Dearest Rachel –
Like most Monday nights, you would have been all over the theme at Sparks last night, having to do with dressing like your favorite superhero. Indeed, you had more than a few pieces to the puzzle that you would have put together to play the part of the ‘superhero’ you would have gone as. We had two different umbrellas, one garishly multicolored, and another with a question-mark handle representative of the former wielders’ successor. You also had a couple of sonic screwdrivers (which, unfortunately, didn’t have the range of use their “real” counterpart had, but oh well). I have both a leather and a dark denim jacket that could pass for another incarnation (and at some point, I may even have as little hair as that guy) We even had a brown, Afro-curly wig among our costume pieces, should you prefer an earlier version of the fellow.
Of course, you must know of Who I am speaking; he (and I use ‘he’ because that’s what he was for the majority of your days as a fan) was, after all, your favorite hero. Screw the caped crusaders of either Marvel or DC; imagine what you could do for the world – indeed, the universe – by bouncing around in a “rackety old TARDIS,” as one of his companions described it, being aware of what did, might and would happen by virtue of being able to view any position in space from any point in time. He could set right what once went wrong (to borrow a phrase from another time-travel focused series that you loved), talk monsters to death (although occasionally brute force could be warranted, outsmarting opponents was more his style) and bring dystopias crashing to the ground on a regular basis (although he rarely stuck around to try and pick up the pieces thereafter; that would have made boring television, I suppose). He might not have been completely godlike in his powers – especially since they were as jerry-rigged as any BBC set piece of the time – but he was almost unquestionably on the side of the angels, even if his own people didn’t often agree that he was. What’s not to love, and even idolize, about him?
But since you left, those pieces have slowly been sent to the corners of the known universe. Quite literally, in fact; the multicolored umbrella fell prey to the ravages of time, ironically enough, and had to be disposed of, as it was rusted and motheaten when Jan and I found it. The sonic screwdrivers and other paraphernalia (some of which I received from Doc a few years ago, who’d apparently won it at another convention he’d attended, and thought I might get more use or enjoyment out of them. Now that I think about it, this may have happened back before the accident, and you were happy to take them off his hands, assuring him that we – meaning you – would indeed enjoy and use them to the fullest, as opposed to losing them in the chaos of our basement) were turned over to our niece, who in fairness, still follows the show and was more than happy to take our place at the 2021 convention we signed up for at the end of the one in 2019. Essentially, I’ve let go of the show, since it was always more yours than mine; it’s as much a painful remembrance of time spent that can’t be brought back as anything else.
At the same time, what I keep hearing about the show doesn’t encourage me to keep up with it, either. I honestly don’t know what you would think about the likes of the Critical Drinker (even I find his occasional references to his alleged partner Tatiana to be a little off-putting. Are Eastern European girls the U.K. equivalent to the “girlfriend in Canada” trope we have here in the States?), but you might be able to look past his salty language and agree with him about the last episode we got to watch…
Of course, despite the Drinker’s insistence, this was not the end, but I can’t be bothered to watch any more of it from this point. The Doctor simply isn’t who he was – and we aren’t who we were – so it’s no longer worth my time. If ‘Megumi’ turns out to be a fan like you, that’s another story, but for now, he’s just like all the other heroes throughout the many fictional universes we’ve created…
You might be able to guess that I didn’t bother to dress up last night as a consequence. Well, it wasn’t as deliberate as that, but the fact stands that I wouldn’t have even if I had given the matter more than a moment’s consideration. Those creations of one writer or another, passed down through various hands and molded to fit each author’s own agenda, always prove to be not only less than perfect (again, perfection wouldn’t be interesting enough for viewers), but smaller than life as a whole. These heroes wouldn’t even be able to solve real-life issues, which we tend to think aren’t as grave as the threats posed in their own stories. As a result, they aren’t the role models there held up to be; nor are they worth our taking up their mantle to dress up as, even as a Halloween fancy dress costume.
Which is where I am at the moment; I can ignore the Monday night themes at Sparks, since I’m in the periphery of everyone’s perception. I don’t even want to call attention to myself. But in another three weeks, we’ll have to dress up as somebody, and I can’t imagine who or what would be worth taking on the appearance of. All I find as I look around me are more possibilities that I wouldn’t want to be; you’d think I’d come up with something by process of elimination, but not yet.
All I know is that the heroes we’ve been given simply aren’t.
With that being said, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye out for me, honey; maybe you could plant a suggestion in my mind. And in any event, wish me luck, as I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 