The Doctor has no chance, in that strange, frozen world of ruined time, to look for Bethlehem and babe, angels (real angels) frightening shepherds. Scarcely manages to even think of doing so, what with the smashing of all existence. Just as well, perhaps—too many distractions and slights-of-hand as is.

But once again he wonders, when he’s safely “dead”, wonders just a little about the tenacity of was and is and is to come, a narrative not even he fully knows. Wonders what would have happened if Amy and River hadn’t remembered, won through. (Wonders if there’s a reason they did.)

Ian sneezed, and the pile—wall—of clippings running along the back of the desk finally gave in to gravity, avalanching down onto the floor with a reproachful hiss. After holding his breath for a moment to make sure none of the room’s other, similarly precarious piles would follow suit, he groaned, laying his head down on the desk with gentleness born of ever-growing despair. That was most of the afternoon’s work spoiled, and he was already more than a week behind—almost five, actually, now that Professor Gerhall seemed to have gone on an unofficial sabbatical, leaving the entire backlogged project in Ian’s over-full hands.

…Didn’t he have an essay due sometime next week? Maybe no one would notice if he just turned in a copy of the article on Colonel Bramwell Mulligan Oakley IV. If he finished it on schedule.

If he didn’t have a nervous breakdown.

Really, the only important thing he’d learned at university so far was to read all the paperwork before signing it, because otherwise you could wind up as an indentured servant without noticing. And he couldn’t get rid of this nagging feeling that he’d forgotten something terrifically important. Like the time.

“Hello, Ian!”

Or more exactly, that he was supposed to pick someone up from the train station about an hour and a half ago.

He made the nastiest face he could manage without a mirror to practice in, then sighed and lifted his head off the desk. Gabe’s sister stood resplendent in the office doorway, nose and cheeks quite red, lips painfully chapped, and radiantly unselfconscious. She looked as though she’d just come in from having more fun than money could ever hope to buy.

“Hello, Penny.” Ian managed to smile as if he actually meant it, and then was startled to find that he actually did. “Sorry, I—”

“Oh, don’t bother apologizing,” she cut in, dropping her suitcase with a cheerful bang. Clippings fluttered in the momentary gust of air; Ian only half-managed to suppress his wince. “I got off at the wrong station anyway, so if you had come to fetch me, you would’ve wound up just standing around for an hour and a half, in utter, utter vain.”

“I might have done and only just got back,” he pointed out, more because he wanted to hear her response than out of hope or desire to deceive her. She dimpled at him in a way that would have been distracting under a completely different set of circumstances.

“You’re falling asleep and half-buried in paper, Ian. And I know you were about to say that you’d forgotten I was coming. Which is quite all right, as I did too, up until Mum shoved a suitcase at me and all but threw me onto the train.”

This is not grief, or sorrow,
not exactly.
This is empty corners in a room,
a missing food bowl,
silence where once was quiet whine,
space beside my knee
where once was fuzzy head.

And while I forgot, I
Frivolled like a
Foolish thing, casting
Away my scan coin
On things worthless
As soon as bought.

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(Free verse, the poet said, is like playing tennis without a net, but he’s not sure he has a ball either.)

But any stars would be bright
Only because they sit on the edge of explosion
(Kaboom)
And his heart’s been broken
One
(Or two)
Time(s) too many.

People are fickle,
And Atlantis is older than memory–
Fickle too, but faithful
(As long as no distant relatives show up).

Let us luxuriate in the
slow long nights,
the creeping mornings,
let us breathe the scent of
grass in the sun,
listen to the birds
fight their beautiful wars,
sit around the fire tonight until
the coals have turned to ash and
all the fireflies have
gone to sleep.