POLLUX • Doctor Who

Chapter Four, a better place.

Chapter 4, a better place.

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The following morning was brought upon us with a feeling of defeat and gloom, resting in the air like a heavy blanket holding a sick child down. He had been crying in bed all morning, at least according to the Doctor who was the only one out of us who had made an approach to the melancholic man.

Aggressive and sad, Vincent had declined the plan of going to the church. And maybe it was the feeling of knowing we could be letting a dangerous creature roam freely, or maybe the fact that a man that great was feeling so low, but the thick left us greedy and heavy on our breaths.

"Months from now, he'll take his own life.." the realisation hit all three of us. We were stuck in the magical moment of knowing Vincent Van Gogh, being in his present, so stuck that we had forgotten the sorrows that weighed him down. And what was to come.

We, Amy and I, followed the doctor into the house again. It was as if he had planned to take it upon himself to paint the creature and the church. But to our surprise, Vincent approached us with a big smile on his face, and a braided straw hat on his head.

"Are you ready? Let's go."

We soon found ourselves walking down the road to the church. Vincent was carrying the setup and some paint, while I had insisted on helping with carrying at least the brushes. He had refused at first, seeing as he thought it was rude to make a lady carry something he could do perfectly fine by himself, but nagging him for long enough did the trick.

"I never caught your name," Vincent interrupted me from my deep thoughts.

"You never asked."

"So here I ask, what's your name?" If he only knew what a tricky question that was. I looked down for a moment, then back at the man walking beside me with a soft smile.

"It's Ophelia. It means Opheliadus, the name of the brightest star in the galaxy."

"I don't think I've ever heard of that star.. is it a Dutch name?"

"No, it's simply not visible to most people's eyes. Stars are a very peculiar thing where I'm from. Holy, almost. Think of it as a holy grail, splattered across the universe like paint on a canvas." My ways of explaining the name I was given seemed to not only be of Vincent's interest, but also my two travelling companions. Listening to every word I was telling them, intrigued by the culture I knew of. "At midnight, you must sit outside and look at the sky. If you are open to the beautiful matter of Opheliadus, you will see it."

Vincent looked at me carefully, studying my eyes. "Is that why your eyes glitter like a starry night?"

"No that's becau-" I begun, only to be interrupted by the Doctor.

"Fine weather, don't you think?" He spoke in a rush, eyeing me sternly yet carefully. I wasn't supposed to tell Vincent the things he'd never be able to comprehend. He'd go mad. But I wanted to, and maybe that was selfish. But oh how I wanted to tell someone about the wonders of my home, about how the stars lit up the night sky and the clouds turned a soft and dark pink. How the warm morning air would flood through our lungs, how the grass in the large fields felt against your skin when your bare feet walked upon them. It was a memory so faint, yet I knew exactly what it was. It was home. And my home was no more.

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The cold air embraced my fragile figure as we stood by the bewildered painter, the old church in front of us. The wind would push my hair back ever so slightly, letting it brush against my cheek softly.