I don’t think I’ll ever land.
“The most important leaf
in human history. It’s full of stories, full of history.”In The Rings of Akhaten, Clara defeated the Old God with nothing but a leaf. It’s a symbol of her mother’s history, Clara’s own origin story, and everything that could have been. When the Doctor calls her off the stage of her own death, of course she would refuse to let her past be taken from her. It’s precious. Even a life cut short retains the power of a myth, the beauty of a fairytale, the whispers of lost possibilities coming together until they are louder than everything which came before.
“Full of a future that
never got lived. Days that should have been that never were.”But Clara steals her days which never were. She does not change her fate, she expands it. A bigger-on-the-inside life, eternity within a singe moment. With her own TARDIS and her own immortal companion, this is more than a goodbye. This is a beginning.
The image of her history on the Doctor’s TARDIS falls to pieces, like the leaf did, like she herself did in the Doctor’s time stream. Dissolving into infinite possibilities. Scattering her stories in time of space. Through the universe, through future, past, and present. Even when she lands one day, grasping her past in her hand until it transforms into her future again and guides her towards her end, those stories never will.
“There are billions and millions of unlived days for every day
we live.”Clara’s adventures will not last forever, like adventures do. We all face the Raven in the end, after all. But until then, there’s room for every untold story, pressed between two heartbeats, every tale that ever was and ever will be. The final word on the pages of Clara Oswald’s life is still waiting for her. But until then…
“An infinity.”