December 17th, 2011
Oe look, here’s the Dr from that box!! Helloe Dr
“HEllo!” go the Drr. “I found an apple! Um nom num num nom. Finally! I just wish I could remember what I was thinking about earlier, I was looking for an apple, and then I was like “oh, no, I remember, good point, I won’t eat that.” I wonder what that was about. Anyway never mind, hello, I’m here to announce that unfortunately I have come basically no closer, really, to knowing what’s actually going on. So er, sorry about that.”
yeah well, you weren’t going to unstick time anyway, you were more interested in somebody doing some sort of fiddly thing with time or something anyway.
“Yes, true, but it’s usually all wrapped-up together, with these sorts of things. Anybody want a jelly baby?”
No ta. You want a chocklate of the Head of the Actor Richard Burton?
“Um… where did you get that?”
oe from this.
“OH MY WORD!”
hm?
“WHERE DID YOU FIND THAT??”
Er, I just sort-of, found it. In my stocking. It was actually quite funny because I was weari–“
“This explains EVERYTHING! I know EXACTLY what’s happening now! Do either of you know what that is?”
er, it’s an Advent Calender.
“Or,” say Nobbly, “it’s an 24-kinds-of-chock dispensing machine that we’re using AS an advent calender.”
“No! Neither!” say Drrr excitedly! “Well, I mean, the second one, sort-of, yes, but no! Neither! Tell me, have you been encountering any strange messages, anything said to you in a language you couldn’t understand?”
er yes! Just now we’ve been talking to a mysterious alien creature who talks in sad whistling sounds, M8s used his translator machine on him.
“But you didn’t need a translator machine to be able to understand him, did you?”
er, no!
“No! Quite! Anything else?”
Nobbly remembers one – “The Christmas Ninjas were talking to us in their alien language, but then they learned English.”
“No they didn’t!” go the Drrrr. “They’ve been talking in the same language the whole time! I know, because I was there, remember! I’ve been visiting all the moments across time that were relevant to this strange time-tinkering I’m investigating now, and I was there when the Christmas Ninjas were finally able to communicate with you. It wasn’t that they changed what they were saying… it’s that you touched the walls of the Tardis! Remember?”
er noe? What, the blue box?
“YES! Except back then the Charmeleon Circuit was working, and you thought you hit a force field around a Charmeleon! It wasn’t that the Ninjas learned English, it was that YOU learned to understand THEM! The Tardis affects people’s minds in that way, allows you to understand anything said to you in any language! Any more?”
er, no, no more weird alien messages.
“None? Nothing that feels like a sparkly-headedness that somehow leaves the impression of words?”
OE! YES! I DO get that!!
“FanTAStic! Then I’ve solved the whole thing! This is so exciting! You, my lady, have BOBS ON THE BRAIN!”
wots?!
“Bobs! Bobs! You are being spoken to by Bobs! The Bob Separation is a species which is VERY tricky to track down! Most of the time it doesn’t even exist in dimensions beings like us can sense or interact with at all! It’s a gestalt entity made up of billions of tiny fragments of being, a hive-mind, an intelligent swarm! I never thought I’d ever meet it, and perhaps I never will, but YOU HAVE! Now it all makes total sense! The unusual interaction with time that I’ve been looking for – the Bob Separation is a creature that exists outside of time as you know it! It is a higher being, living at such dimensional complexity that time simply means nothing to it!
The Bobs travel through time in much the same way as you or I might glance around a room! They do live on a single timeline that stretches only backwards and forwards – or at least it’s as well to think of them that way for now, since we’ll never encounter any fragment of them that doesn’t – but the direction in which they travel along that timeline is not rigid. Essentially, they are timeless, having access to all times simultaneously, and living their activities within time as mere points across the geography of their being!
They are, in other words, even wimier than I am, and I’m pretty wimey. When they speak to you, it isn’t in your own language, is it?”
noe dr, it’s very weird!
“And yet you’ve touched the Tardis! See how wimey they are???”
The Drrrrr’s boinging around the room in excitement now! “Now, beings like this, when they can be “heard” at all, very rarely talk in sentences that make sense in the right order. Their words must be pieced together from the fragments. This is key! It is essential!! You’ll need a time traveller to understand them completely, but that’s all right! I happen to be one! Now where shall we begi – – ughkk! uhhkkkk!”
that is a strange noise to make, Drrrrrr. What’s up?
“I – just – uhkk! – remembered what it was – that made me stop eating that apple earlier!”
Why, what did you remember??
“I remembered – – uhkk – – I remembered — uhkkk – – I remembered what an apple a day does!”