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

Arthur woke up. This was something he had not really been expecting. He had actually expected to be dead. He remembered whooshing noises and sounds of things colliding together. And then black.

He then seemed to have a strange dream involving Ford, Trillian and Zaphod. They were all trying to convince Arthur that he was not a four mega ton space Goat with raging Pnemonia. Arthur, in the dream, was trying to tell them that they didn't have to tell him this - because he already knew. But they insisted on telling him anyway.

Then suddenly they all decided to disappear, and they were replaced by a rotting cabbage which was telling him not to be silly. Arthur replied, saying that he didn't know what he mean't. The cabbage insisted that he did, and shouldn't be so silly about it.

And thats when he woke up. He didn't know where he was. It was dark, although he could still see his hand if he put it in front of his face, so light must have been coming from somewhere. He could still move his tongue in his mouth, and feel his teeth so he must have had mass. But quite where he was, was... well a mystery.

He tried to feel the ground. It was strangely squashy. He prodded it.

To Arthurs utter surprise it groaned. He tried to move and ended up falling on to a hard flat surface.

"Ooh, where am I?", grunted a familiar voice.

"Who poked me?", the bodiless voice continued to grunt.

Arthur kept quiet, he knew the voice from a long time ago, and knew acknowledging his prescence to him was not a good idea.

"I know someone is here, because I know when I've been poked. And I was in the middle of a wonderful dream, so I'm not in a good mood."

*waits eagerly for more* Good stuff, old boy... keep it up...

<*adds caption* "Of course, all good philosophers know that tomorrow never comes. So did Verc...">

THAT last post is never over a year old *worries* I remember writing that!

Yes... talk about a cliffhanger.

Hang on I think I may have written more afterwards... yes I have, here it is :

The Nackerack – The Mender of Time

Arthur woke up. This was something he had not really been expecting. He had actually expected to be dead. He remembered whooshing noises and sounds of things colliding together. And then black.

He then seemed to have a strange dream involving Ford, Trillian and Zaphod. They were all trying to convince Arthur that he was not a four mega ton space Goat with raging Pnemonia. Arthur, in the dream, was trying to tell them that they didn't have to tell him this - because he already knew. But they insisted on telling him anyway.

Then suddenly they all decided to disappear, and they were replaced by a rotting cabbage which was telling him not to be silly. Arthur replied, saying that he didn't know what he mean't. The cabbage insisted that he did, and shouldn't be so silly about it.

And thats when he woke up. He didn't know where he was. It was dark, although he could still see his hand if he put it in front of his face, so light must have been coming from somewhere. He could still move his tongue in his mouth, and feel his teeth so he must have had mass. But quite where he was, was... well a mystery.

He tried to feel the ground. It was strangely squashy. He prodded it.

To Arthurs utter surprise it groaned. He tried to move and ended up falling on to a hard flat surface.

"Ooh, where am I?", grunted a familiar voice.

"Who poked me?", the bodiless voice continued to grunt.

Arthur kept quiet, he knew the voice from a long time ago, and knew acknowledging his prescence to him was not a good idea.

"I know someone is here, because I know when I've been poked. And I was in the middle of a wonderful dream, so I'm not in a good mood."

Strangely Arthur wondered whether tomorrow had actually come. It had appear unlikely the last he remembered. Of course, as all good philosophers know - tomorrow never comes, and so did Mr Peter Chesterton, of number 7 Rumbart Close. He had a very interesting idea about proving whether tomorrow would actually come.

For his entire life he had been frustrated by the fact that there never seemed to be enough time in the world. He was what the dictionary – on one of its good days - would call a procrastinator. There is of course a lot more to dictionaries than people often realise, and it is quite terribly interesting, but as it bears no relevance to the current situation it shall continue to be tragically ignored, until such point as which it would be relevant. Which is likely to be never.

Mr Chesterton (we’ll call him Peter out of sheer bad manners), had often postulated on why the mythical tomorrow never came. The next day would eventually become today, as every sane being who didn’t own a computer would realise. And so you were never actually in “tommorow”, because tomorrow was a point at some stage in the future. A void, filled only with potential of what it could be. To Peter, voids of extra time filled with potential were a very appealing prospect, as he was never happy with the time he currently had, as it was currently filled with no potential, and it was never in sufficient enough quantities. So Peter thought on this : “What if I could take some time from tomorrow, and then I would more of quality ‘tommorow time’, and wouldn’t have to worry about this poor quality ‘today’ time. I could do anything!”. Excited by the prospect Peter set to the problem straight away. Peter, having previously had no time, suddenly found time to read up on the complexities of mathematics and physics, and became a genius in the field.
His theories on time travel, and the general state of the universe won him incalculable awards. Until one day he finally knew how to do it. He had worked out all the calculations, had taken everything in to consideration, and he could now harness the power of tomorrow. And he did it. Beyond all expectations, he managed to take all the time he needed from tomorrow… And then having solved his lifes dilemma, completed the task to which he had dedicated much of his life, and which had given him so much time… he stopped. He didn’t know what to do with all this extra time, so he procrastinated and worried about what he would do with all this time. And as he had taken all the good promising time from tomorrow, everything seemed so much more depressing.

Things seemed fairly depressing for Arthur Dent at the moment, as he realised that a rather angry bureaucrat alien from the planet Vogsphere, was in the same room as him.