The Gallery (short story)

 was a Brief Encounter short story published in Doctor Who Magazine 213.

Summary
The Seventh Doctor visits Earth's most famous gallery, now abandoned and in ruins, like the planet itself.

Plot
The Seventh Doctor arrives at an art gallery on a decrepit Earth, and admires its wonders. Once the place was buzzing with activity, hundreds of years ago.

His eye is met by a statue not far away. Approaching it, he sees it's Atlas, holding the world upon his shoulders. It is covered in centuries of dust, but still perfectly formed.

Suddenly, though, Atlas topples off his pedestal, and the Doctor is unable to save the ceramic figure, nor the globe he holds, which falls and shatters into countless pieces on the marble floor. He picks up the two biggest pieces of the globe and hopes it can be restored, but knows he's deluding himself.

Finally abandoning his project, the Doctor looks out the window, and contrasts the sight with the paintings on the gallery's walls. "No birds hung in the skies, no scenic rivers babbled into the sea. Just grey dust whipped into a frenzy by a cold, unforgiving wind. No life. Anywhere."

As he looks out into a world destroyed by man, the Doctor cries, and the sounds of his sobbing echo through the gallery's once silent halls.

Characters

 * Seventh Doctor

Continuity
to be added