pretend that I was part of a TV serial, then it was like it was happening to someone else. But someone had changed the script and suddenly I had to deal with it myself again.

"So you're saying the TARDIS can travel between parallel dimensions?" I asked, trying to redefine the rules of this absurd situation.

"Well of course she can. What could would a time traveling spaceship be if it couldn't hop across the void?"

"Right, that's not asking much at all," I said under my breath. The Doctor grinned at me. Rather than being comforting, it was really pretty unsettling.

"But what do you mean, most people have heard of me? Are you from another dimension?" he pulled on a pair of cardboard glasses, like the kind you get at movie theaters when you go to watch a 3D movie. "No void stuff all over you," he continued, waving his hands in a sort of swirly motion around me. The elevator had stopped.

"I'm not from another dimension! And everyone knows who you are because of the television show. You're a character. On TV. Longest running science fiction show in history. Doctor Who!"

The Doctor's eyes widened. Then, inexplicably, he started to laugh out loud.

"What's so funny?" I demanded.

"You know, I always thought I'd make a good television actor!"