Prompt 2: Alcohol
She’d wandered into some little pub in London, a small affair that reeked of alcohol and drunks who’d gotten a bit more than friendly with each other.
At some point, she’d ordered a banana daiquiri. She can’t quite remember ordering it, or what happened to the drinks that’d been in the other glasses on the counter in front of her. A woman sits near her nursing a whisky. She stares into it like it contains the answer to the great mysteries of the universe.
“Did you know,” the Doctor leans towards the other woman conspiratorially, “I envy you.”
The other woman doesn’t react, so the Doctor continues on. “You have such small lives. Like a string. You have a beginning, and you end in decades.”
“It’s not all that great,” the other woman mutters.
“Did you know,” the Doctor says again, waving her arms expansively, “did you know that the average human lives for sixty-six years? Sixty-six years, and then you’re gone.” She attempts to snap her fingers, an affair that comes out sloppy and best not recounted. “Did you know, if I was a human, I’d’ve had… twenty-four lives by now? Imagine that! Me!” She reaches for her glass to discover it’s empty. “If you believe in re-in-carrr-na-tion.”
“I don’t believe in much of anything,” answers the other woman sullenly.
“No, that’s what makes you humans so fantastic! You look at the world, and you think, see, that something’s got to orche- orche- make it all happen. So you look at the world, with all it’s chaos and confusion, and you give it an order!” The Doctor grins widely at the woman. “Did you know, there’re people who believe that sleeping with their beds on bricks will protect them from Toka- To- evil creatures! It‘s brilliant, that’s what it is!”
“If you say so,” speaks the other woman noncommittally.
“I do!” The Doctor rests her arms on the bar and rests her head on them, staring at the other woman. “With all that brilliance buzzing around the planet, what are you doing here?”
“Just a bit lost, I guess,” the woman answers grudgingly.
“What, clever human like you?” the Doctor asks.
“Yeah. Clever human like me.”
The Doctor observes the woman for a minute. “You ought to have a banana daiquiri. Bananas are good.”
The other woman snorts. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
The Doctor falls silent for a minute. “You’ve got something behind your ear.”
“What?”
She reaches behind the other woman’s ear and comes up with a jelly baby on the third try, getting a small smile. The bartender brings them both banana daiquiris.
Two hours later and they’re both smashed. They can’t count the number of glasses between them.
“Did you know,” the Doctor asks the woman, words slurring wildly, “did you know that if I hadn’t come around here back in, ooh, eighteenth century, this place wouldn’t be here? Hole in the ground, this place’d be.”
The other woman (Mary, the woman had introduced herself after the second daiquiri) finds this wildly hilarious. “A hole in the ground?”
“Exactly! Jelly baby?” the Doctor offers happily. Mary half passes out on the counter. She sighs and arranges Mary into a more comfortable position.
“I really do envy you,” the Doctor tells her, voice suddenly clear and sad. “Live for sixty-six years. A mortgage, a job. Have a drink at the pub. It’s just pretend for me.” She catches the bartender’s attention and pays for the drinks, pulling the right piece from a bag of familiar and alien coins. “Have a good life,” she tells Mary, who’s starting to snore, and she exits the pub.