Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [0]
By Michael Collier
They say it’s your beliefs that get you into heaven, not your deeds. Don’t they?
For Steve and Luc, Take it from me Mr Wubblewu
1.1
Muriel Krainer Tells Dreams Down Die Phone [1963]
You are kind to indulge an old woman like this. Here am I, going on. I don't get to talk very often-it's a treat, I must say. I'm a little out the way here in Archway, but it's a lot cheaper than further in. Still, as you get older... as your friends move away or lose touch, it's talking you miss most, isn't it?
Can't expect Fitz - he's my boy, he's twenty-seven - to stay in the whole time, talking to an old duffer like me; not when he's his age and I'm mine.
It's my own fault, I know. I had him at thirty-eight; the doctors warned me of all the risks when we found out, said I was too old, and with my history...
I’ve not been a well person, really. Up and down, you know, and what with a baby on the way too... But I had Otto then, and we so wanted a child. My husband, yes, that's right. I can see you've been reading my notes, haven't you! No secrets from you, then... Yes, Dr Greenish told me you might call.
Well... if you like. I'll tell you about the dreams, yes. Haven't been asked about them - haven't had them for a few years now, touch wood. Yes, the floating dreams - I know what you meant. I got that feeling of rising above myself, you know, looking at myself there in the bed. 'Course, they said it was the treatment, but it was before the treatment, the first one. Saw myself sleeping, and a right old sight I looked too, with my hairnet, no slap on, in the middle of the night! What he ever saw in me I'll never know.
Patience of Job, that man... Yes, my husband. Sorry, the dream; you've got me talking, you see! I warned you, didn't I?
So I'd always start by looking at myself on the bed, then I'd just keep drifting up, through the ceiling, past Fitzie's room - oh, and the things I'd see him doing some nights, you'd blush, you really would - out into the sky, into the stars. Never felt cold, or anything really, for someone flying through the air in a nightdress. Silly, really, but I'd just keep on going, up and up, until there were no more stars, just skies - different skies, some black, some dark blue, some hazy with light from somewhere... And I'd just drift through them, for ages, just drift. It was always ever so calm, that part of the dream.
Then I'd always feel something was there with me. I'd feel frightened, scared, so different to how I felt before, but, though it always happened the same way, I'd never lose that feeling of calm while the skies changed around me. Yes, like I could never be aware of what was to come, I suppose.
Anyway, I'm there, and this rock arrives, eventually. Starts off really small, but it's big, it's a huge big rock. Then it turns and I can see it's got an entrance - it's like... Yes, that's right, just like a cave, like someone's taken a cave out of a mountainside and put it in the sky. And it comes towards me, and the sky's just one colour now and there's nowhere else to go, and I'm scared so I go inside it. I stop floating then, I have to walk. It's all crunchy under my feet. Rocks and crystals, sparkling in your eyes even when you shut them. The cave roof is all bright, warm and yellow...
Then it gets darker and it's like there's a church inside, rows and rows of people singing some sort of hymn. Strange people: they're all tall, dressed in black robes. Their words are funny... No, not foreign, but like they're...
Oh, I don't know, it's like this is their way of crying or something. They don't feel things the way we do, and I know I've got to be quiet, very quiet, or they'll find me, and I don't know what they'll do then.
So I stay at the back and listen, and look around. And there's a face; well, it's sort of like a face. It's got little horns, slitty little eyes, and it's sticking out from the stone above them like it's laughing at them, but it's not got a mouth. Just a round sort of bump there, like a big fat ring with no hole in it.
It's