the fountain of maturity page 2

The nine year old took a deep breath before continuing. ‘We have however designated that all people above the age of twenty must attend this school. This is to help them make the most of their brain faculties, so that they can still contribute to society. It is unfortunately a losing battle and by the time they reach forty, they have hardly any brain activity left at all. They need to be fed, changed and looked after by their families.’

‘Ewww!, you mean they wear nappies,’ sniggered Rory, ‘Ha Ha, grownups wearing nappies, next you’ll be telling me they drink milk from feeding bottles.’ 

The Doctor looked at Rory in surprise at his rather uncharacteristic remark. 

‘Actually Rory, that’s correct,’ responded Dishi, ‘our elders do use feeding bottles.’ 

Amy laughed out loud hysterically.  ‘I’m sorry, that’s so funny. I can’t help but picture the Doctor in a nappy with a bottle in his mouth!’ 

Now it wasn’t unusual for Amy to make these types of mischievous comments, but generally she did so in private company and never in front of a room full of complete strangers, thought the Doctor.  There was certainly something wrong in both Amy and Rory’s recent behaviour and this was a matter of serious concern for the Doctor. 

‘Generally how long does it take for visitors to get affected?’ enquired the Time Lord. 

‘Well that depends on how much exposure they have had to the rays of the suns,’ Dishi answered, ‘The longer an individual spends out in the suns, the quicker their brain starts to regress. Have the three of you spent any time outside the dome?’

‘Yeah, we had a lovely long walk here from the TARDIS,’ said the 22 year old Amy frivolously, ‘The suns are so cool! He-he, so cool, suns get it?’

‘Well Doctor, it looks like your friends are already beginning to show the symptoms, but you seem to be unaffected. Why?’ wondered the young boy.

‘Well I’m not exactly human, I’m a Time Lord. I have a different nervous system to humans,’ said the Doctor. ‘What if we were to get back into our transport and leave? What then?’ 

‘Many have tried, but I can guarantee you that your friends will remain afflicted, wherever you take them. The effect is irreversible whether you stay on this planet, or not.’ 

‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I would like to try that out myself,’ decided the Doctor, ‘Amy, Rory, Let’s get back to the TARDIS.’ 

‘Do we have to? I like this classroom, it’s so lovely and the people here are so nice.’ protested Rory.

‘And the boy is so Dishy.’ added Amy jokingly. 

‘That’s enough guys, you’re coming with me!’ the Doctor commanded. 

‘Well Doctor, you’ll have to catch me first.’ said Amy, as she quickly got up from her chair, ran to the front of the class and tried to hide behind the diminutive Dishi. 

The Doctor got up and followed her. He reached the front and tried to grab Amy’s left arm from behind the boy, but as he reached for her she moved to her right and dodged his grasp. The Doctor tried again from the other side but once again, Amy dodged him.

‘You’re too slow Doctor; can’t catch me!’ taunted Amy.

Just as the Doctor was getting frustrated by his young friend, Dishi turned around and grabbed Amy firmly round her waist. 

‘There you go Doctor, please be my guest and take your friends away. My class has been disrupted too much already.’ Dishi requested. 

‘Spoilsport!’ accused Amy as she was being pulled away by the Doctor out of the classroom.  Rory slowly started following the other two out of the room, when Dishi called out to him. 

‘Rory, please accept this flower as a gift from this class.’ he said. 

Dishi gestured to one of his students. A woman reached across to a vase on the classroom window sill and picked out a blue sunflower, before presenting it to Rory. 

Rory took the flower graciously, smiled and thanked her. He left the room to follow the Doctor, who was pulling the screaming Amy, down the corridor.  

~~~

Dishi thought for a while about the three visitors that had just left his classroom. He was certain that their fate was sealed and that they were in denial, just like so many of the visitors in the past. He could imagine them standing and admiring the beautiful view, while unbeknownst to them, the rays of the suns were imperceptibly damaging their minds. However, there was something about the Doctor that bothered him and the fact that he called himself a ‘Time Lord’ seem to ring alarm bells.  His memory had not been the same as it was a year ago, when he could recall all the known truths of human endeavour. He recalled the fateful day when he had taken an unacceptable ten seconds to recall all the names of the previous six emperors of Guangzongshi. This signalled his demise from his role of power as a Filiator and consigned him to the lower ranking of a ‘Mind coach’.

Why was the Doctor unaffected by the rays of the suns, after having spent the same time outside in the suns, as his friends? Was he really not a human? What was a Time Lord? Could he find a way to reverse the effect on his friends? The questions kept popping up in his mind. At least, he had shown the astuteness to present one of them with the HuHow flower. However, if the Doctor was able to find a way to cure his friends, then it could certainly change everything. He decided that he must seek an audience with the Emperor Seetha. 

‘Please carry on with the brain exercises until you have reached your target brain level for today,’ advised the boy, ‘I need to pop out for a very important matter.’ 

He ran down the corridor, as fast as his short legs could carry him until he reached the emperor’s palace at the centre of the dome. The two muscular, teenage guards, standing in front of the thick, black double door entrance, saw him coming towards them at speed and immediately blocked his path with their long spears. 

‘I must speak to her highness, the Lady Seetha at once,’ puffed Dishi, ‘I bring news of some strange visitors to Guangzongshi.’ 

One of the guards opened the door and entered the palace, while the other bulky guard continued to stand in Dishi’s way. He returned several minutes later and nodded to his colleague. They opened the doors and let Dishi enter the long, dark corridor that led through to the throne room. He walked down the corridor slowly towards the bright radiance that was emanating from its extremity. He paused slightly before entering the throne room. An attendant announced him to the Lady Emperor, who sat in the lotus position on the throne. She wore a black silk ‘hanfu’ robe with a red sash and a light golden tiara on her head. The toddler emperor resembled a little porcelain china doll, as she sat their motionless with her eyes closed.  She delicately lifted her eyelids and gazed at Dishi with a pleasant smile.

‘Your highness, we have had three visitors to our planet,’ murmured Dishi respectfully, ‘They came to my class.’

‘Did they show any signs of suns-stroke?’ asked the young girl in a cute voice. 

‘Yes ma’am, they did. All except for the one that called himself the Doctor,’ replied Dishi ‘He said he was not human but a Time Lord.’ 

The Emperor Seetha closed her eyes in contemplation. She opened her eyes a few seconds later. 

‘The Doctor is known to the Emperors. We have been expecting him to visit us for many centuries. That time has finally arrived. It is foretold that he is very dangerous and brings with him, much disruption and chaos. He will certainly intrude into our traditions. He must be treated with caution.’ she said sweetly. 

‘I took the precaution of presenting them with a HuHow flower.’ Dishi proclaimed proudly. 

‘You have shown exceptional foresight, which will be rewarded munificently,’ responded the Emperor ‘That is good! The HuHows will deal with them.’ 

The Emperor then shut her eyes and gestured to the boy to leave with her right hand. 

Dishi turned around and left the throne room gradually, with a sense of great pride in his actions that would not only lead to the resolution of this unwelcome hindrance, but had also earned him some well overdue, personal reward and recognition.

~~~

Rory ran across the playground to find the Doctor and Amy had already gone through the Dome door and were outside. 

‘Hurry Up, Slow coach!’ Amy called from the other side of the plastic dome glass.

Rory emerged from the door and saw that Amy was waiting for him.

‘Ahh Rory, you shouldn’t have,’ said Amy as she reached across and took the blue flower from him ‘it’s so beautiful. Where did you pick it from?’ 

‘One of the women in the classroom gave it to me.’ responded her husband. 

‘What? Some woman gave you a flower! How dare she?’ fumed Amy, ‘Which one was it? I’ll give her a bunch of something, she won’t forget.’ 

‘Come on you two, hurry back to the TARDIS. You don’t want to stay out in the rays of the suns for any longer than you have to!’ the Doctor called back, as he continued his brisk sprint up the mountain. 

‘Yippee, let’s run! We can play kiss chase on the way,’ Amy suggested to Rory ‘I’m it!’ 

‘A kiss from you, that’s Yuk!’ Rory said, while screwing up his face, ‘You’re not catching me!’ 

Rory started to run pretty fast and despite Amy’s long legs running after him, he was beginning to pull away from her. The suns were now shining down on them with some intensity. Amy stopped momentarily to catch her breath, just as the TARDIS came within sight. She noticed her six shadows of varying sizes. This wasn’t something she had seen before and she couldn’t help moving her arms and legs to watch her six shadows, reciprocating her movements. 

At that very moment, she heard a loud roar from behind her. She turned around to see five large, ape-like creatures coming towards her. They looked just like giant, green, hairy Lemurs with long pointed noses, round black eyes and protruding ears. Amy screamed at Rory for help, but he was still racing away from her. She summoned up some energy from within and started to run away from this shrewdness of apes, as fast as she could.

Rory was taken aback when Amy had suddenly caught up with him and braced himself for a wet, sloppy kiss on his face, but to his surprise Amy just ran past him. 

‘Watch out for the monkeys!’ she screamed back at him. 

‘What monkeys?’ Rory asked as he looked back. 

He felt something hit him on the side of the face and knock him down. Face covered in dust, He raised his head from the ground, to see that the five apes were now tussling with Amy. They had already knocked her out and one of them was trying to extricate the blue sunflower from her hands. 

In the meantime the Doctor had reached the TARDIS door and clicked his fingers dramatically to open the door. He turned back, expecting Rory and Amy to be right behind him. He instead saw the five ape-like creatures, standing around a figure on the ground, about fifty yards away. He immediately knew that both Amy and Rory were in danger and needed his help.

 As he ran towards the apes, he could see that Amy was passed out on the floor and that one of the apes was trying to pull the flower from Amy’s clenched fist. He ran up to them and tried to shoo them away, but they just ignored him. He then decided to use the Sonic Screwdriver on them, but its sharp sound only enraged them. They left Amy and turned on him instead. The Doctor found himself surrounded by the seven feet high creatures and cradled his head in his arms, to protect himself from the impending blows. 

Out of the blue, a multitude of stones started to rain down on the Apes and they scarpered for cover. The Doctor tried to dodge the stones, but one of them hit him on the side of his forehead. He followed the trajectory that the stones had followed and saw that Rory had been throwing them. 

‘That’s enough Rory, they’re gone!’ shouted the Doctor, ‘Hurry, let’s get Amy into the TARDIS.’ 

The two men picked Amy up by her arms and legs and carried her into the TARDIS and carefully placed her on the floor. 

‘Right, now let’s get off this planet.’ the Doctor reminded himself. 

He circled the TARDIS console, flicking switches, twiddling dials and finally punching the panel with his fist, until the central rotor responded by moving up and down vertically. 

Outside on the mountain, one of the Apes looked on in perplexity from behind a big rock, as the blue cuboid object disappeared into thin air, amongst a cacophony of noise.

On board the in-flight TARDIS, the Doctor examined the brains of his two friends on the console screen and watched on in despair. The screen displayed two multi-coloured MRI scans with the words ‘Brain Maturity Level: Age 8’ flashing across it. He looked at his two friends as they played boisterously with each other. 

‘What’s the matter Doctor? Have we both gone mental or something?’ Amy called over to him. 

‘Correctomundo.’ said the Doctor as the words spluttered inadvertently out of his mouth. 

‘What kind of word is that Doctor?’ laughed Rory 

‘Rory, Rory, Rory. You’re brilliant, you are… the way you dealt with those creatures.’ 

Suddenly the Doctor’s head felt all groggy, as if he had been turned around 360 degrees several times on a roller coaster. He tried to steady himself, but now the whole of the TARDIS console room was rotating around him. He finally conceded defeat against his own balance and fell to the floor, in front of Amy and Rory. 

‘Are you OK, Doctor?’ Amy asked as she tried to help him to his feet. 

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ said the Doctor. 

‘Why? What’s happened?’ queried Rory 

‘I think I may have also been affected by the rays of the multiple suns after all. My Time Lord mind seems to have regressed to my previous personality.  I fear that I may end up behaving like all my previous nine personalities, before eventually becoming like a child.’ 

‘Can we do something to help?’ Rory asked the Doctor sombrely. 

‘We have to find a way to reverse this or we’ll become infantile, mindless and helpless, before we eventually die.’ 

‘What can we possibly do to sort things out?’ Amy asked almost hypothetically. 

‘We must go back to Guangzongshi! Allons-y!’ exclaimed the Doctor. 

END OF PART ONE 

written by 
SHAMS UDDIN
copyright 2012


artwork by 
COLIN JOHN
copyright 2012


https://infernofictiontwelve.blogspot.com/p/the-fountain-of-maturity.html


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