The Doctor floats a hundred miles
above us. Not in orbit, he
Just hovers, showing off again.
Superior. Serene.
His best friend comes to visit--
a huge white dove. No, tern.
Elegant his long forked tail
and tapered swallow-wing.
He found the Doctor's lost device
to teleport friends up to space,
inviting all his friends along--
a feathered throng of grace.
But the Doctor coolly tells his ship
"Eject them all, I want to be alone!"
Spaced, they choke and plummet
freeze-dried within a minute,
even before they reach an air
dense enough to burn--
not that they flame, for stranglebirds
tumble and flutter at a mere
hundred miles an hour, to land
near intact. Dried flowers.
On the ground I lift the friend.
Like an angel taxidermed,
white feathers all pristine--
the Fall just mummified.
Cradling the plume-corpse, I
burst in on the writers, howl
"This script's out of character.
Revise the dream! Unjustified!"
They're shocked too. This isn't Who!
The bad Doc gets a rewrite. Now
he's grateful that his friend
returned his lost machine.
The nightmare never happened;
the murder-slate is clean.
But my dark slate of memory
recalls his cruelty.
He was a Timelord; they were just
rude guests uninvit,
barging in his house: all space.
Ternicidal snit!
Do I treat others thus?
Freeze them with scorn,
dessicate with cold dry wit,
banish from my space?
I dread to ask my friends (if any live)
