#4 – Can the "Doctor Who" Get into Mary Poppins' Womb?

Do you believe in aliens? Den did. In fact, he often felt like one himself—an outsider who had somehow stolen a TARDIS, the time-traveling machine disguised as an English phone booth. Now, he was living a life of endless episodes, dying at the end of each season only to be reborn as a new version of himself—just like the Doctor in the iconic BBC series. And, like the Doctor, he always found a woman from Earth to join him on his journey—only to part ways after visiting distant galaxies.

Den didn’t have a phone booth to travel through space and time, but he did have a jacuzzi—nestled within half-transparent walls—and it served him just fine for such perilous journeys. Like the TARDIS, Den’s bathtub was deceptively small on the outside but vast within. It was connected to a labyrinth of underground pipes stretching thousands of miles, delivering him water from the Moscow River. These pipes carried warmth from heat stations, channeling the ancient energy of long-dead ferns—turned to coal and reborn in fire—just to keep him warm.

He turned on the water, and it began to fill the time machine. Steam rose gently, just like the breath that had curled from his lips earlier that day as he walked home. He knew that within two months, every human would transform completely into vapor—because of this small, persistent leak seeping into the atmosphere. As people turned into clouds, they fell back to the earth as rain and flowing into the streams that fed the Moscow River.

Den reclined half-submerged in the jacuzzi, the rising water embracing him like the collective touch of millions. It teased and kissed his naked, sun-kissed, sinewy body, wrapping him in the warmth of a world dissolving. The fine hairs on his legs and arms swayed in a trance-like rhythm, surrounded by water molecules that had only recently flowed from someone’s heart—before choosing, like the Doctor, to escape into the vastness of space.

Three years ago, he was getting ready to celebrate New Year's Eve with his girlfriend, Mary. He had agreed that Sophie would stay with her mother, so the plan was for him and Mary to spend the evening romantically.

On December 31st, when he dropped off gifts for his children, he discovered that his ex-wife intended to leave Sophie with her grandfather while she went off to celebrate with strangers. He hadn’t envisioned ringing in the New Year as a trio. But when he saw that Sophie would be abandoned like an afterthought, he made a decision. He took her with him—and unknowingly, put an end to something else. Mary left that night, returning two days later. Their love didn’t break in that moment, but it shifted in a way that could never fully return to what it had been.

The only way to kill the Doctor—and end his samsaric cycle of suffering—was to strike during the reburning state, when his entire body radiated with the same divine glow Christ bore upon rising from the tomb near Golgotha. Den was exhausted by these endless rebirths, each time entangled with a new woman. More than anything, he longed to become mortal at last.

After Mary left him for the last and final time, the next turn of the samsaric wheel bound him to three women: Diana, a black-haired goddess with the fire of ancient Greece in her eyes; Mia, a descendant of the Mongol invaders, fierce and untamed; and Sara, a voice that echoed like a bell within his mind. Each of them had a son, all around the same age as his daughter. But only one woman could accompany the Doctor on his voyage through space and time—and no one knew if the TARDIS could hold four souls.

Den’s jacuzzi filled to the brim. He turned off the water, and silence wrapped around his head just as the warm water embraced his body.

Den felt most comfortable in the bathroom. Maybe it was because it echoed the womb—a quiet, enclosed space, sealed off from the noise and demands of the world. Who knows?

What we do know is that such spaces don’t prepare children for the harshness of life outside that watery refuge, where parents are buried in work and children are handed off to a nanny—like modern-day Mary Poppins. And for the rest of their lives, people keep trying to return to that cozy, fluid warmth, always in vain. But no matter how kind or magical she is, Mary can’t take them back into her womb. She is not their mom.

Den often associated his girlfriend with Mary Poppins—perhaps because she shared the same name and was initially incredibly supportive of Sophie. Maybe it was also because they shared Mary’s umbrella to shelter from the rain when they first met. Curiously, the last film they watched together was Mary Poppins Returns.

In a cinematic universe Mary and the Doctor were meant to marry. Emily Blunt and David Tennant — the 10th Doctor — were originally cast as the leads in Cheerful Weather for the Wedding. However, the film was ultimately shot with different actors. In a strangely poetic parallel, Den’s own proposal to his Mary was turned down — and so, the Doctor returned to his TARDIS while Mary floated away with her flying umbrella.

I lost you, Mary. Lost at night,
In Moscow’s haze, in traffic’s bite,
On New Year’s Eve, at paper bright,
Or in the Hot Wheels shiny light.

The years passed like drifting sand.
I searched for you in neon lights,
In printed words and billboard sights.
Yet only echoes brushed my hand.

Appear! Come dancing through the air,
Like sparkling tunes that subways play,
A passing song that gilds my day,
A glint of joy beyond compare.

Let me just see you, from afar,
A fleeting glimpse upon the news,
A push alert that whispers clues,
Or in a cat that eats the stars.

I close my eyes and bring you back,
Through childhood see you reappear.
Yet being God is what I fear,
Just walk with me, not fade to black.

For now, not you—the cross awaits,
Yet all I crave are sips of life,
And every night, at moonlight's rife,
Your silhouette with brolly fades.

Fly back once more to see me through,
Let Magdalene not call my name,
Their voices fade, yours burns the same,
Strike as I glow—the Doctor Who.