Behind me, the TARDIS rests on its hillside. The old girl settled down
like a tired mare after a long day in pasture and is quite content to
remain as she sits. I can't really blame her. It's been a hard road for
us both.
To be entirely truthful, I don't know who misses our companions more when they leave, she or I. There is always that mournful hum, that toneless knoll that sounds when it's just she and I alone in the vortex. I think she needs my companions' vivacious personalities, their profound emotive outbursts, their.well.their love of life. She lives vicariously through them. If I thought unkindly of her, I would say that she is a vampire. A psychic vampire to be precise; she is a parasite that depends on others to give her meaning, to define her existence.
She has seen tears and joy; heard laughter and cries; experienced pain and passion. She has taken my companions to places where their hopes and dreams can come true; she has taken them to destinations where their darkest fears manifest; she has taken them to new loves and to their deaths. The regularity with which she accepts new passengers aboard, I wonder if she somehow needs them. That somehow she needs the energy they produce to send her hurling through the vortex. Maybe that energy gives her the strength to carry on through life.
To carry on living, to give her definition.reason.
Every one of my companions that have come aboard has given something to the old girl. The interior has changed over the centuries. When I first borrowed her, the interior was stark white with no personality. For the years that Susan had traveled with me, the TARDIS slowly became a mirror of Gallifrey to us and then adapted to our new Terran home.
When Dodo, Ben and Polly were on board, it became more fashionable; mod, I believe, is the word that I need. Victoria added a bit of profound British charm; Zoe gave it a bit of shiny newness. Jo and Sarah Jane presented the TARDIS with a style unseen in the old girl's history: a mixture of innocence and femininity unparalleled. Romana gave Gallifrey back to the interior which confused the TARDIS unbearably resulting in something between Victoriana and Art Deco. Nyssa gave a gentle, loving glitter to it.
And Tegan, well.she gave it a spark.
If one were sentimental, one could say that the TARDIS is simply an extension of my personality. A very feminine side of my masculine existence I suppose one could say. I've been called a lot of things in my life: a fool, an idiot, a romantic, and very sentimental. But to accept that I have to accept that my companions, my friends, are necessary to my existence. That I am defined by them and that my life is enriched through them.
Each of my companions has given me a part of them and I have given a part of myself to them. I have become a better person because I have known them; what they take from me and the impact I have on their life, I can't know. I'm not them, am I? And when they go, they take a part of me with them.
Tegan left a day ago. I can tell as I look around the old girl. The light seems dimmer in this console room; the corridors seem so quiet. What I see around here makes me wonder. I wonder what she took from me.
She wasn't the first, nor will she be the last companion to join me. I'm never alone long. The TARDIS is never empty long. We will be joined by another and the TARDIS will change again, evolving.changing into a new place. But sometimes I wonder if she yearns to be as she was at one time: new, fresh and stark white with innocence. The changes are good, don't get me wrong; any lifeform that does not evolve, dies.
But I wonder if these changes and the branding strength of forging fire are necessary.
I wonder.
To be entirely truthful, I don't know who misses our companions more when they leave, she or I. There is always that mournful hum, that toneless knoll that sounds when it's just she and I alone in the vortex. I think she needs my companions' vivacious personalities, their profound emotive outbursts, their.well.their love of life. She lives vicariously through them. If I thought unkindly of her, I would say that she is a vampire. A psychic vampire to be precise; she is a parasite that depends on others to give her meaning, to define her existence.
She has seen tears and joy; heard laughter and cries; experienced pain and passion. She has taken my companions to places where their hopes and dreams can come true; she has taken them to destinations where their darkest fears manifest; she has taken them to new loves and to their deaths. The regularity with which she accepts new passengers aboard, I wonder if she somehow needs them. That somehow she needs the energy they produce to send her hurling through the vortex. Maybe that energy gives her the strength to carry on through life.
To carry on living, to give her definition.reason.
Every one of my companions that have come aboard has given something to the old girl. The interior has changed over the centuries. When I first borrowed her, the interior was stark white with no personality. For the years that Susan had traveled with me, the TARDIS slowly became a mirror of Gallifrey to us and then adapted to our new Terran home.
When Dodo, Ben and Polly were on board, it became more fashionable; mod, I believe, is the word that I need. Victoria added a bit of profound British charm; Zoe gave it a bit of shiny newness. Jo and Sarah Jane presented the TARDIS with a style unseen in the old girl's history: a mixture of innocence and femininity unparalleled. Romana gave Gallifrey back to the interior which confused the TARDIS unbearably resulting in something between Victoriana and Art Deco. Nyssa gave a gentle, loving glitter to it.
And Tegan, well.she gave it a spark.
If one were sentimental, one could say that the TARDIS is simply an extension of my personality. A very feminine side of my masculine existence I suppose one could say. I've been called a lot of things in my life: a fool, an idiot, a romantic, and very sentimental. But to accept that I have to accept that my companions, my friends, are necessary to my existence. That I am defined by them and that my life is enriched through them.
Each of my companions has given me a part of them and I have given a part of myself to them. I have become a better person because I have known them; what they take from me and the impact I have on their life, I can't know. I'm not them, am I? And when they go, they take a part of me with them.
Tegan left a day ago. I can tell as I look around the old girl. The light seems dimmer in this console room; the corridors seem so quiet. What I see around here makes me wonder. I wonder what she took from me.
She wasn't the first, nor will she be the last companion to join me. I'm never alone long. The TARDIS is never empty long. We will be joined by another and the TARDIS will change again, evolving.changing into a new place. But sometimes I wonder if she yearns to be as she was at one time: new, fresh and stark white with innocence. The changes are good, don't get me wrong; any lifeform that does not evolve, dies.
But I wonder if these changes and the branding strength of forging fire are necessary.
I wonder.