MEMENTO MORI

Brighton, England, early 2064

The smell of burned dust hung heavy in the air. Antique televisions were stacked intricately on every spare surface fanning out across the shop floor; flat screens and tube TVs alike, so full of decades' worth of dirt and muck and silt that the sticky sensation of grime on fingertips, skin, and hair would only be cured by a long, hot shower.

But the Doctor liked it. She was sure half the TVs didn't work, knew many had been gutted for spare parts and repair jobs – especially those with the lowest price tags – but she liked it anyway.

"Why are we here, again?" Clara asked, speaking over the ambient humming of the electronics. An old man, but still younger than many of the objects in his shop, looked hopefully up from his computer.

"Hey, Gus!" said the Doctor brightly, wending through the cairns of machines to get to the desk.

"Hola. How are you getting on with that VCR?"

"It's swell! I love the way it stutters," she said, "I ripped one of my wedding videos onto a tape last week – she doesn't get it, though."

"I just don't know why you needed to make copies of videos we never watch anyway," said Clara, examining an old phone.

"That's an original Western Electric model 2500," said Gus. "Sometimes I think I hear it ringing. It's distinctive." It wasn't plugged in.

"This is my better half, by the way," the Doctor introduced. She was a regular but could rarely persuade Clara to join her on one of her visits. She often went early in the morning during school holidays. "Clara."

"My daughter is called Clara. She moved back home a few years ago," said Gus, "It's a beautiful name."

"She hates it," the Doctor joked.

"I don't think it suits me, that's all," said Clara, "Nice to meet you, though." He smiled at her, then turned his attention back to the Doctor.

"What have you got for me?" he asked.

"You're in for a treat," she grinned, taking something out of her jacket pocket. It was a tape reel. "This is an original recording of a radar operator reporting during the 1952 'Invasion of Washington.'" Gus was enchanted.

"What do you want for it?"

"Do you have any good stories?"

"Somebody brought in a Sony Trinitron KV-14TU this week. They left it on the doorstep, in the rain, in the night. I found it when I opened up on Tuesday."

"Did it have a note?" The Doctor was intrigued.

"Not so much."

"Does it still work?"

"It's a fighter. You know how kids think TVs are full of tiny people?" She nodded. "Sometimes, when I turn it on, while it warms up, it looks like it's full of people. A whole troupe of actors. Ghosts, maybe." He paused, ruminating. "It's in the back right now." He turned and left, and though he didn't invite them to follow, they did anyway, leaving the audiotape on the front desk.

The back room was host to even older, even dustier, even more decrepit electronics than the front. The stock that was so ugly and unfamiliar that it couldn't even make it to the window. The Trinitron rested on a chair, alone; it was black and gnarled, the plastic casing streaked with marks from water, mildew, bubbling where it may have once been burned. It looked like it had been left outside for a very long time.

Gus hobbled over to a wall socket and switched it on.

"What's this piece of paper underneath?" asked the Doctor, sliding it out. "I thought you said it didn't have a note?"

"I said it didn't have much of one."

She unfolded it. In shaky writing were the words: even my dreams are haunted now, and nothing else. Handing it to Clara, she reached down to press the power button at the base of the TV set, and it began to buzz faintly. She crouched to see the screen better, watching shapes morph and melt in the white noise. Touching the screen, a faint spark pricked her finger.

"The static can be a devil," said Gus.

"Uh-huh," said the Doctor, but it wasn't static.

She placed her fingers on the screen as images swam into focus. Black and white at first, but slowly colours began to bleed from the outlines. The Doctor saw herself, an old man with white hair in an arcane suit, staggering towards the TARDIS with no friends around him. He fell through the doors, shuffled into the console room; she heard distant, crackling shouts from people she knew once long ago. The blurry picture on the screen became enveloped in bright light too brilliant to be rendered by an old cathode ray tube. She smiled fondly at the voices of Polly and Ben.

The Doctor moved her hand from the television set and the picture disappeared, replaced by white noise and flickering ghosts once again.

"What happened?" asked Clara, "Did you see something?" It was for her eyes only.

"Did you use it?" the Doctor asked Gus. He nodded. "What did you see?"

"I was sleeping on a balcony in the sun, in Caracas. That's where Clara is."

"Clara in Caracas… has a nice ring." The Doctor smiled sadly, "Good for you. I hope you enjoy it."

"I'm planning to go in April." It was January now.

"How much do you want for it?"

"To tell you the truth, it unnerves me a little. I can't get that note out of my head. I'm closing the shop up soon, anyway. Clara wants me to stay with her for a while… it'll make me feel better if the Trinitron is in good hands."

"I promise, it's safe with me."

"In that case, I think I have a box in the front from a delivery this morning, I'll get it for you. I wouldn't want it to come to any more harm, this one's been through a lot." Gus ambled past Clara and returned to the shop floor. Once he was gone, Clara turned her attention to the television.

"Don't touch it," warned the Doctor.

"Why not? What did you see?"

"It shows people their death."

"…Oh."

"I saw my first regeneration again. Strange to relive it. We'll have to take it and put it somewhere nobody else can use it, especially you."

"I won't," said Clara, crossing her arms as a show of good faith. The Doctor switched the TV off and awkwardly manoeuvred behind the chair to unplug it.

"You see the burns on the casing?"

"Yeah?"

"It's been through a rift, doused in artron energy. That's what zapped me, not static. Must have imbued it with some spooky properties. I can't leave it here; it needs to be out of harm's way."

"Why is it limited to deaths?"

"Oh, it probably isn't. But if a death is fixed, it's the most tangible part of a person's timeline; it's just what it latches onto first. There's no telling what stray glimpses this old thing would give you if you left it running."

Clara lowered her voice, "So… Gus is…"

"Probably not sleeping in that chair in Venezuela."

"The TV really is full of ghosts."

"And other things nobody should see."

Gus reappeared with his box, passing it to the Doctor. Clara still refraining from touching it, she packed it on her own and then picked it up, cradling the television in her arms.

"Thank you," she said, "And good luck, with your daughter. If we're ever in that part of the world, we'll drop in."

He laughed warmly, "Goodbye, Doctor. Don't let those ghosts get in your head."

"I won't. I don't have room for any more."