Zeengrav on Five Pounds a Day

We dressed to the nines and went out to find a fancy shmancy eatery. There are small towns -- not even towns, villages, not even villages, just settlements – all along the beaches of Zeengrav. Zeengravans are shy, which is why they go out of their way not to be seen, and why they eventually evolved into a kind of invisibility. They do love visitors. They love money, but there is no use for it on Zeengrav; they treat it as art. I suppose that makes them related, in a way, to the zeen, but that had not yet occurred to me; such things are not what I was thinking about just then. I wanted to live completely in the moment, forget both past and future, taste something exquisite, laugh with my friends, maybe even drink too much wine, which is unlike me, and, as Turlough had suggested, probably not a good idea.

The weather being ideal at all times, we sat outside at cheerful little cafe tables, red checkered tablecloths and all (probably an imported design, I thought), right down to what looked like wicker-encased chianti-bottled candles (a bit unnecessary as it was still light out – with the two suns taking turns illuminating it, Zeengrav was in perpetual daylight) and waited for invisible hands to lay our menus down before us. We were, at the moment, the only customers.

“Just speak?” asked Turlough.

I nodded. “Just speak.”

“All right, I’ll have the ọsanewure and a side of awọn ewa.”

Tegan chose ipẹtẹ ọdọ aguntan and I lingered a little long over the menu before settling onagbanrere ẹsẹ with ewa alawo ewe in ọsan sauce.We all agreed on local red wine and settled back to await our exotic meal.I sipped at my wine, then put it down. I had only wanted a taste, after all.

Tegan’s meal turned out to resemble lamb stew, right down to the mint-leaf garnish. Turlough’s was the spitting image of duck à l’orange (I couldn’t identify what kind of beans his side dish offered)and my rhinoceros feet with green beans came with a fragrant orange sauce. I have always been fond of oranges, orange juice, orange sauce, orange marmalade, but at the first whiff of orange I felt ill and could eat nothing. I couldn’t even sit there and breathe; the orange was overwhelming. I stood up, knocking my chair over, and teetered away, across the sandy little path onto the beach proper. I didn’t even make it to the TARDIS. I just sat down rather hard in the soft blue sand and put my face in my hands. “Go back and enjoy the meal,” I said, through my fingers, to Tegan, who’d run after me. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

“Go back and eat anyway. It’s okay. Please.”

“Well,” she said, “you’ve got the money for the meal.” I took one hand down from my face, reached into several pockets and finally found the five-pound note.

“This should more than do it. They don’t care about the face value. They like the way it looks.”

“You’re sure, Doctor? We can make a little something back in the TARDIS.”

“Go. Enjoy. Talk about me behind my back. It’s fine.”

She padded softly back and I covered my face more fully. Somehow my hands felt comforting, as if my nose couldn’t remember the smell of oranges if my eyes were covered. Even Tegan didn’t know about Circe’s intoxicating orange spell. She couldn’t. No one will ever know all of it. It wasn’t Tegan’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not even mine... so why did I feel so guilty?

I don’t know how long I sat like that, or how much of the time I was asleep, but I slowly awoke to the comfort and safety of Shor and a dusky rose companion on either side of me, leaning against me, making sure I didn’t find myself alone. “Your friends sat with you awhile,” explained Shor, “but we sent them home.”

“Home,” I repeated.

“To your blue box. They were tired. We said we’d look after you.”

“Thank you.”

“Would you like to return to your blue box too?”

“No,” I said, “I think I would like to take a walk.”

“May we walk with you?”

“I would enjoy that.”

I walked and they flew without speaking, but I can’t say we moved in silence, as the gentle pink waves made their whooshing sound, like tiny little TARDISes, the puppies’ wings flapped once in a while, and as i walked in the littoral, my feet (I’d taken off my shoes -- real shoes, not my trainers -- and was carrying them) made small sucking sounds in the mauve sediment. At first the walk was invigorating; I hadn’t really stretched since my ill-fated swim. Then, as my fatigue became evident, the puppies asked if I would like to return to the TARDIS, I admitted that I would, each puppy relieved me of a shoe and we began to backtrack.

We didn’t get far before I stopped dead in my tracks and stared out at the sea. A Venus-like figure was skimming the surface(sans clam shell)and coming straight at us, slowly but unerringly. As she neared I felt faint, frightened, then somehow also angry. “No,” I cried out. “You’re dead.” The figure kept coming. “I saw you die. You’re nothing but an hallucination. It’s the orange. It has to be the orange.” She was almost at the littoral. I backed up onto the dry sand, stumbled and fell backwards but sat up and held my arms out, uselessly, against the figure’s relentless approach. “You’re not real!”

The figure stopped less than a yard from me. The puppies moved to block her. She did not back up but could not proceed. “You must come with me,” she intoned.

“I shall not,” I growled.

“You have your limits,” said Shor, reasonably, to the figure. “Why have you exceeded them?”

“They are self-imposed.”

“You endanger the balance of this peaceful planet.” The dusky rose puppy’s tone was accusatory.

“Not I,” insisted the figure, pointing at me. “He does.”