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

The Solitary Song of the Cards

0. The Fool
The mourners trudge into the church, in groups of three or four, trying to converse to disguise the good times, and trying to remember the bad. Death is no place for fun - there only resides the fog of past memories, fading like the awkward smudge of a mistake.
Individually, they pay their respects to the deadened emotions that made the man, outwardly and inwardly observing the forms. They pray, then, these liars, imagining their holiness increased by the appearance of devoutness, fooling themselves, and the sculpted, artfully made lump of meat that remained of the mind, a cold testament to his existence, soon to be buried and forgotten. They pray for themselves and him, earnestly imagining a garden of delights waiting for them and their friend.
Invisibly, the soul of the dead man wings its way on through empty space, picturing for itself the Heaven that it tells itself it can see in the distance. The mind of the man flies on, and on, while the joke of an empty promise chooses not to reveal itself.

1. The Magician
He weaves his arms through the air, feeling the sweetness of the slight, the sleight, making the motions contentedly - this is his art. His mind is full of complex pictures, and obscure arcana. His audience watch this magic carefully, telling themselves they do not know how it is done, and they are partly right. His mouth fills with the magic words, the gibberish which gives the beauty of the act a credible edge - the people do not need to be convinced it is true; they need to be able to convince themselves that it is true.
As he speaks confidently, some of the more interested members of the crowd write it down to be pondered over and passed on. Confident, because he has done this act a score of times before, this act of his life, performing magic and miracles and resurrections and healings. His heart sings with the lyrical joy of the game, hunter and hunted, and he is happy.
The crowd, too, are happy to follow him, and noting carefully what is said, what is done, in confessions, some utter truth unwittingly.
A month later, the magician is crucified for sacrilege and trickery. Two thousand years later, his audience endures.

5. The Lovers
We stand, entwined lovingly, clinging to eachother for what feels like an age. Our embrace is nearly as long as time itself, and nearly as strong. Our belief flung us together; our will grew us towards eachother; our admiration held us firmly together.
We lean on eachother, that expression of possibilities, and I, resting on the other and holding the other up simultaneously - without us there would be no me, and our symbol is my life.
We clutch to eachother, resisting the flow of time together, no change shaking the root of our feelings, and with something near empathic telepathy, we no longer need to talk. We stand in our bed, ageless and timeless and, sometimes, helpless.
Until one day the people came, and cut us both down.

8. The Wheel of Fortune
Two boys were born, not in the same day, week, or century. They were not even superficially similar in appearance, nor were they related. Their parents didn't know each other. They were in different ends of the world; one had a God, one did not. One of the boys had a red birthmark on his cheek, which the children in his village claimed was put there by the Devil, and they tormented him for years, but being poor, superstitious folk, from a distance, by hurling stones or mud. One of the children had rich parents. One grew up to become a scholar and learned propagator of atheism. One would have grown up to cut a bloody swathe through the bodies of his enemies, had he not disappeared mysteriously when he was out walking alone one day when he was young, leaving nothing behind but his sandals and his favourite toy, a colourful box which flashed and shined from the inside when certain things were done to it, which he had found while wandering when young alone one day, next to a pair of worn sandals, and a old, half buried child's skull.

9. Justice
.if you stand in this field when the winds are high
.and squint, you'll see the old man rip and blow away
.the ghost of a dancing soldier, laughing and
.crying, insubstantial as sand,
.but as timeless as the land,
.a tumbling, whirling, screaming ghost
.spinning apart, as fast as the most
.enduring memories last in their host
.a papier-mâché man
.as formless as sand;
.his skin torn to tatters, tears in his eyes
.as he stares at you, driven round, when the winds are high
.when twilight falls as heavy as a lie
.when the hope of redemption is as soft as a sigh
.his breath stirs the soul's desire to stay,
.squint, then, but as you see what you may,
.you know you're watching a poor, old man rip, and blow away


(I'll finish this some other time)