"OK, Simon," said my interviewer, activating the recorder on the table between us, "tell me the full story of your encounter with the Doctor. Try not to leave anything out."
I promised I wouldn't, then cast my mind back to my time in New York and to the day I met the Doctor. It was on a Monday, as late-summer was becoming early-autumn (five years in America and I still hadn't got used to calling it 'Fall'). I had just taken a late afternoon jog around Central Park and was heading back along 81st Street to my apartment. It was unseasonably hot. The prospect of peeling off my T-shirt and jogging shorts and stepping into a nice, cool shower was all that kept me pounding along the sidewalk.
I was keeping up a steady pace, thinking about what I had to do in work tomorrow, when it happened. A strange looking man, wearing a long coat and trailing a longer scarf, came lurching out of an alley maybe ten yards ahead of me and stumbled out into the road. He seemed dazed and obviously had no idea where he was. A taxi was bearing down on him, horn blaring, its driver unable to swerve or stop in time. Without pausing to think about it, I ran forward and leapt for the man, grabbing him around the waist, and throwing us both to the kerb. I felt something crunch beneath me, causing a sharp pain in my thigh.
"Are you okay?" I asked, clambering to my feet.
"I will be," he said, shaking his head as I helped him up. He was surprisingly tall.
He gave an enormous grin, large eyes now alert beneath the mass of brown curls that crowned his head. "I'm the Doctor," he said, offering me his hand. I shook it.
"Simon Baines," I said. "What happened just now? You seemed totally confused and out of it."
"Maltaurian neural stun beam. I managed to make it to the TARDIS and get here - ah, I see I'm in New York! - but it left me as disoriented as I am after a regeneration. I must remember to get out of the way the next time there's one pointed in my direction. Or not to stagger out into traffic before its effects have worn off, of course."
"I see," I said, though I didn't.
"Incidentally, I do believe you saved my life just now. That was awfully decent of you. After the spiders of Metebelis-3, it would've been terribly embarrassing to have been mortally wounded by a yellow cab."
The Spiders of Metebelis-3? What was he talking about?.
"Is that some sort of rock band? Like 'Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'?"
"What an amusing thought," he chuckled, "though Mars has no spiders, of course."
"Of course," I said, beginning to wonder if this 'Doctor' was entirely sane. "Well, if there's nothing else you need...?"
"A cup of tea would be splendid!" he said. "It's very kind of you to offer."
"Oh, well, ummm..."
I looked around, spotting a deli a few doors down from where we stood.
"They'll have tea," I said, pointing, "but it's not something the Americans do very well."
"It doesn't matter," grinned the Doctor, hooking his arm in mine, "it's the tannin and the free radicals I need. They'll soon have my neurons firing on all cylinders again."
"Ah, 'Manny's Deli'!" he said as we entered. "A Manhattan deli run by someone named Manny is bound to be good. It's a basic law of the universe."
The Doctor sat down at one of the tables and picked up a copy of today's newspaper someone had left behind, while I went up to the counter and bought us teas and a couple of slices of cheesecake. Having saved his life, I suppose I was feeling sort of responsible for him.
"Anything interesting?" I asked when I rejoined him.
"In a newspaper? Don't be absurd. When newspapers report on anything you know something about you discover just how unreliable they are. However, the one thing even a newspaper never gets wrong is the date. It's quite the most useful thing about them. Why are you staring at me like that? It's very disconcerting.""
"Oh, sorry," I said, "only it just struck me how much you look like Harpo Marx."
"Do I? Do I really? Why yes, I suppose I do. But do you know, I don't recall anyone ever accusing me of being the silent type. Why is that, do you think? And I'm seldom asked to display my prowess as a harpist, which is a shame. I really am rather good. And you were right, by the way."
"I was? About what?"
"This tea. I don't think I've ever had a cup that was quite so awful. Fortunately, the cheesecake is ambrosial. Only in New York can you find heavy cheesecake this wonderful."
I had to agree with him there.
"Do you mind if I ask you a question, Simon?"
"O-kay," I said, warily.
"Why do you wear that ring on a chain around your neck?"
I took the ring between my fingers. "This? It was my mother's. I'm wearing it as a good luck charm until I slide it onto the finger of the woman I want to marry."
"Will you be doing so anytime soon?"
From anyone else a question that direct would have been rude, but somehow when it came from the Doctor it wasn't.
"Tomorrow, I hope. That's when I'm asking Claire, my girlfriend, if she'll marry me. Which reminds me..."
I reached into the pocket of my shorts and pulled out my cellphone. The case was cracked and the keys non-responsive.
"Damn. Looks like it broke when I landed on it."
"May I?"
I handed him the phone.
"Ah, yes. I think I can fix this for you."
The Doctor reached into his pockets and started pulling out all manner of bric-a-brac. A yoyo, a cricket ball, a rubber chicken and a variety of equally eccentric items soon formed a small pile in front of him. In amongst all this junk were several computer chips and other electronic parts. Prising the back off the phone, he started pulling out various items, replacing them from his own components. Then he reached into an inside pocket and produced what looked like some sort of probe. Twisting it open, he held it over the exposed innards of the cellphone and pressed a small stud.
"What is that thing?" I asked.
"My sonic screwdriver," he replied, as it started to emit a low hum. "I wouldn't dream of going anywhere without it."
"There, all done," he smiled, snapping the case shut and handing me the phone. "It will permanently record and store all incoming and outgoing calls from now on, and it's fully internet-enabled."
"But...it doesn't have internet-connectivity!" I said.
"It does now. Key in the URL of your favorite website."
I did, and the front page of .uk appeared on the small screen.
"That's amazing!"
"What do you do for a living, Simon?"
"I look after the computers for a brokerage firm," I said. I then went on to explain where I worked and to describe what I did in some detail.
"And do you enjoy it?" he asked, having listened patiently to my explanation."
"I...the pay is fantastic. Much better than I could earn doing anything else."
He eyed me shrewdly. "You avoided my question. So I must of course assume the answer is 'no'."
"I love computers," I said.
"I'm rather fond of them myself. Well, apart from the sentient kind. I've had a spot of trouble with those over the years. But my point is they're just tools. They're a means to an end, and in your case that end appears to be making money for a brokerage firm."
"OK, yeah, you're right," I said, uncomfortable at having to face something I had been avoiding. "I'm in a comfortable, well-paid rut. I find what I do unfulfilling. Are you satisfied now?"
"My satisfaction or otherwise is irrelevant. What matters is you. What would fulfil you, Simon?"
"Being creative. Using my computer skills to create art, and maybe writing that novel I always meant to."
"Then that's what you should do without delay. The lifespan of human beings is so terribly brief. Tell me, Simon, have you considered the full implications of what I did to your phone yet?"
The way the Doctor switched from one topic to another was enough to give you whiplash.
"What you said about storage...we're years away from being able to put that much capacity into a cellphone." I said, uneasily. "Who are you, exactly?"
"Arthur says that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - a line I gave him, incidentally. If so, then I'm a wizard and this is my magic wand."
He held up his sonic screwdriver,
"You've seen what I did to your phone, but there's something far more impressive I can show you. Would you like to see it?"
I nodded mutely.
"Splendid!" he grinned, getting to his feet. "Then follow me. It's in the alley I staggered out of."
Filled with trepidation, I did as he asked. I'm not quite sure what I imagined was in the alley, but it certainly was nothing like what I found there.
"A British police public call box!" I said, staring at the familiar blue shape with amazement.
"You recognise it?" It was the Doctor's turn to be surprised.
"My Uncle Albert was a London policeman in the fifties and sixties," I explained. "I've seen these in the background of dozens of pictures in his photo albums. But, what's it doing in New York?"
The Doctor took out a key, opened the door, and stepped inside. I followed...and stopped dead in my tracks, mouth agape.
"Before you say anything: yes, it is bigger on the inside; yes, it is alien; and, yes, that means I'm an alien, too. I really must have a card printed up with all that on to hand out to visitors."
He went to the island console in the centre of the impossible space we had entered and started flipping levers and turning knobs.
"Hold tight!" he yelled as the doors closed and the column in the centre of the console began to move up and down, accompanied by an unearthly sound that reverberated through the entire structure.
"What's happening?" I shouted.
"We're taking a little trip!" he laughed. "About a mile or so through space and a few hours through time."
The noise was already subsiding, the column in the console slowly coming to rest.
"You're mad! Time travel is impossible!"
"As impossible as an object being larger on the inside than on the outside I'd imagine, yet here we are and...ah."
"Ah?" The Doctor was frowning at a light flashing on the console.
"Is something wrong?"
"Not yet. But it soon might be." He activated the lever that opened the doors. "Go and see where we've landed."
I stepped through the doors. We were on one of the more little-used paths, concealed from wider view by some trees, but there was no mistaking where we were. Nor, from the light, what time of day it was.
"This is Central Park," I said in amazement, "and it's morning!"
"About 8.35 am on Tuesday morning, give or take ten minutes," said the Doctor.
"That means I'm late for work!" I said.
"I show you miracles, and you worry about being late for work," he laughed. "That is so typically, wonderfully human! And now, I really must go."
"Go?" I said, turning to face him, still there at the control console.
"Yes. I'm afraid this flashing light is the self-proximity alarm. It means that the TARDIS has detected itself elsewhere in this time, no more than a couple of miles from us I'd say. Which means that I will be, that I am, somewhere else in this city right now. Crossing your own timeline like that is a very bad idea, something to be risked only in the direst of circumstances. It was a privilege meeting you, Simon."
With that he pulled a lever and the doors closed between us. I stepped backwards as that noise, the unearthly sound of the TARDIS's engines filled my ears, and a wind whipped up around me. Before my eyes the TARDIS grew fainter and fainter, slowly fading away.
And then it was gone.
"That was three years ago," I told my interviewer, shaking my head and bringing my thoughts back to the present day. "It was the last time I ever saw the Doctor. A few weeks later I moved back to Britain. Since then I've retrained, and I'm now working for an effects company doing CGI work for film and TV. I'm earning less, but I'm a lot happier. I'm also writing my first novel. It's about a mysterious time traveller."
"So that's what you meant when you told me meeting the Doctor had changed your life. Talking to him, taking that short trip in the TARDIS, opened your mind to new possibilities."
"It helped, yes, but when I said he changed my life I meant it more literally than that. And the TARDIS wasn't the most life-changing sight I witnessed that day."
She frowned. "I don't understand."
"After the Doctor had gone, I made my way out of the park. A few minutes later, at 8.46 am, I saw the first hijacked airliner crash into the World Trade Center. It cut through floors 93 to 99 of the North Tower. No one above floor 92 survived its destruction. I worked on floor 102 of that tower. If not for the Doctor, I would be dead. I'd told him where I worked, he knew what was going to happen, and he saved me. He saved my life."
I pulled out my cellphone, still with its cracked case and held it up.
"Claire rang me after the plane struck, just like so many of them rang their loved ones. Her final words are still in the phone's memory. I never mentioned to the Doctor that Claire worked at the next desk to mine. Would it have made a difference, do you think? Does the Doctor play God, deciding who lives and who dies, or is he an angel, saving those he can?"
My interviewer gently placed her hand over mine.
"That's for you to decide," she said quietly, "but I think he's a good man, doing what he can within the limits of whatever laws govern time travel."
"Maybe," I said, clearing my throat. "I wonder what it would be like to travel with him, maybe for a year or two. Could you go back to a normal nine-to-five life after that? Could anyone?"
She patted the back of my hand, her expression unreadable.
"I hope the story of my meeting with the Doctor goes down well with your readers," I said. "After some of the reactions, I've become a little wary of telling people about it. I was surprised to have a reporter contacting me."
"Oh, dear" she said, looking guilty, "I can't have made myself clear. This isn't for my newspaper, it's for me. I try to contact anyone I hear might have met the Doctor, and to record their story."
"But why?"
"That's...a little difficult to explain," she said, "since I'm not actually sure why myself. It's just something I have to do. You're not mad at me are you? I mean, if you met me expecting to get your story in the press...?"
"No," I sighed, "not really. I'm just happy when someone believes me."
"Oh, I certainly believe you," she said. "Everything you said rings true to me."
I drained my pint glass, briefly contemplating going to the bar to get another but deciding against it. I had to work this afternoon so I needed to keep a clear head. My interviewer had gathered her things together and was getting to her feet.
"It was nice meeting you, Simon," she smiled, holding her hand out.
Her smile lit up her face. She might be in her fifties, but she was still a beautiful woman. I stood up and shook her hand.
"It was nice meeting you, too, Ms Smith."
"Please," she said, "call me Sarah Jane."
"OK, Sarah Jane it is. I don't know what you're looking for, Sarah Jane, but I truly hope someday you find it."
"Thank you," she said giving me a small, sad smile before turning and leaving.
I reached down inside the collar of my shirt, fishing out the ring I still wore on a chain around my neck. I stared at it wistfully before kissing it and slipping it back inside my shirt. Then I got to my feet and headed out of the pub. It was time I got back to my job, time I got on with my life.
""""""""""
Epilogue:
Settling back into his Louis XIV chair in the TARDIS library, the Doctor sipped his drink appreciatively. Ah, tea! Unlike the cup so recently endured at Manny's, this one had been made properly and when made properly there was not a beverage served anywhere in the galaxy to match it. Putting his tea down, he picked up a book from the small table next to him. It was 'Time's Angel' by Simon Baines. He opened it, gazing sadly at the dedication:
For my beloved Claire,
who died when the
towers fell.
Turning to the first chapter he began reading the story, knowing he would enjoy it. But then, it had always been one of his favorite books.