Written and posted on Tuesday 19 December 20000.


Act In Haste.

A five minute fiction.

By Clive May

Dr Who is copyright BBC.

No need to archive.


On the screen, the towers are falling.  Among the Godlike arrogance,
innocence dies a-screaming,  amid the flaming armageddon that he has
engendered.

Surely that is regret in those blue eyes, Tegan thinks as she hefts the coat
rack.  She stands ready watching the Doctor, who looks on the thing he has
 made with a butter knife, two slices of bread and a slice of cold roast
beef.  Not one of his better improvisations, he thinks
impassively.

"If he says it," Tegan offers to a distraught Nyssa, "I swear if he says it,
I'll hit him!  I will!"

"There should have been another..." the Doctor begins.

"Aieeeeee" Tegan screams.

KERRACCCKKK!!!!

The Doctor blinks at the unappetising beef sandwich as it flips from his lax
fingers to the floor.  "...Some mustard in the kitchen," he finishes in a
somewhat bemused tone.  He reaches a hand up to inspect the crushed hat,
askew on his head; and then, falls flat on his face.

On the screen the salvation of the universe plays out in the cataclysmic
disaster he has made - but does not regret.

But Tegan regrets.  Oh boy!   How she regrets now.

Many things, Tegan regrets - but just at the moment, the regret uppermost
is the regret of a deed done in haste.

The end