h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...said "Oh, I don't know. What does anybody want? Sure, they claim they want world peace or somesuch, but isn't it intrinsic in man's nature to be selfish. Indeed, selfishness seems ingrained into the blood from birth. Yet they also strive for simplicity. To quote Kafka-" He was interrupted by the phrase "Stop. Just stop. That's not what she meant" coming from the general direction of Merlin, who was holding his head with a pained look on his face. The man was about to reply to this when he caught the look in the eyes of the other Amish.

The lead amish man (from now on known as Joseph) scolded the other man who had been talking (from now on known as Jacob). Joseph said: "Now now Jacob, how many times must I tell you not to think so far beyond the barn? (anyone says 42 and I start shooting) That is the type of thing the English do."
The barn door closed and our heroes couldn't see anything until they were blinded by a lantern.

Then a 40-foot tall robot demolished the barn for no particular reason*, allowing our heroes to escape the Amish.



*This later resulted in the pilot's expulsion from The Cloying Grasp of Evil (identify where this is from and win a tilde) Local #403, whose bylaws clearly stated that the only thing allowed to be destroyed for no particular reason was Tokyo.

(WHERE THE HECK HAS EVERYONE BEEN!!! I MEAN 4 DAYS WITHOUT ANY ADDITIONS TO ANYTHING. I EVEN STARTED RANTING IN H2G2 AND THEN WHEN I NOTICED THAT A LOT OF MY USUAL FORUMS WHERE WITHOUT CONVERSATION DURING THE WEEK. I PRONOUNCED H2G2.COM DEAD AS OF 2:08 EARLIER TODAY. SO BACK IN THE DIRT, ALL DEATH CERTIFICATES ARE NON-TRANSFERABLE AND CANNOT BE RETURNED OR EDITED AFTER THE STAMP HAS BEEN PLACE!)

Our heroes started running but soon they realized they were lost in the middle of a huge corn field with stalks that were atleast 7 feet high. To help out death quietly floated higher above the cornfield to look around which prompted this researcher to say "Well wouldn't that have been useful all those other times they needed to escape from a rabbit hole or something?"

(Fine. Now that I'm dead, I can cause havoc wherever I want without being tried. Thank you so much. Actually, I've litterally 'gone to Disney World' which is why I've not been here)

Death muttered something incoherent. He did, however, notice the the Amish Mafia (BTW, what have you people been thinking while I was gone anyway?) was between them and . . . wherever they've been trying to get to for the last . . . okay, someone refresh Death's memory. Please.

A small voice whispered in death's ear that they were all trying to get back to that town in Belgium which they were about to enter when the Amish Mafia kidnapped them and took them two miles down the road.
Arthur tugged at Deaths cape/cowl thingy to get his attention but pulled too hard and the whole thing slipped off. For the first second Death tried to cover himself up before remembering that he didn't have a body to be embarrassed about. Lucy walked up to both of them and screamed as she saw a hideous floating thing made of Goldfish crackers!! It turned out to be what death packed around himself to keep the Cloak he usually wore in a semi-human shape.

+++Plot Error 10258+++
[Abort] [Retry] [Fail]

[R]

. . . which turned out to be elephant-down pillows, which Death used to keep his body in shape.

Suddenly, Arthur had an idea. "Death! Why don't you use that little 'special ability' of yours to take care of the Amish Mafia!"

Death stared back, incoherently.

"You know. You're the 'Grim Reaper'."

Death looked confused. Arthur pointed at Death's scythe, and then at the Mafia. Death stared back, bewildered.

"YOU'RE ONE OF THE FOUR HORSEMEN! DEATH! WELL? THINK!"

Death stared stupidly at the scythe at his beltloop (his belt isn't part of his cloak). He stared at the Amish Mafia. He stared back at the scythe. The Mafia. Arthur. Scythe. Mafia. Arthur. Mafia. Lucy. Scythe. Mafia. Merlin. Scythe. Arthur. Gam. Mafia. Scythe.

Arthur made a slicing motion across his neck with his fingers, pointed at the scythe, then at the Mafia.

Death look at the scythe, the Mafia, Arthur, and then finally realized what to do.

He burst into a stirring rendition of "Music of the Night" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera." Or at least it would have been stirring, except that the person, or rather entity, singing it was the the Grim Spectre of Death* and thus had a voice that was the auditory equivalent of letters chiseled on a granite slab.
"No!" yelled Arthur. "No, no, no, no, NO!"
Death stopped singing.

A researcher then said: "I said death was packed with goldfish crackers! Not pillows!" Then Arthur made the slicing motion accross his throat again and death finally saw what he was trying to say. So he promptly removed his scythe to Arthur's Joy but the others soon realized that death didn't quite understand. They figured this out when Death sliced Arthur's head off thus removing his eternal soul and placing it in a pouch on his belt.

FX: Dramatic chord

LUCY: Arnold, that's not appropriate.

ARNOLD: It wasn't me this time.

LUCY: Well don't do it again. And Death...

DEATH: Hmm?

LUCY: That's not what he meant. Do I have to spell it out for you?

DEATH: It might help...

LUCY: (heavy sigh) K-I-L-L-T-H-E-A-M-I-S-H-M-A-F-I-A. Got it?

DEATH: Uh... Kill...the...amish...mafia? Lucy, that's very rude. I'm retired, remember?

LUCY: But you killed Arthur just now. I expect he didn't appreciate that.

DEATH: Whoops. Sorry 'bout that. I should...fix it...right?

LUCY: Yes.

Death started mumbling: "Hmmm, uhh, did any of you see where I put that soul?"

The others said: "In the pouch on your belt!"

Death reached down and grabbed the pouch. He started fishing around and pulling souls out one by one while mumbling: "Hmmm, I knew I should've organized this. Let's see, hmmm, Bill Gates, Ed Koch, William Shatner, hmmm, where is Arthur's soul."

Finally Lucy shouted: "JUST POUR THE DAMN BAG OUT!!"
Death replied that that wasn't such a good idea but Lucy threatened to kick him in the groin so he complied. He turned the tiny pouch upside and thousands and thousands of souls he had never gotten around to sending to heaven or hell started pouring out. That section of the corn field was lit up by the souls which now numbered near 1/4 million. The amish became frightened and left to regroup buying our heroes 15 minutes to find arthurs soul and some how rejuvinate his body.

Luckily, they happened upon that scientist from a few chapters back, found out that he knew instant re-atachment surgery, threatened him to do fix Arthur's head problem or else, and they got back to looking.

Arthur's soul wasn't hard to miss. It was the one that couldn't move anywhere without something odd happened to it. They managed to get it, just as a giant fish appeared from no where to eat it, but Arnold ate the fish, and They had Arthur's body and soul. Now, they had 10 minutes to figure out how to get them back together.

Lucy tried mashing his soul into his stomach but it didn't work. Arnold started yelling that he had an idea and tried grabbing the body from lucy. Lucy held on and yelled she needed a minute so he should shut up. But arnold wanted to try so they had a tug of war that ended with arthur's decapitated body being torn in two. (8 minutes left to reassemle both halves of his body, attach his head, and re-insert his soul).

Lucy yelled at Arnold. Arnold yelled at Lucy. Lucy got up after being knocked over by Arnold's yell and yelled at him for yelling at her. Arnold yelled at Lucy to stop yelling at him. Merlin yelled at both of them to please shut up because he had a headache. Lucy and Arnold yelled at Merlin to stay out of this. Death yelled at himself for causing all this trouble. Merlin yelled at Lucy to say that there were only 2 minutes left. Lucy yelled at Merlin that she'd already told him to stay out of this, and he'd better. Then Lucy yelled at herself for wasting so much time, and set about putting Arthur back together.

"Boy, it feels good to be put back together," Arthur said when they re-attached his soul to his body. It was an amazing feat in and of itself, and should not be missed by any. Anyway, They had thirty seconds left, so they got past the spot where the Amish Mafia would have been regrouping, and made their way into the Belgian town.

Death started to mumble: "You know we probably shouldn't have left 7.89 million (more poured out during those posts) souls sitting in the middle of a field run by the Amish Mafia."

Arthur tried to start talking when he suddenly saw his reflection in a puddle and realized lucy had put his head on sideways. He made them all stop at a coffee shop to work on fixing that.
Death ordered a soft drink whereas Arnold went with tea.
(TO BE CONTINUED... WHAT WILL LUCY ORDER? OR ARTHUR? OR MERLIN?)

Lucy ordered some magic tea, Arthur ordered a Usual, and Merlin ordered a scone. Then the owner of the Cyber Cafe told the three to stop using the Internet ready computers until they actually ordered something.

So, they all went with a latte. Meanwhile, Lucy said, "Hey, where's Death? I mean, I was just getting used to that creepy cloak of bones."

Right about then, Arthur managed to get a glance of Death scooping up souls and putting them in his pouch. "Oh, boy," he said, "here we go again."

They all ran out, after leaving a big tip so that the waiters would save their seats, helped Death finish gathering up the lost souls (in the process, they had to kill a few Amish Mafia members), and went back to the Cafe. Sure enough, they had to get a new seat. There drinks were on the house though.

(PLEASE don't post it. Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don't say it!!!)

(Please don't say "They had to borrow a ladder to get them down" or some such? And this inquiry should in no way be regarded as an actual post or a suggestion to the next researcher. It's just a question.)

(Yes, please don't say stuff like that. Also, I'd prefer not to hear, "My, it certainly is windy up here," or maybe Arthur commenting to the manager about the quality of shingle)