Dirk's Chronicles, Chapter 1

Inside the Tardis

The foyer of the man's home was an enormous circular room with multiple levels and machines and devices everywhere. It was quite overwhelming. I was expecting a small room with the stairs off to the right, a door to the left into a parlor, and a hallway leading back, but this, this is unbelievable. I stood in shock. For a few moments, I did not comprehend how this possibly could've happened. After all, I passed an alleyway off to the right of this very building, and now the room I am in easily extends beyond that alleyway. And the other direction would have the front room, at least, of the house next door.

Then I saw her on a dais in the middle of the room. She stood looking at some kind of circular machine. She was an absolutely stunning brunette. She was (is) Oriental and wore pale blue trousers with a white, button-down blouse. My sister had worn trousers when she was younger, but I had never seen an adult woman wearing them. I could not help but stare at her; she was a beautiful woman, wearing strange garb.

"Hello," she said to me, then turned her eyes on the tall man and asked. "Who've you brought in this time, Doctor?"

"Alsjeblieft, excuseer me voor het staren, juffrouw. Het is erg grof van me, ik hoop dat je me kunt vergeven.
[Please excuse me for staring, miss. It is very rude of me. I hope you can forgive me.]" I said, then I realized she probably didn't understand me, since she'd spoken in English, so I repeated it in English.

I added, "I am Dirk Van Heusen of Bosgebied and am completely at your service."

I attempted to bow, but since I was holding my bicycle, all I ended up doing was bumping my head and looking foolish.

"Well, there you go. This is Dirk. And he has a bicycle! May I examine your bicycle, Dirk?" the Doctor asked with great excitement.

"Yes, of course," I replied to the Doctor, then turned back to the woman, "Please excuse my rudeness for staring; I have never encountered anyone like you before."

"You are forgiven, Dirk," she smiled and said, then muttered as she glared at the Doctor, "At least he has manners and treats me like a woman, not a pack mule."

I rolled the bicycle to the Doctor, he grabbed it with great enthusiasm, and started examining it in detail, as he muttered about gyroscopic stabilizers and inertial dampeners. I backed away from him, thinking, 'That man is quite mad, and I am going to have a difficult time getting my bicycle back from him.' [The truth is, I never saw that bicycle again. I have no idea what he did with it.]

I turned to the young woman on the dais.

"I am Kelly Takahashi, Dirk," Kelly said to me, then turned to the Doctor and yelled. "Doctor! He's soaked to the bone. He needs dry clothes."

"Hmm, oh yeah, that will never do, please take him to room … six," he replied without looking up from my bicycle.

"OK. Well, Dirk, I can call you Dirk, can't I?"

I could only nod my head.

"Good, let's go find room six and get you more comfortable. I gather the rain was pretty heavy outside?" she asked as she waved me up to the dais she was standing on.

"Yes, it was. I haven't seen it rain that much ever."

She yelled over her shoulder at the Doctor, "That's probably a clue as to why we are here and not in sunny Spain."

"Hmm, yes, yes," was all he said.

She rolled her eyes and waved me up the ramp. As I went up the ramp to her, I could see that she was even more beautiful than I had thought. She was my height (190cm), slim and Oriental, or at least part Oriental. She had pretty long, fingered hands that she tapped and swiped on a shiny flat surface on the circular, center machine of the dais.

"Yes, I have never seen a storm like this one. One moment I was dry and the next I was soaked and having difficulty making headway down the street."

"Yeah, that is a bit unnatural. Please don't touch anything on the control station. Follow me," she said while she waved a hand at a complex-looking machine she was standing next to. She turned and headed over to a ramp on the left as I approached. I could not help but look at her bottom as she walked. Her pants hugged her form tightly in a most exciting and obscene way. It took all my will to tear my eyes off her and look around. There was a walkway that ran around the back part of the room, about three meters off the ground floor, which this ramp led to. We turned left on this walkway and followed it past several doors, then paused in front of one.

The door moved so quickly that I could not see which way it went. It was as if there was a door, then a doorway without a door in it. The hallway beyond the door was marble-lined with doors at intervals. Each door we passed was different. The first one on the left was tall with an enormous doorknob in the center. It looked to be made of concrete. The one opposite it was a simple wooden door with a normal knob. The next on the left was a double-wide oak and wrought iron door with viewports that had iron bars in them. The door was only about a meter high. Opposite that was a hallway made out of red and blue bricks. There were doors down those hallways also.

We passed a dozen doors and two more hallways, one on the right and one on the left. Finally, she stopped in front of a blank wall.

"Here it is, number 6," she said and waved her hand. A doorway appeared. I was exactly as startled as you would expect. There is a blank wall before me, and then there is a doorway. Questions were piling up in my head.

"I know this is all very confusing. Your questions will be answered," she said, paused, then continued. "Well, most of them anyway. When you are done. Come back out into the hall here and just think of me or the Doctor, and you will be able to find us. Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but it does work. Trust me."

She gently pushed me through the doorway into the room beyond. I turned around, and the doorway was gone! The wall was a blank white, no seams, no cracks, and definitely no door.