The Misadventures of Aldebaran

[Aldebaran]

"Well, thats a very interesting perspective on the elements of smooth jazz, Miss Poplar... but I can't help but wonder if you've ever thought to... you know... broaden your horizons a bit?"
--------------------------------------------------------
Time Lords- a race no one will ever be able to fully comprehend. Their technology, their philosophies, their morals and values, all of them so exceedingly beyond our own, we often bring ourselves to question our ouwn existance. "Who are we to compare to the Time Lords?" humans ask. "Who are we to even conceive ways to compare ourselves to their supiriority, and moreso our overall way of living? War, hate, violence, depleation of our natural recources... all these alien to the divine Time Lord. Do we even DARE to be like them? To learn from them? To try their ways OURSELVES? What would happen, per say, if a human tried to emulate the ways of the Time Lord? What would happen? Could it work?"

The answer: yes. Yes it could. And one man has set out to prove it. His name is Aldebaran, and he's out to save the world.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(catchy theme music)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The young man in the leather trench coat, blue shirt and yellow tie looked puzzingly up at the aging poplar.
"You know..." he began "...I myself am a fan of many different genres of music, and I find myself to be VERY emotonally satisfied. ... No, I've never ACTUALLY seen Miles Davis in concert, but... what's that? .... Well yes, I do suppose he's shown mankind a better perspective on the potential of African-American artists and jazz itself... no I can't say that I have. ...indeed? ...well then."

The young man in the black leather trench coat and the blue shirt and the yellow tie slumped down against the tree's trunk and began to pick away at the grass around him.
"If you insist. All I'm saying is that you'd do well to be a bit more open minded is all..."

He looked up into the sky and concentrated hard on what he was viewing above him. The way the clouds swirled about to make little shapes that looked vaugley like little grey gorilla turds. He closed his eyes, and sighed.
"Well... that's irony for you. I have a TARDIS, and the potential of becoming a human-time lord and here I am chatting away to a deciduous plant."
He jerked his head toward the trunk of the tree. "No offence."
The tree's branches fluttered in the breeze as if to reply. He nodded, then sank down lower into a more comfortable position. He closed his eyes and let his head rest on a root sticking upwards out of the ground. It wasn't the most comfortable of head-resting mechanisims, but it was indeed there to be used for something. It may have as well been a head-rest. The sounds of the breeze rolling over the landscape and the leaves rustling away acted as a lulaby and soon, the man with the black trench coat, the blue shirt and the yellow tie was fast asleep under the poplar tree he had, untill very recently, been involved in a deep converation with.

[Aldebaran]

"Aldebaran..."

The groggy human slowly opened one eye to see who it was that was calling out to him.

"Aldebaran... wake up you stupid boy!"

"That voice..." he croaked, "I know I've heard it somewhere before..."

"Aldebaran! Are you quite finished dreaming about flying tuna fishes and ready to wake up and listen to what I have to say?"

"Well that depends... what DO you have to say and how long will it take you to say it?" Aldebaran sat up and rubbed his neck. "... and IS whatever you have to say, in fact, just as or more interesting than flying tuna fishes?"

"If you choose to interpret it that way, yes."

"Who are you anyway? I can't... I can't see you."

"Step into the light, Aldebaran, and you shall see me in my true form."

"True form... hang on? Are you God?"

"I might be... if you choose to interpret it that way."

"What does that mean? Either you're God or you're not. Stop messing with my head! It's too early for that sort of jazz."

"Aldebaran..."

"What?"

"...it's nearly two in the afternoon."

Aldebaran's eyes shot wide open.
"Is it?!" He jumped up and ran for his TARDIS. "Well bugger you then, I have a hair appointment I'm late for!"
At that moment, a hand reached out and touched his shoulder. Aldebaran spun around to find himself face to face with...

"Tom Baker?!" he cried. "Oh come on now, that's not really you, is it? I thought you died a long long time ago in some flat." Aldebaran's eyes locked on to his. "I hear it was q quite painful and tragic death, actually."

Tom narrowed his eyes at him. "It was."

"Oh, well... I'm sorry to hear it." He offered Tom a partialy melted chocolate bar from his pocket, but he politely declined.

"Aldebaran, there are things we need to discuss."

[Aldebaran]

"Oh really now? What sort of things?" Aldebaran asked as he licked the melted chocolate off his fingers.

"It's concerning matters of your own safety, Aldebaran."

"My own safety?"

"Yes."

Aldebaran looked up into the clouds again and smiled. "Have you ever noticed Tom, how much the clouds can sometimes take on the appearance of little grey gorilla turds?"

Tom ran his fingers through his curly hair. "I need you to focus, Aldebaran. It's very important. For reasons that I cannot nor am I willing to explain to you... I must ask you to please... please stop emulating the time lords."

Aldebaran's neck jerked down from the clouds and he stared Tom in the eyes. "Stop emulating the time lords?" He raised an eyebrow. "Will you explain to me why?"

"Very well..." *Tom nodded and Aldebaran took a seat on the very root that he had until very recently used as a headrest. Tom sat beside him. He cleared his throat and began.
"The time lords... hate it when people emulate them. I used to do it carelessly myself for quite a long number of years. But as soon as the time lords found out what I was doing, they tracked me down and tragically murdered me in my flat. It was the most painful and strenuous sort of death."

"Oh dear... I'm very sorry to hear that."

"Yes... it was very unpleasant needless to say, but I survived. It was difficult and took quite a bit of apricot juice, but I survived."

Aldebaran smiled and gave Tom a hearty pat on the back. "Well good for you, Mr. Baker." he said. "That's not an easy thing to accomplish, you know, surviving death!"

"I'm surprised I managed it myself actually."

"They threw you a big party down at the office, I imagine?"

"Oh yes. It was wonderful!" Tom smiled fondly. "We had an ice-sculptured goose and eleven different flavors of crisps."

"Well that's just grand." Aldebaran stood up. "Listen, I'm sorry to leave you so soon, Mr. Baker, but I do have a rather important hair appointment that I really must be-"

Tom grabbed his sleeve and yanked him back onto the root. "I'm not through with you yet!" His fond smile turned to a burning look of concern.

"Aren't you?" Aldebaran frowned. "Well then, I suppose I have no choice but to call the stylist and reschedule. " He whipped out a blue cell phone and began to dial. Tom stared at him in absolute horror.

"You musn't do that!" he cried.

"Whyever not? I have unlimited calls after two in the afternoon."

Tom whispered through his clenched teeth. "The time lords have tapped all your phone lines. If you make a call, any call, they'll hunt you down and murder you the way they did me."

Aldebaran looked at him for a moment, but then smiled and told him in a reassuring voice, "Oh, don't worry, Mr. Baker," He held up his phone. "It's an iphone."

Tom relaxed a bit. "Oh, well alright then. In that case go ahead and make your call. I'll wait."

Aldebaran did so, and not only did he reschedule with his stylist successfully, but he also saved quite a bit of money because he did not get his hair cut on a weekend as originally planned, therefore the getting-your-hair-cut-on-the-weekend tax was dropped. In addition to this good fortune, he was totally unaware that his horoscope in the paper that morning had in fact read:

["Today you will reschedule your hair appointment after being warned about your impending death by an oddly-dressed actor from Liverpool."

Aldebaran was totally blind to this fact not because he didn't have an appreciation for the flawed methods of astrology, but because he didn't subscribe to that particular paper. If Aldebaran had in fact subscribed to that particular paper, we'd probably understand far more about our realities than we do now.

[Aldebaran]

Aldebaran closed his phone and stuffed it back into his pocket. "Well..." he said, leaning against the poplar. "What do I do now then? Just... you know... stop imitating the time lords?"

Tom stood a moment in thought, then he suddenly turned to Aldebaran with a wide grin. "Yep. That's it."

Frowning, Aldebaran began to walk towards his TARDIS. "I dunno... I really like pretending to be a time lord. I think I'm going to just keep doing what I do." He opened the door to the TARDIS and turned towards Tom. "But thanks for your input."

Tom's eyes grew even wider and even buggier. "You stupid boy! They'll MURDER YOU!" His mouth hung open and his hair appeared to frizz out even more than it usually did.

"Look, it's either you give me a third and better option... or you just wasted 4 minutes of your life, because I'm having fun with this, and if the time lords hate people emulating them so much, why don't they just tell me themselves? How do I know this isn't something you just made up?"

Tom glared at Aldebaran. "Because I can do this..." He then lifted his left hand and made a v-shape by splitting his middle and ring fingers. "...and you can't."

Aldebaran raised and eyebrow and tried to mimic Tom's action, but failed miserably. "Piss..."

"But..." began Tom, peering up into the clouds, "you DO have a third option, if you so choose to use it."

The confused human's eyes lit up. "I do?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid it's so near to impossible that I myself wouldn't even consider it an option, really. Just a different way to die."

"I don't care. What is it?" Aldebaran closed the door to the TARDIS and eyed Tom.

"Well..." began Tom, who was half-chuckling, "...you could always try to wipe out the Time Lords before they did such to you."

Aldebaran pondered the notion for a moment.

Tom, soon realizing that Aldebaran didn't detect the sarcasm in his statement at all, spoke up quickly. "Aldebaran... I was joking."

But it was too late, Aldebaran was inside his TARDIS and flipping switches and pressing buttons. Tom let out a yelp and made a mad dash for the TARDIS. He swung the door open and threw himself inside just as the TARDIS began to de-materialize.

"ARE YOU BARKING MAD?!" he cried. "You can't take out an entire race of Time Lords! It's not worth it."

"Yes it is. There wouldn't be much of a plotline to this fanfic if I said yes to you back there, now would there?"

"But... they're Time Lords, Aldebaran!"

"I know." said Aldebaran. "But I have three things that the Time Lords do not."

"Which are...?"

Aldebaran flipped one last switch on the console and said "One, I have the physical form of a human. Two, I have an iphone, and three..." Aldebaran smiled and looked at Tom who was sprawled on the floor out of breath. "...I have you as my companion."

Tom's eyes widened again. "What! No you don't!"

Aldebaran grinned at him. "Yes I do. We're in the vortex now, and you just locked yourself inside my TARDIS."

Tom looked at the door, and then back at Aldebaran. His face exploded with rage. "You.. you... you...."

Aldebaran smiled and tossed a small sack at his head. "Jelly baby?"