FOUR
"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, magic and power in it.
Begin it now"- Goethe
"C'mon then" The Doctor was already walking away from the church along the grey, pebbled footpath, "There's no time like the present".
"Where are we going?" Martin asked completely baffled as to what was really going on. He ran to catch up to The Doctor who was already nearing the Churchyard gate.
"I'm a time traveller and I've got a time machine", The Doctor said matter of factly walking briskly through the little archway.
Martin sniggered slightly. "A Time Traveller?"
"Yep"
"And you've got a time machine?"
"Yep"
"A time traveller with a time machine?"
"Wow, you catch on quick" The Doctor's eyebrows were raised.
"You're a time traveller and you've got a time machine?" Martin repeated once more.
"Blimey, is there an echo in here?" The Doctor added sarcastically. "You want to get your ears seen to, Marty. I think you may have some sort of blockage."
"And you're expecting me to believe this because….?" Martin asked. He could be sarcastic too.
"What the blockage or the time machine?" The Doctor seemed genuinely puzzled. "Well, I'm expecting you to believe it when you've seen it. Until then, you can believe what you like. It doesn't make it less true." The side of The Doctor's mouth dropped down once more.
"So where is it then?" Martin was willing to play along a little while longer. The Doctor's confidence was so disarming and yet there was something about him that was completely compelling.
"It's in the woods. I always park it there." The Doctor strode purposely towards the tiny wood that stood by the side of Mrs McFlurry's cottage. As he passed the little thatched dwelling The Doctor suddenly stopped and stared up intently at one of the bedroom windows. He breathed in sharply through his teeth. "Oww… I remember been thrown out of that window." He said nodding upward. "It was a good job that gerbil broke my fall." He added quietly. He moved back into his stride as if nothing had been said at all.
Martin just wasn't going to ask. He just wanted to see this 'Time Machine'. He was interested to see at what point The Doctor's little game was going to stop and his whole pretence would come crashing down around his smug little ears.
As they entered the wood Martin could see a large, dark object slightly hidden underneath the braches of a blossoming willow tree. The Doctor glided up the object and Martin could see it was a large blue box. As he got closer to it he found it looked like an old metropolitan police box that he had once seen on Scarborough sea front.
A police box in a wood?
The Doctor was already unlocking the door. "C'mon then" he said looking around at Martin casually. "Let's go and see what's true."
Martin let out a nervous laugh. "Is that it then?" he said as The Doctor disappeared inside. "That's your time machine is it? A little shed?" Martin was enjoying been the sarcastic one now. He moved cautiously towards the door but stopped right outside it. "Have you got little flowers in there as your 'space' controls and little pot plants you use as ear phones?" He was starting to enjoy this now, "Have you got little…."
The Doctor's hands suddenly flew out of the door, grabbed Martin by the lapels on his jacket and dragged him inside. Martin tripped on the ridge of the door way and fell forwarded heavily. The Doctor caught him from falling onto his knees.
Martin was not at all impressed by being dragged in so violently and his mind flashed with a thousand thoughts of just what was happening. Was The Doctor a murderer? Had he come here to slice Martin into tiny little bits of meat inside his little blue box? Why had he gone into this wood with this complete stranger in the first place anyway?
Once the shock of being man handled so abruptly wore off Martin realised that he was in a large room. His legs gave way slightly as he looked around at the sight his eyes were seeing but his mind was trying to deny.
He was in a huge, dome shaped room that had large, narrow girder-like structures going from floor to ceiling. At the centre of the room was what looked like some sort of control area. It was connected to the roof via a long tube and thick cables ran from the ground to the roof. The panels from the central column shone a rich, green colour and the rest of the room took on an almost sand like glow. The air smelt slightly of strawberries mixed with a faint whiff of engine grease and the temperature was a comfortable warm.
Martin found a chair to his right so he sat down in it heavily. His mouth was open but no sound could come out. He spluttered out a few noises but nothing that could be described as words.
"That's alright, Marty, don't worry about it." The Doctor was marching towards an open door at the back of the room. "It's just culture shock. Welcome to my world… This is called my TARDIS and… Well… It's good here" He grinned an impossibly large grin and then strode purposefully from the room and shouted back at Martin, his voice as light and breezy as always. "Make yourself at home. I just want to get a few books".
'Make myself at home?' Martin thought. What is happening? What is this place? How can all this be inside that little blue box?
The Doctor suddenly bounced back into the room. He had an armful of books which he plonked down on a leather chair that was attached to rails that ran around the centre of the room. He picked up the top one first and held it proudly in both hands. He smiled at it passionately and spun it around to Martin so he could see the cover.
"The Big Bumper Book of Bible Stories' by Penguin books. 1974 edition" The Doctor said affectionately. "Oh, I love this book. Bob Geldof gave me that." He nodded once at the book. "There's good stories in there and the illustrations are amazing" His face was beaming with happiness. "Me and Bob had a right night reading that. Laugh? Laugh? He's not always moody, you know".
"What are the books for?" Martin's voice was little more than a croak.
"Reference, Froggy" The Doctor started flicking through the book. "We need to know where we are going." He suddenly stopped on a page. "Oh wait on, wait on," he said excitedly, "If we're really going to do this can we just…" He spun the book around to face Martin once more. "Let's go and see what all this was about." He pointed over the top of the book at the colourful drawings.
Martin looked at the page. The children's illustration depicted Moses bringing the Ten Commandments to the Israelites. He stood on the footsteps of a large mountain and dark clouds and stormy weather dominated the skyline. Martin remembered the story well from his Sunday school days. It was a story of a man's face-to-face encounter with his God. Like most Old Testament stories, it always used to frighten Martin slightly.
"Let's go and see what was really above Mount Sinai all those years ago" The Doctor's voice was raised. "Let's go and find out where this whole 'God' thing began." He started pressing buttons purposefully on a small computer that was linked to one of the control panels. "You know," he said thoughtfully and quietly, "I can't understand why I've never done this before". He looked sideways at Martin as if expecting a reaction. When it never came he shook his head and carried on typing. "We can get to Jesus later. He's probably busy right now anyway. Let's go and find out who these God's really were."
"Gods?" asked Martin. "I thought we were talking of The God? You know, the main man? The One and only?"
The Doctor scrunched his nose up and looked over at Martin. "Nah, we're talking about the beings that appeared to be gods to your primitive fore fathers. It's not just the Bible, you know. 'Gods that came down from the sky' are a constant occurrence in hundreds of Mankind's mythologies and religions. Enlil, Ishkur, Ra, Marduk…. Oh, I could go on all day". He picked up another book from the pile. It was 'Gods of the New Millennium' by Alan F Alford. "The trouble is, you lot, you just write off those mythologies as just that… Myths. Your 'experts' put it down to the over fertile nature of the primitive mind…..Which is rich coming from that lot", he snorted. "But most of you don't really think about it, you just get on with your day to day lives, eating your chips and watching your telly." He took off his long jacket and threw it over a side rail. "Yet these are the events that have shaped mankind's evolutional destiny. It's made the world into the state its in …. In this time right now…. both good and bad". He threw the book casually in the air and caught it in his right hand without even looking in its direction. "It's not kid's stuff this… It isn't like Jackanory you know. None of you have any idea how true those stories were. They were physical events that happened and, so strong was their impact on mankind, that half of your world today still worship one of the many gods of pre-history… They just call him by a different name. Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah… The same God just a different name" He came up close to Martin and put the book in his hands.
Martin flicked through the pictures on the glossy pages of the incredibly thick book. From cave drawings to pictures of the massive buildings mankind made in honour of their 'gods', Martin had seen stuff like this before but never really thought about it on a deeper level… Or at least, he didn't think that he had. He knew that this was all about to change. A rush of fear and excitement welled through him. He choked back a cry and composed himself as best he could.
"So what do you think they were, Doctor?" He asked quietly. Did he really want to know?
"Well, what do you think, Marty? 'God's that came down from the sky'? C'mon, it's not rocket science is it?" The Doctor flipped a switch on the control panel and the central column began to rise up and down and the whole room seemed to wheeze painfully. Martin looked anxiously at The Doctor. "Don't worry" The Doctor said with a smirk, "It's meant to do that."
Martin returned to the question. "Are you saying that aliens were the cause of all of mankind's religions, Doctor?"
"Am I?" The Doctor mused thoughtfully, "Yeah, I suppose I am. To a certain extent."
Martin let out a half laugh that was more like a short breath. "But that's just…. Silly" he said softly. He just couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Oh, Martin" The Doctor laughed, "I'm going to blow your mind."
Outside the blue box a young rabbit grazed cautiously around the rim of the Doctor's time ship. It was startled suddenly by a sound coming from within and yet around the vessel. It ran quickly away and took refuge behind a large tree stub that was thick with shrubbery. With it's nose twitching and back leg tapping it watched as the time machine faded from view leaving behind it crushed grass in the shape of a large, dark square.
"Life is either a daring adventure… or nothing" – Helen Keller