The Simplicity of Time
Chapter One
"Oh, nice shoes." A man's voice came from somewhere over Maree's left shoulder, and she gasped slightly at being startled so suddenly. The comment was tinged with sincere admiration on his part, and she looked at her bright purple Chuck Taylor trainers that were propped up on the blackened wrought iron rail of the tiny café's patio, and then at his shoes: an exact match to hers, only red.
"And you." She complimented back as he took a seat at the table she was sitting at. He grinned cheerily at her and propped his feet up next to hers. Her vaguely anti-social instincts insisted that she not allow him to start any real semblance of conversation with her, so she focused her eyes back on the small text of her copy of Don Quixote. Her first class tomorrow would revolve around the content of the book, and she had barely started reading yet. She was only on her third year of the seven or eight years it would take to get her PhD, and she was already falling behind. Not a good portent of things to come.
"You know, I really don't want to interrupt, but I'm wondering something. Are you…" There was a pause, as he read a set of chunky black letters from the palm of his hand. "Maree McCormick?" The man said, apparently not put off by her most basic strategy to get rid of someone. At the sound of her name, she glanced sharply at him. By general principle, she tended not to trust men that had the capability to insert themselves into women's lives with nothing more than a flippant comment. Worse, he was handsome, that wasn't hard to see. Chocolate eyes, wildly tousled hair, and a happy smile. He seemed normal enough, but she knew that just made it more likely that he was a sociopathic axe murderer looking for his latest victim. Okay, so she could be a little bit paranoid, but better safe than dead, as her mum always used to say.
"Yes." She said simply. The pause between the question and the answer had been far too long for her to attempt a lie. He grinned at her again in apparent delight.
"Fantastic. Maree, I'm the Doctor." He said, and tapped his foot three times against the railing.
"The Doctor?" She said, raising her eyebrows at him. "Doctor what?"
"Oh!" He said suddenly, dropping his feet to the pavement with a thud. He had startled her again with the sudden movement, she hated to admit. "Oh, Maree McCormick, I like you. Usually it's 'Doctor who?' It's never 'Doctor what?' Brilliant."
There was a pause. Maree blinked. "Okay. Doctor who, then?"
The man frowned for a moment. "Hm. It's just 'the Doctor'. People just call me 'the Doctor'."
"It must be 'Doctor something'." Maree said, and he shook his head wearily as if he had played through this scene a million times.
"Look, if it makes it easier, call me John Smith for the moment. Just don't forget the fact that my real name is the Doctor." He said, and stood up, jamming his hands into the pockets of his brown three-piece suit.
"What did you want?" Maree asked, now thoroughly confused, finally pulling her feet down from the railing. This was very strange.
John Smith stared at her for a moment, his eyes locking with hers and then he grinned. "Give me a ring later." He turned on his heel and strolled away, looking as if he didn't have a care in the world.
This had been a very surreal experience. Why would she want to give a complete stranger a ring later? On the off chance that she had wanted to give him a ring, he hadn't left a number, or any way of getting ahold of him. Okay. It was a prank. A friend of hers would ring her later and laugh about how she'd wasted 10 minutes talking to a complete stranger.
Satisfied with her explanation of the whole affair, Maree settled back into the green plastic patio chair, and flipped her book opened again. A flock of birds across the road took flight suddenly as a strange undulating whooshing noise rent the air, disturbing them from their grazing. The noise slowly faded into nothingness. She shook her head a little. Very strange.
