DoctorWhoContest2020 -
Inspiration for this story @TrekkieHood
for the 'Doctor Who One-shot Contest'
It is around the year, 2008 and Doctor Who turns up with no memory of who he is. Jane, the lady at the lake house is expecting her niece, Joy, to a...
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Relaxing on a slowly swinging chair on the deck of her house, Jane looked across the small lake, wondering how it could be so very still now.
Earlier, while collecting eggs from the chicken nests and feeding hay to the horses in the field, she'd heard a splash from the lake as if something much larger than a flock of ducks or swans had landed in the water.
Swirling ripples circled out from the middle of the lake but she could see nothing that could have caused them. After having eaten her light lunch at the breakfast bar in the kitchen on the other side of the house she'd seen the rippling effect continuing for a while...
Taking a pot of tea and a teacup, she settled on the deck, wanting to sip tea before having the luxury of an afternoon nap.
Her niece, Joy, was to arrive today and she hoped it would be before sunset.
Pleased that all was quiet, she lowered her eyelids. Entering a mode of relaxation, she imagined her husband to be out on their land, perhaps fencing, doing farm-work... was it almost two years ago? He might have been away at the part-time job he went to for four hours each weekday. She could imagine him being here, not gone. Oh, how she missed him...
"Oh Max," she lamented. "I don't cope with anything without you... the farm... the house... the lake..."
Five acres of land remained in her control, the rest of the farmlands were leased to a neighbouring farmer.
How nice it was to be able to live here still, where her fondest life memories lay. The farm had been in her family's ownership for over thirty years and she'd grown up here with her parents and her sister who was twelve years older.
A rasping voice broke into her musing... "Help, help me!"
Thrashing around in this narrower section of the lake was a man, dog-paddling in the water just down from the deck of her house, shouting while gasping and coughing...
Jane was there when he reached the bank. Her eyes travelled across this narrow section of the lake as she wondered how he got there —perhaps he had come down the small stream nearby that fed into her lake... but there was no sign of a boat.
Reaching out a hand, she called, "You can stand up here, Sir —but what happened?"
Pushing his feet down to stand, he frowned. Stepping forward to take her hand, he said, "I just arrived..."
"How?" she asked, extending her other hand as he swayed.
She noticed purple swelling at his hair-line.
"I don't know," he said as he took her other hand, righting himself, saying, "I'm off-balance somehow." He leaned forward as she drew him from the water. Snatching his hands from hers and dropping them to the bank, he clutched the long grass, pulling himself up to crawl out of the water. Kneeling up and taking her hands again, he almost pulled her over as he stood up, asking, "Who are you?"
