The Time Lord sat cross-legged in the soft green grass, his black velvet jacket neatly folded and resting beside him.

For many minutes he sat there, staring down at the individual blades of grass, listening to the thought-streams rush back and forth in his mind-- not quite a torrent of confusion, but hardly a picture of solemn tranquillity, either.

While he was not actively trying to meditate, the Time Lord did notice that the longer he just *sat*, not actively pondering anything, the more his chaotic thoughts tended to thin and fade, subsiding into the murky depths of his subconscious. Still, there was considerable "chatter" lingering in his consciousness.

It was a somewhat irritating sensation. He had come to the holy place to relax, sort things out, and clear his mind; but the Time Lord also held the somewhat unrealistic expectation that perhaps his perceptions would sharpen as well. Years spent among psi-active races and even "simple" spiritualists like the Miko had convinced him that his instincts when it came to the paranormal were as dull as a brick. In a chaotic universe full of myriad powers and Olden forces, that was a definite liability.

He knew the Miko practiced a form of meditation known as the Kuji-in, but that was a complex set of meditative disciplines that did not mesh well with his hyperactive mentality. Even had he wanted to learn it, the practices involved were considered a sacred part of initiated Shinto tradition, and thus its dissemination was forbidden to outsiders.

Sighing, the Time Lord pulled a small napkin from a pocket in his brown waistcoat, unfolding it slowly. Inside were some crusts of bread from his morning meal in the TARDIS. Absently, he tossed them onto the grass and watched as one of the two black avian-creatures that always seemed to be circling overhead swooped down and began to feed upon them.

As he watched the bird's head rapidly bob up and down as it snatched up the bread, light bouncing off the bead-like black half-orbs it possessed for eyes, the Time Lord allowed a small smile to play across his lips. The creature would eat for a few seconds, pause and scan its surroundings, then resume feeding. It did not even seem particularly alarmed by the Time Lord shifting position to alleviate a growing cramp in his left leg. It must be very used to humans, he reasoned.

"Do you know you have no visible sclera or iris?" he asked the bird jokingly.

The bird raised its head and stopped eating, staring at the Time Lord.

"Hmm?" the Time Lord asked curiously, wondering for a shocked moment if the creature had _understood_ his joke, before realizing (due both to the angle of the animal's head and the shadow which had come over both him and the bird) that the creature was in fact looking *behind* him.

"You shouldn't feed them," the Miko said sternly as the bird took flight and landed on her shoulder, whilst its companion narrowed the circumference of its gyrations, as if observing the conversation taking place below. "It makes them dependent on food from people, and sometimes people can feed them things that are... not good for them. "

The last four words she spoke were harder-edged, as if carefully chosen to avoid-- yet simultaneously provoke-- further inquiry. The Time Lord knew such words well, having had to use them himself at various times. But what--?

For a brief instant, the Miko's eyes betrayed her, as she glanced down at the crumbs quickly, then back at some point in the middle distance. That, along with the simultaneous, slight tensing of her hands told the Time Lord all he needed to know.

"Was it poison?" he asked quietly.

The Miko simply nodded curtly, her expression still neutral.

"For what purpose?" The Time Lord asked a bit testily as he saw the other bird descend, taking its share of the crumbs which remained on the grass. He felt the overwhelming urge to shoo the bird away from the food for some reason, but knew it was irrational.

"Fear," the Miko replied, squatting down to get a closer look at the black bird as it ate. "Hate. Why else?"

"You know," the Time Lord said slowly, also watching the bird, "sometimes think I prefer simpler animals like these to us 'Higher' Life Forms."

The Miko did not reply.

"Animals are intrinsically honest creatures, even at the height of their savagery. They fight because they must. They kill because they must. They stake out territory, feed, breed, and die. 'Civilised' animals like Man do much the same, only, freed from the cycle of base instinct as they are, they also do things like kill for sport, rape, maim and torture."

"So you value animals over people," the Miko mused, tentatively reaching out to touch the feeding bird.

"No," The Time Lord replied, sighing, "but I think that I respect animals a bit more."

He coughed. "With them, what you see is what you get," he said quietly as the bird looked up at the Miko's hand. "Predators act like predators. Humans, on the other hand, dissemble and plot, cloaked not in underbrush or shadow, but in hypocrisy and lies."

"That is how Man survives among his own kind," the Miko replied. "It is his nature."

The Time Lord frowned, pondering that notion. "So if the law of the jungle is speed and stealth, the law of Civilisation is persuasion and propaganda, be it on a personal level-- 'selling yourself'-- or on a broader social level-- 'make me your leader and I'll improve your lot'. Each insincerity, each platitude helps bring individuals to the 'head of their pack', so to speak. In each sphere, one could argue the tactics are apt and fitting. But humans also have a bad habit of crossing the line-- trampling on those most unable to defend themselves, and almost relishing it. It makes me ill at times."

He paused as the bird took flight seconds before the Miko could touch it.

"Bah," the Time Lord muttered, leaning back and lying in the grass. "Did I come here to regurgitate the poisons of Mankind or to try and get away from them?"

"Man-- or Time Lord-- cannot run from himself," the Miko replied, turning away. "You are always with yourself."

"No matter where you go, there you are," The Time Lord muttered in concurrence, closing his eyes and yawning. "That's what I'm most afraid of."

###

He sat on a large rock, feet sunk in the green grass, waiting for her to ask the question that burned her mind.

"Why have you come here?" the miko finally asked coolly, not even bothering to look the Time Lord for a response, instead ostensibly focusing her attention upon raking the myriad leaves which had coated the jinja grounds the night before.

"Well--" the Time Lord replied slowly, his attention drawn to glistening sparkles of exploding water droplets cast off by a koi leaping for an instant out of its watery habitat. The fish gasped, surrounded for a moment by the light of the sun and unfamiliar cool air. "--there are centuries of cruft and nonsense stuffing this old brain, you know," he explained, tapping the side of his head absently, still staring at the pond as the fish plunged back into the aqueous depths from whence it had emerged.

"Comedy, Tragedy, Love, Hate, Confusion, Anger, Joy, Science, Mysticism, Philosophy and Heresy. I need to sort it all out, discard the rubbish and put things back into a proper perspective before I face the Universe again."

The miko said nothing for a time, continuing to rake, the pull of the tool's wooden slats against the dewy morning leaves the only sounds shattering the still silence. Finally, eyes still focused on the ground she was clearing, she spoke. Another question, yet the same question.

"Why have you come here?" The shift in emphasis was subtle, but did not go unnoticed. "You are a man of science and technology, machines and metal. Things incompatible with this place." She allowed her eyes to rise up for a moment, gazing at the exterior walls of the Shinto shrine's sacred inner courtyard. As she returned her gaze to the ground, the Time Lord recalled his inability to bring even the smallest portion of his TARDIS' computer onto the shrine proper. The priests at this ancient, rural shrine were especially adamant that not even the slightest taint be allowed onto the hallowed grounds. It made him extremely nervous to be away from his only means of communication with the outside universe. In a way, though, this is what he had hoped for.

"I seek the solace of solitude; the tranquillity of natural surroundings."

"This is not a park," the miko said somewhat sharply. "This place is sacred".

"I am well aware of that, young lady," the Time Lord answered almost as sharply. "You will note that I left my equipment beyond the Torii, and cleansed my hands and mouth as required."

"More out of ritual than respect. You act as if you are touring a botanical garden instead of visiting a shrine," the miko said, surprisingly bluntly, taking a tone the Time Lord gathered was only used with those already known and familiar-- very out of character for a reserved shrine maiden.

"Oh believe me, I have respect," the Time Lord said, sensing he might have overstayed his already tense "welcome", and thus deciding that a little bluntness of his own would make a fitting denouement to an otherwise less than relaxing visit. "respect for the kami, or Gods, or Universal Creation Forces, whatever you may call them--"

He paused, looking out at the shrine's ancient offering hall, its brown-black roof coated with a glistening patina of morning condensation. "--just not for the rituals that surround them," he finished somewhat roughly, standing up and smoothing out his velvet jacket, bowing and preparing to leave. But he turned again, stopped short by a simple monosyllabic interrogatory.

"Why?"

A simple question, asked simply, with no hint of ire or disdain. The miko had stopped raking for a moment, and was looking the Time Lord in the eye, clearly expecting-- nay, demanding a reply.

Head bowed slightly, the Time Lord sighed and looked at the ground under his feet. "Over the centuries I have seen massacres and mayhem, death and destruction, devastation and pain more horrific than you can possibly imagine, all in the name of one creed or another. Crusades, Holy wars, inter-factional violence, ethnic cleansing, the orthodox versus unorthodox, religious versus secular-- bombings, hangings, stonings, stabbings--"

There was a hard, bitter edge to the Time Lord's voice now, his fists balled up and shaking. "--all because some humans decided their particular way of doing things was superior to everyone else's. And then another group decided the same thing. Mutually exclusive doctrines of moral superiority, leading to mutually destructive conflicts that succeed in doing nothing but harming the innocent and polarizing the populace-- and ironically, all in the name of the same thing. And it's all because one group decides 'well, I'm going to believe in this version of history, or that' or 'I'm not going to follow this ritual, but I will follow this one, and so shall everyone else'-- it's so... so... *arbitrary* and... to be blunt, *stupid*! I mean how provincial can they be? This planet is so small, and it's problems so many--"

The Time Lord paused and took a deep breath. "--at any rate, *that* is why, while I have a definite belief that there is *something* behind the Universe, I absolutely refuse to commit myself to any form of ceremony or ritual any further than is required to show respect to my hosts and whatever force there is behind all this, even if it's just chaotically organized self-similar patterns of entropic order. I will not be formally bound by centuries of orthodoxy and convention merely because someone else says it's a Good Idea." Mentally, the Time Lord chuckled, even as he said those words. Gallifreyan society was nothing but centuries of orthodoxy and convention. Perhaps that was why he tended to keep a good deal of distance away from it this days.

The miko pointed to the ground she had been raking, revealing a path to the shrine. "Religion and ritual, at its core," she said slowly, "is about a path to something that people want to reach, whoever, or whatever that might be. They give it different names-- 'God', 'Kami' and so on, but in essence they use it as a conduit from the mundane to the mystical."

The Time Lord sat back down on his rock and listened.

"Over the years, in different places, due to varying needs and societies, people created different paths to get to what you see as the same goal-- some, who were satisfied with things as they were, decided they wanted no path--"

The Time Lord enjoyed the Zen-like irony of the notion "no-path is path"

"--and still others forged their own path, as others chose to follow them on their journey."

"Yes, I understand that," the Time Lord said tiredly, resisting the urge to skip a small stone across the Koi pond. (Although with his luck he'd end up hitting the fish, knocking it out and causing it to drown). "But what raises my ire is not the question of Belief, it's the question of killing or suppressing or marginalizing others in pursuit of the ascension of that Belief above all others."

"That is not the work or purpose of Religion, it is the work and purpose of Man," the miko said, sighing. "Man always tries to force other men into his path. In politics, demagogues shape the people into herds, following this 'platform' or that. Scientists shun those who stray outside the bounds of accepted orthodoxy, censuring them for daring to question the established order--"

"And they said plate tectonics was a fallacy," the Time Lord muttered to himself as he felt a slight subsurface tremor propagate from somewhere under the volcanic island.

"--look at the violence surrounding *sports teams*," the miko said with an air of exasperation. "Give people a reason, *any* reason to impose their will on others and they will. Religion just happens to be another convenient pretext for those who miss the point entirely."

"I've noted that humans are awfully good at that," the Time Lord said, a bit more relaxed. He gazed at some large black birds flying overhead and wondered if they were carrion-eaters.

"Stay, if you wish," the miko said, resuming her raking. "Clear your thoughts. But be mindful, while treading your own path, that you do not block the paths of others merely trying to find their way down the road."

"I am only Iconoclast unto myself, and even then only half the time," the Time Lord said with amusement, closing his eyes and feeling the heat of the early morning sun warm his chilly bones. Soon, he would have to be on the move again. But for a moment, here at this time and place, he could be still and rest.

"By the way," the Time Lord said slowly, eyes still closed, "you became rather conversational all of a sudden. Why is that? I would have assumed you'd be far more reserved to a strange wanderer who claims to move about the 'Fourth Dimension'."

"Because," the miko replied with something of a smile, "you will have been here before." She chuckled and vanished into the interior of the shrine, where Time Lords and questions of temporal translocality dare not enter.

###

"Seriously, am I the only one who is wondering who the Hell is in charge at that project? Kool-Aid Man? This move makes so little sense I can't tell if the people at GNU-Darwin are really that stupid, or if I am waking up in alternate realities every damn morning."

I have this feeling constantly-- about the Universe.

###

On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence.

Indeed.

###

"The matter of why Doctor Xadium's Time Capsule is fixed in the curious shape of a 'beverage vending machine' from late 20th-century Earth [Humanian Era 607934] is a subject never broached in polite conversation. Ever. Whilst some have scurrilously posited that Xadium cannot properly effect the repair of a simple Type 60 Chamelionic circuit, it is generally accepted that these disgraceful innuendo are slanderous and utterly unfounded."

- Lord Sendrilmetavanskastaron, "The Gallifreyan Renegades", thirty-eleventh ed.

D O C T O R
X A D I U M

"Doctor Xadium was an errant Time Lord whose overactive sense of humour at High Council meetings earned him a more or less permanent holiday from Gallifrey.

Stuck on Earth trying to cobble together a new TARDIS-- but equipped with nothing more than the technological equivalent of bear-skins and stone knives (as well as some metal tape)-- he decided to use his time to follow the myriad trends in Terran society, studying their crude, primitive laws and laughable attempts to improve themselves scientifically.

Aproximately 26 Earth-years into his exile, in order to offset his growing frustration with the 'self-involved, short-sighted, bombastic ape-monkeys with delusions of grandeur"', he took to irregularly recording his more sardonic-- or dare we say even cynical-- views on the ever-progressing devolution of 21st century human civilization (not to mention his own petty irritations) in his 900-year diary, excerpts of which we have extracted from the data core of his notoriously insecure Terran 'computing device' (which in terms of function is slightly less advanced then a Gallifreyan child's first number line).

It is almost refreshing to note the ceaseless amazement he displays at the Terran propensity to supress any information, be it political, archaeological or scientific, that gets in the way of their pedestrian, self-absorbed world-view. It is for this reason that historians have labeled Doctor Xadium 'The Discoverer of Obvious Truth'
- Lord Sendrilmetavanskastaron, "The Gallifreyan Renegades", thirty-eleventh ed., WHO IS GOING TO GET SUED ONCE I GET BACK TO GALLIFREY BECAUSE HE DOESN'T REALIZE MY SUB-ETHER NET CONNECTION STILL WORKS AND I CAN SEE THE ABSOLUTE RUBBISH HE'S SPEWING FORTH OVER THERE AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE GALAXY

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