The Man Who Disappears- A Doctor Who FanFiction

You walk up to this old man at the end of the bar because you'd been told to. You had asked around, hoping to hear some word about the Doctor. The whispers had led you to a cold, fishing village that might not have seen the sun in a decade. The fishy wind had been fighting you, clawing at your coat, trying to shoo you out of the village. Even still, you came because you needed to know about the Doctor. This old man at the end of the bar, with his salty, gray hair, has salty, gray eyes. He's got a frown tattooed on his face and he's got his nose planted so deep in his mug that you think he might be trying to drink his Guiness up his nostrils.
You call him 'Sir' because you want to sound respectful, but he doesn't respond. You slide a Tenner in front of his mug and his eyebrows perk up.
"What do you want?" The old man says in an accent so thick that you nearly get lost in it.
"I want to know about the Doctor." You say like you've said a thousand times before. You eye the old man and think that he'll know as much as everyone else. That is to say, he'll know nothing at all. Maybe, it's time you went home and forgot about the last of the Time Lords.
"Why would you be asking about that man? He's not even a man, you know. An alien. Some might say, he's a monster who chases other monsters."
"So, you do know about the Doctor?" You ask.
"As much as I can know. That is, far more than I'd ever like to know. My son, you see, had asked the Doctor for help and the Doctor killed him."
"What?" You ask. The Doctor wasn't a killer... Well, that wasn't exactly true. You knew that the Doctor protected the Earth and that meant stopping invaders from attacking, which sometimes meant killing. The Doctor had killed, you knew that, but the Doctor wouldn't kill a human.
"He did." The Old Man said, looking you in the eyes. For a moment, you think he might've read your mind. "My boy, my son had an affliction, one that I didn't understand, one that I couldn't help him with. He'd disappear. Right before your eyes. He'd always come back. Sometimes, he was bloody. Sometimes, he was naked, but he'd always come back."
"My boy was clever. I don't know where he got his smarts. Found them underneath a rock, perhaps. I know he didn't get them from me." A smile cracks across the Old Man's face, but is quickly washed away.
"He kept this notebook and he figured out exactly where he was going when he was gone. He had them in a list, knew that he always went to one of five places: 15th Century China, 18th Century America, 19th Century Poland, Scotland in the 23rd Century and a place that was full of trees. He couldn't find out where that last place was, but he thought that it was a place before or after people ever existed. He knew what was happening and where he was going, but he couldn't find a way to stop it." The Old Man's eyes went dark and hollow and you think he must of known it, because he looks away from you.
"He was only 19-years-old and the Doctor killed him, but not before promising that he'd help my boy. The Doctor came sauntering down the road, asking about my son, asking about the man who disappears. The Doctor was right on my doorstep, him and a girl. The Doctor had this thing. It looked like a high-tech wand, but he called it a screwdriver. He waved it in front of my boy and my boy just vanished in front of my eyes, in front of the Doctor and the Doctor's girl. The two of them exchanged looks like it was all fun, like my son popping out of thin air, nude and bleeding, was all a game." The Old Man took a long draft of his drink and smacked his lips.
"The Doctor didn't see the fun in it when he came back. I didn't want to, but I get the Doctor my son's notebook. The Doctor said he could follow my son, find him, keep him safe. He actually told me that. Him and his girl left and true to his word, he found my son and he also found something else. He found out that my son's affliction was causing people to get hurt, causing them to die. It wasn't my boy's fault. He couldn't help it. I don't even think he knew. Apparently when he disappeared, he torn something open that didn't close right away. People fell in after my boy and they died in the space between there and here. It wasn't my boy's fault. He didn't deserve to die over something he couldn't control." You hear the Old Man take in a deep breath and you want to tell him that he doesn't have to continue, but you don't.
"The Doctor tried something to stop my boy from disappearing, from taking people with him when he did, but it didn't work. The Doctor was supposed to be the one that fixed things like that, but he couldn't fix my boy. So, instead, he killed him. The Doctor was a coward about it. He had his girl take me to the harbor while he did the deed because he knew that I would've stopped him. My boy could've killed a million people when he disappeared, I wouldn't have let him die for it." The Old Man's voice shutters wih rage and pain and a single tear rolls down his cheek.
"He was laying in his bed, like he was just sleeping. The Doctor said he was dead and he stood there, staring at me, waiting for me to do something. My fists were balled tight and I wanted... I wanted to shatter his skull. I wanted to beat him to death. I want to run my fists right through him and realized that the Doctor, the great and powerful Doctor, wanted me to. He killed my boy and he hated himself for doing it. He wanted to feel all the pain that he had caused me and decided, then and there, that I wasn't going to give it to him. I'd let him live with it. I told him to get out, to leave forever. He left with his head down below his shoulders and I never saw him again." The Old Man drains the rest of his mug and gestures for another. You don't know what to say, so you say nothing. You blink and remain silent.
"That's the Man you're looking for." The Old Man says as he reaches for his new mug of Guiness. You stand and step away from the Old Man and decide that, maybe, it is time that you went home and let the Time Lords be nothing more than a fairy tale.

Me Being Me: 2AM Edition - My Dream Girl

I've been thinking about fate, about the nature of the thing that is meant to be. I'm not sure if I've revealed this on The Dark Abby, but, for sometime now, I've been having dreams about this girl.

I don't know her name, so I named her Lily.  I, normally, don't give much attention to my dreams, mostly because they're nothing to write home about. I, normally, dream about random images mixed with external stimilus. If someone's having a loud conversation about sandwiches, my dreams will be about bolony and mayo.

My dreams with Lily, however, are more focused. They feel more anchored, like I were visiting an actual place. I can still recognize the external stimilus, but I know to ignore it because the dream fels more important. Lily wants me to find her and I know it's crazy to be looking for a girl I met in my dreams, but I am looking, although in a half-hearted way.

There was this dream, in which I got the name of a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts. In the dream, Lily had asked me to come back to Halifax, a place I had never been. I looked it up on-line. It's a small town by a lake, swamped with greenery and sprawling roads. It sounds beautiful, but I'm afraid to go there. I seems like a sign of insanity to be, literally, chasing dreams. In the dream, I was suppoded to find a foot-bridge ornamented with sunflower. In the dream, it's early spring, still cold although the sun is shining down, cleanly. What if I were to go there and see her on that day in early spring? What if I walked up to her and waited for her to recognize me? What if she didn't? What if I hadn't been led to Halifax, if I had somehow learned about the place through some TV show and Lily isn't Lily? What if her name is Sarah, or Amber, or Coral? What if she's just some pretty girl who had nothing to do with me?

Her possible fiction is more comforting than her being real. Things have some much less consequence in dreams. Right now, she's just something I dreamed. If I find her, even if she knows me, there will be consequences. It'll mean I'm meant to do something about her existence.

Me Being Me (Revival Post.)

I wanted to touch base and talk about what's been going on with me.

After two years, I'm going back to college. May had been a big month for me and June is turning out to be just as large. I'm figuring out funding, quitting my job and devoting more time to getting back on the horse.

In July, I'll be a Readercon, my first convention ever. I'm stoked about that. I've got my room booked and my membership waiting. In prepartation, I've looked up a couple of the authors in attendance and I'm boning up on their novels. I want ot cram in as much reading as I can in between now and July 11th, the first day of Readercon. It's unlikely, but, maybe, I might stumble into Peter Straub while grabbing one of my Cranberry+Vodka drinks. I have no idea what would happen in that unlikely scenerio. I'd probably say, "Hey." as I walk away because, although I love his work, I have no idea what Peter Straub looks like.

After that, September is going to be big. I'm hoping I can submit a query to this agent I've been waiting on. If you're curious (dare I hope 'Excited?) about Kid Silver: Alone than start asking about it. People talking about the book can only do good things. I'll also be enrolling at UMass Lowell and hopefully taking a class with Dave Daniels, an author of some esteem. So that's what's up with me.

Bad-Ass School: The Top 10 Graduates

Below are the Top 10 Graduates of Bad-Ass School: The School so Bad-Ass, you have to shoot your way in and then back out.

10. William Munny - Client Eastwood (Unforgiven: 1992)
All though Eastwood has re-cast himself as a grumpy, old man and seems to be re-re-casting himself as grumpy, crazy, old man, (Isn't that right, Mr. President?) his performance in Unforgiven has cemented his status as a Bad-Ass. Without a gun, in pain and over the hill, he screamed an entire town of Gunmen. "If anyone you shoot me, I'll find you and I'll kill ya. I'll find your friends, your family, your wives and your children. I'll bury them all."

9. Butch Coolidge - Bruce Willis (Pulp Fiction: 1994)
Willis seems to be following in the footsteps of Eastwood, which makes me concerned for the future of Bad-Asses in general. For now, let's worry about his established Bad-Ass-hood (Yes, it is a word.) You need only see Willis, wide-eyed and bloodied as hell, clutching a big-ass sword. "They keep under-estimating me. That's how I'm going to win."

8. Harvey Keitel
I know Keitel isn't a movie character, but I'm pretty sure that he could help you get rid of a body in real life. The fact that I believe that makes him a Bad-Ass.

7. Lt. Hiroo Onoda
You know how World War II ended in 1945? Not for this Bad-Ass. He kept the fight going untill 1974. They had to scare up his old commanding officer to get him to stop. He was actually a member of the Japanese Imperial Army, fighting against America but he's still a Bad-Ass.

6. Malcolm Reynolds - Nathan Fillion (Firefly: 2003)
Fillion seems to be on the more gentle side of Bad-Ass-itude (It's a word. Shut up.), but when he goes Bad-Ass, he goes hard. He seems nice, but he kicked a dude into the exhaust-port of his ship, Serenity. BAD-ASS!

5. Rick Blaine - Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca: 1942)
Bogart shot one Nazi (I think he was a Nazi) and it's soooo satistifying. It's more of a love story, than anything, but when Rick shoots that guy, it feels like he's on the path to kill all the Nazis.

4. Ron Swanson - Nick Offerman (Parks And Recreation: 2009)
Offerman is single-handedly reminding America what a man is. You eat meat, lots of meat. So much meat that looking at it makes your heart hurt. When you sit down at a diner, you ask for all the bacon. But what about that other men? That's how hippies think. Shut up!

3. Batman (The Dark Knight Returns:1986)
I don't want to make it seem like Bad-Asses are only old men, but yes, I feel old Batman was a bigger Bad-Ass than any other Batman. He breaks the Joker's neck and beats the crap out of a big mutant guy. He also fights Superman, nearly kicks his ass. "This is my Operating Room."

2. Roland Deschain (The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger: 1982)
Deschain kills a crap ton of people. At one point, he actually killed an entire town and then later, killed another town with his Ka-tet.

1. The Bride - Uma Thurman (Kill Bill: 2008)
I heard that there might be a third Kill Bill movie and I got depressed when I found out that Tarantino just says he wants to do sequels to almost all his movies. He's a nerd for his own movies, but he needs to stop hike up my hopes.

The Ridiculous Adventures of the Cole, the Living Flame and Patrick, the Coward

Cole burned, crackling on the end of Patrick's staff. Cole peered out into the gloomy night. Wolves etched through the darkness and there was the scream of a girl.

The Trouble With Women

Here’s the problem. Girls throw their feelings around like threatened squids or something. Maybe, I’m just emotionally stinted (I’m probably somewhere on the spectrum.), but I’m pretty sure that it’s not fair for some lady to spew her bad day at my face. Apparently, she lost her car which she relied on to get to her job. I’m aware that this is a bad thing and I’m aware that I take the vague form of a Peoples but I’m just barely that. I can handle, maybe, seven emotions a day and I’ve got to be mad at least once and horny at least twice.

 

Part of me wishes that I could live back in the fifties. Only part of me because I’m black and the only reason why a black guy wouldn’t get his ass kicked in the fifties is because everyone was too busy beating up a gay guy or a Catholic. The part of me that’s dense enough to think I can get away with being a black guy before the eighties really wants to go, though. This might not be accurate, but I’m pretty sure that feelings were invented in the sixties by the fucking hippies. Before that, people were just sociopathic blank slates and it was cool. You worked a twelve hour day at a job you hated and that was killing you slowly and then you came home and beat your wife. There was no conversation about why the beating occurred or how anybody felt about the beating. It was like the rain. It just happened.

 

And women. You could hospitalize a woman for flinging her feelings around. Not, like smash in her rib cage, although men did that anyway. You could literally have your wife committed to a mental hospital for feeling too much. Like with everything else, there was a protocol. When you wanted to get rid of your wife, without murdering her (Pussy.), you first beat her, as always. Then, you took her to a doctor, who would masturbate her to cure a good, old-fashion case of Hysteria. If the problem persisted, then you would repeat that action three times and then, you got to dump her at the funny farm. You just drove up and told the doctors that her vagina was broken or something.

 

“Harry, I…I can’t have this baby. Physically, I’m capable but if I bring this life into this world, I know I’ll resent it and I know I’ll resent myself for hating it. I can’t think of anything crueler to do to a child.”

 

“Peg, I heard you. I understand what your saying and I’ll tell you what. I’m going to force you to have that baby but you won’t have to take care of it. I’ve been sleeping with my secretary. She’ll take care of the tike and you, my darling, will get a new white jacket that’ll hug your tight and a white room that’s just for you. Now, how’s that sound?”

 

“What happened to Dr. Goldberg and the dildo?”

 

All of that changed during WWII when the brave men of America crossed the Atlantic to beat German women. With no men around, the American women started to build up something known as ­self-esteem while playing Baseball with Tom Hanks. You might be saying to yourself, ‘Tom Hanks, the baby? Was Tom Hanks even alive during WWII?’

If you actually asked such a stupid question, then I feel sorry for you. Everyone knows that Tom Hanks is a Time Lord and went back in his time machine. A League Of Their Own was a documentary and Shelby Marshall redacted the time travel aspect because women make bad decisions. See All the women I’ve ever slept with. So, Tom Hanks helped foster the Feminist movement instead of killing Hitler because Tom Hanks is selfish. Think of all the horrible things that have  ever happened. Tom Hanks could have stopped them, but he played Baseball and drank grain alcohol, instead.

Well, maybe it’s not fair to say he’s selfish. I don’t understand the time-space continuum. Maybe things would be much worse if Hitler didn’t rise to power. Maybe, there would have been nuclear dinosaurs, instead. Just big-ass, Nazi dinosaurs with radioactive blood snatching fucking planes out of the sky and eating the pilots’ faces. Here’s some homework: Find a WWII veteran. You should probably hurry because they are dying, right the fuck off. Find a Vet and ask him if a Nazi ever tried to bit his arm off. Dinosaurs are worse than Nazis.

Let’s take the top war machine of WWII, the Panzer Tank. Let’s pit that against the top predator of the Jurassic Period, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Panzer has a lot going for it, but I have to maintain the T-Rex would fuck the Panzer tank in its cannon hole. It’s a Motherfucking T-Rex, Motherfuckers.

“No, because the Panzer has a big gun on the front. You can just shoot the T-Rex in the face.”

Hey, Smart-Ass! Guess what? No, you can’t and shut the fuck up. The Panzer has a fixed barrel. Unless you’ve got some guys to lift the entire tank up at a 70 degree angle and hold it there long enough for you to fire at the T-Rex, then the Panzer is going down. Now, do I know if that part about the fixed barrel is true? Nope. And I’m not going to fact-check this. It’s clearly bullshit. Listen, it doesn’t matter what type of gun the Panzer had, it’s piloted by people and the only response to seeing a Tyrannosaurus Rex is, ‘Holy fuck-nuts! A fucking T-Rex! Oh, god! It’s fucking us in our Cannon hole!’

This is all deviating from my real point. Girls, I’m not your boyfriend. I shouldn’t have to know about your goddamn feelings. 

I Don't Know What To Write...

I've been working off-line for a while, nearly a month now. I'm sitting in a McDonald's with a Big Mac sitting at my side. The internet isn't back on.

I'm stressed to say the least because I'm a creature of internet and I'm trying to make money off the internet [(Just like everyone else.) Shut up, Matt.] My most recent finished novel, No Magic For Luke Peters rests, unpurchased on Amazon Kindle and I'm currently working on its sequel, No Soul For Luke Peters.

I had a thought and I'm not going to say it because it'll open me up for ridicule. Let me try to rephrase it so that I don't sound like an asshole. The stress of my life (my father's increasingly brittle temperment, my dwindling standing at my current job, and my inability to work in the medium I want to work in) should be good for me as an artist, but it's hard. I don't know what to write.