(Just a Humble Note From the Author)
Hi guys, I can see that a lot of people are reading this, but no one really comments... Makes me a little bit of a sad panda, I must say. Please take a moment to review, it's greatly appreciated. Okay thanx allons-y chapter four yeay!

Roses are Red and Salesmen are Blue

Space: The Catacombs of New New York, inside a lair.
Time: Some kind of morning. Maybe around ten-ish.

In a small room, pretty dark, shady and from floor to ceiling stuffed with all kind of things, a very large person sat behind a desk, deeply engaged in what looked like a huge amount of paper work. He was muttering to himself, looking very annoyed, and every now and then he shouted out little orders to a young, black haired woman who stood sorting mood controlling patches into different boxes with labels such as "Happy happy", "Honesty" and "Sleep". The woman's eyes were empty and her movements restricted by an iron ring laid around her neck. The ring were attached to a long chain attached to the wall behind her. When having a closer look at her neck, you would see that she herself was patched with Obedience.

"Alice, dear, could you come over here with my coffee?" The large man spoke to the girl but didn't look up from his papers.

"Yes, Mr. Maldovar, in a minute," the girl answered.

Dorium Maldovar got his coffee, but it didn't put him in a better mood. This time of year was terrible: first, there was the paper work that had to be done before the end of December, and this year, the authorities had shortened the time span for it to be finished from three to two weeks. On top of that, people where coming from all sorts of place trying to sell him the weirdest things, that had no value at all for him as a salesman. And this phenomena had grown even bigger since the New Great Depression had broken out, which made him really tired. A couple of years ago, things had been different, back then people brought good gods to him to sell. But still, every now and then, a diamond could get around, so he couldn't close down the entire business. And the mood controllers part still did really good, he had to admit.

A couple of minutes passed, the room was all quiet, except for the low rustling from Alice's chains. Dorium made some grunting sounds, clearly annoyed with the paper work.

Then there was a knock on the door. A small, hesitant knock, that Dorium didn't really hear, at first. But the knocker knocked again, and Dorium sighed and turned to Alice:

"Alice, dear. A customer."

Alice got the door, and a very thin, ragged man entered the room. His eyes seemed hollow, and he was very pale, even for the season. Dorium put his pen down, put on an artificial smile, folded his hands and addressed the man:

"Good morning, sir, what can I do for you?"

The thin man put down a large pail on the table. Dorium spun the bucket around to study the label.

"Chlorine? Really? Are you expecting me to buy it? For what? What use could I possibly have for this substance?"

The thin man bowed his head, holding his hat in his hand.

"Well, you could probably sell it to someone, I heard they lack chlorine down in New Alabama, you know, they produce a lot of cotton but they can't make proper sheets without bleach, they're exporting to New New England but upstate they refuse to buy unless the sheets are really white. Can't you try and sell it to them? Please?"

"And what are you expecting to get for this chlorine?"

"I really need a batch of Forget... You see, Myrah, my youngest, she has cancer."

"Luckily enough, I've just gotten a new delivery that included Forget. I'll give you three patches of Forget for this bucket of bleach."

"But, sir, we're five in the family... and they don't last that long. My husband worked very hard for this bucket, he got it instead of a salary last month, and I had ten patches in mind..."

"I'm afraid, sir, that four is all I can give you, and then I am being kind hearted. This is no charity you know, this is strictly business. Take into consideration that this chlorine is most likely useless, so you should be very pleased with the good deal I'm offering."

The thin man just bowed his head and nodded in acceptance.

"You may go over to Alice and pick your forget", Dorium said, nodding over to the young girl at the shelves. The thin man stumbled over to the boxes, where Alice handed him five small patches. He turned to Dorium, giving him a subservient nod as a thank you, and left the room.

"Alice!" Dorium called, "put this bucket on the top shelf, we won't be needing it for now. Maybe I'll try and sell it to someone less intelligent, later on."

While Alice executed the order, the room fell quiet and Dorium returned to his paper work. But he hadn't written more than a single line before it knocked on the door again. This time, it was a very intense thumping that didn't stop.

"Alice? The door, please," Dorium called as he tried to focus on last months invoices.

Alice opened the door, and was almost knocked over by three children rushing into the room, practically bouncing off the walls. Half a step behind them came a man, probably their father, with a wide smile on his face.

"Yes yes yes, hello Mr. Maldovar! How are we today? No no, don't tell, let me guess: wonderful! How could anyone be anything else this blessed day! Oh, to me the world is just a bliss as usual, thank you for asking, that's very polite of you, I feel fantastic! I was thinking, do you happen to have anything left of that fantastic batch of Energy that I got one hundred and fifty patches of last week? If you try them with Bliss, I tell you, that is surely a experience! I happened to use double patches once, they were glued together, and look, look at me now! Bursting with energy! And the children! I've never seen them this happy! Energy is better than Happy happy, I tell you! You should stop selling Happy Happy, and go over to a combined Energy/Bliss-patch instead!"

Dorium had covered his eyes with his hand. "Alice?" He called out faintly. "Would you please help Mr. Anderson here with his weekly supply of Energy?"

The children were rummaging around the room, climbing shelves, flipping furniture upside down, closing and opening the door, running around in circles.

"Hello fat blue man" shouted the smallest girl, bouncing up and down, "why are you so fat and blue? Why are you so fat and blue? Hello, mister? Why are you so fat and blue?"

"He's fat because he ate too much sandwiches with bananas and bacon! And he's blue because his people, the salesmen, their power is in the blue! Mr. Maldovar told me that himself once, didn't you Mr. Maldovar, sure you did, didn't you? If you lost your blue, you wouldn't be able to buy and sell things no more, am I right, am I right, am I right?" her brother shouted from the other side of the room, while dangling from a top shelf.

"Am I right? Am I right?" he kept shouting until Dorium uncovered his eyes and said

"Yes, little one, you're right, I'd loose my management powers, yes, that's right. That would be fatal. Unless I of course died from the exploding of my eardrums first."

"Blue man, bacon man! Blue man, bacon man! Blue man without blue is useless bacon man!" The middle sister sang loudly as she tied two New India silk ties together to use as a jump rope.

"What can you offer me for the Energy?"

"Not much, I have these buttons, but they're made of ivory from Earth! Real ivory! Over a thousand years old! One of my relatives picked them up! It was fetched by my great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great gre-"

"I get it, I get it! You can have the Energy, just give me the buttons, and if you don't mind, could you please leave as soon as possible, I'm trying to work here."

"Thank you, thank you, Dorium, as mannerly as ever! Come now, Fox and Marita! Get down from the shelf, it's time to go! Go go go! Fowley! Stop swinging in the lamp! it's time to leave for today! Say goodbye to the nice Mr. Maldovar and let's go, let's go, let's go! I want to try out that new roller coaster at the fun park as soon as we've patched up with more Energy, don't you want to try it out as well, don't you? Sure you do! Come one, come one, little ones, let's leave!"

The enigmatic dad and his children rushed out of the room. Dorium could hear the echo of little Fowley singing "useless bacon, blue useless, bacon blue" down the corridor long after they left. Having recovered a little, he uncovered his eyes and asked Alice for an aspirin. Then he returned to his papers.

But once again it knocked. This time on the door frame, since Alice hadn't closed the door. This visitor didn't wait for Dorium to accept her request for entrance, she just stepped right in up to his desk.

"Hello, sir" she said.

"Hello, ma'am. If you don't have anything very rare to present to me, I'm not interested, today is a very busy day. And I'm out of Spiritual, if that's what you're looking for", Dorium replied, but didn't look up.

"I do have something here that's interesting, I promise you."

Dorium sighed.

"I hope for your own sake that what you have brought to me is something particularly good. So far today I've pretty much given away my goods, there's no profit in working that way, and this is a business, not a church, do I have to repeat that?"

"Have a look. I promise you won't be disappointed."

Dorium reluctantly looked up from his paper work.

He was surprised. The sight that met him was indeed rare, something he 'd never seen through all of his years as a business man. It was a head, just a single head, attached to a piece of emerald green rock.

"Oh dear, what on New Earth is that?"

"I found it on the beach", the woman said proudly. "Thought you might have a use for it, you who're selling and buying and buying and selling the most extraordinary things. I will give you a good deal: I'm just asking for a box of Sanity."

"Seems like it could be interesting, indeed, this business offer, but what is it that you brought me? It seems to be alive, although that doesn't seem possible!" Dorium rose from behind the desk and came round it to have a closer look. The head eyed him nervously.

"It's fascinating! Very fascinating. It looks like it's able to communicate, at least on a basic level. But what is it?"

"Excuse me, I-I-I'm not a it, actually". The head cleared its throat. "I am from a... oh well, a galaxy far, far away."

"Oh! We do speak! How very interesting. What galaxy did you say? Far Far Away? Where is that one?"

"Um, no, it's called the Milky Way, actually. Sorry, I was trying to be funny, but I suppose, most likely, we don't have the same frame of reference", the head said.

"But that's impossible. The Milky Way imploded a thousand years ago."

"Yes, well, things aren't really always like they seem to be. I, for instance, also used to have a job, a girlfriend, an apartment and oh, how could I forget: a body."

"Sir, this is all very interesting. But, sir, if you have all that, I suspect you also have a name?"

"Of course I do. I'm Rory. Rory Williams."

Two hours later, Rory Williams were driving Dorium Maldovar totally, insanely mad.

"Would you mind being quiet! I will not tell you another time, Mr. Williams!" Dorium roared, but Rory didn't pay attention.

"La, la, la, la, won't ever shut up, won't close my mouth, will not be quiet, bla, bla-"

"I cannot take another word from you!"

Dorium sat behind his desk, shaking with anger, his usually blue face had turned an alarming shade of purple, as he was trying to force Rory to shut up.

"No, Mr. Blue Man, I won't shut up, I promise you, I will never close this mouth until you bring me the Doctor! Um, you know what? Actually, I can tell the story! Yes, yes, that I will do. I will tell you about how I met my wife, that's a long, long story, yes I will. It started back in 1995, when she invited me over for a game of hide-and-seek-"

"I SAID QUIET!" Dorium bellowed.

Rory, having been talking like this, loud and with no sense of meaning for the last thirty-five minutes was getting pretty tired of this himself. But he couldn't really think of any strategy to cope with this... somewhat unfamiliar situation, the whole missing a body and being attached to a rock-thingy was pretty new to him. Since his plan A – trying to beg Dorium on his bare knees – (that he didn't have, when you come to think about it, maybe that was why he failed?) didn't work out at all, Dorium considering him way too valuable to let go, he had to come up with a plan B. Unfortunately, he didn't really have a plan B, which led to plan C, which was simply annoying his captioner.

Rory Williams proceeded with plan C.

"Sorry? Can't hear you, really," he said, "where was I? Well, Amy, Amelia Jessica Pond, her full name is, invited me over to play this game, hide-and-seek, as I said, are you familiar with the rules? If you're not, I'll explain them to you, well? No? Yes? Yes. The game is played like this: one person starts to count, while the other goes into hiding-"

"Alice!" Dorium called, having put his fingers in his ears, trying to shut out the sound of Rory's voice. "Take the head down to the vault and lock him up there, please, place him in the strongbox behind May."

"And darling," he added a moment later, seemingly a little calmer, "you will take care of her daily routine as well, won't you, sugar?"

Dorium moved over to where Alice stood and unlocked the large padlock that kept her chained to the wall. Without a word or protest, Alice went straight over to Dorium's desk and scooped up Rory's head. When she had also taken a small box of mood controllers she mechanically left the office, neatly closing the door behind her.

Dorium returned to his paper work, even though he could still hear Rory's protests echo down the corridor. He threw an eye an the large monitors that was placed beside his desk, the screens showed pretty much every single corner of the catacombs underneath his office where he kept his stashes of different things. It was also good to be able to keep an eye on what was happening down there - you could never be safe enough in times like these. Dorium sighed. He really hoped that the black marked would improve, preferably very soon. It wasn't really lucrative to run a business under conditions like these, it bothered him but he couldn't do much about it. Hopefully he could at least sell that head for a considerable amount of money. He glanced at the monitor once again and saw Alice, carrying Rory's head, unlocking the last iron door.

Just as he was about to have a closer look to make sure she used the right key, the monitor started to flicker. Dorium muttered and hit the old screen, sometimes that could help. He was getting pretty used to this, as it happened at least two times a day. The main reason that he hadn't gotten it fixed already was that it was such a boring thing to pay for. Oh, how he hated to pay for boring things! If he was to pay for something it had to be a great buy – he was a salesman, for gods sake.

Dorium Maldovar pouned the monitor once again with no luck, it kept flickering and blacked out every second frame. He grunted, took a sip of his coffee and returned to his work.