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

Funny old things, souls I mean, most happy (eager even) to move on. Tiny sparks joining the Great River of Light that flows constantly around us. No end , no beginning, just eternally there.

The Great River, Father, Mother, Home.

But, and here's the funny bit, what about those who drag their metaphorical feet?

There are roughly (and it's still being debated, before you start an argument!) 30 of us for every single person alive today. That's around 210 billion dearly departed.
From cavemen to David Bowie, quite a mix.

Most join the River. Still, that's a lot of us left wandering around for eternity. Simply put, the world is bloody chocker block with ghosts!

Most of the living can be divided into two main camps, the Faithful and the Faithless.

Wander around any church, mosque, temple, stone circle, etc, etc, there's millions of the poor things trudging around, waiting for the shaft of light, or the heavenly choir, or a Valkyrie escort. (insert heavenly vision of your choice here)

Sad thing is, it's not coming any time soon, that ship has sailed my friends, you chose to dawdle, you choose to hang around these places, trudging and hoping. Refusing to accept any Afterlife but the one you'd always imagined, artists and writers have a lot to answer for on that one!

The Faithless, on the other hand, refuse to accept the River as fact, and have a great time, for a while, shooting around the globe, carefree, visiting the sites, seeing the bright lights - oh, avoid Times Square, if you're dead, Wall to Wall jammed with the dead, awful place! - then boredom sets in.

No need to eat or drink, no requirement for a good night's sleep, no urge to procreate. Borrrrring!

What's left? I'll bloody tell you - an eternity of walking through walls, finding something half decent on telly, (if you haven't waited 7000 years for TV to be invented in the first place!) and sitting in a houseful of noisy, irritating, mouth-breathing, channel-hopping idiots!

For Ever!

Top Tip - when the time comes, and you feel drawn towards the River, don't dawdle, say a quick 'see you on the other side', and jump in with both feet.

The alternatives are either trudging endlessly around holy ground, or watching endless reruns of Columbo!

Your choice!

I got a chuckle out of this. Is 'The River' a reference to Philip Jose Farmer?

It's funny - I haven't got to the coherent stage yet today - my mind is still blank - but the only thought I had when waking up was that the reason people are bored all the time is that they won't let heaven tell them what life is really all about. So they always want dumb things. Ghosts spending forever trying to get people to watch better shows on tv pretty much sum up that thought - and very elegantly!

FWIW, it also occurred to me after reading this to wonder if you were familiar with the play 'Our Town' by Thornton Wilder.

Then I realised, 'Of course not. Thornton Wilder wasn't British. They never read (or performed) his plays in school.' (We read English literature, but I doubt it works the other way around.)

At the end of the play, most of the characters in it are dead. They're ghosts, sitting in the cemetery up on the hill and waiting for eternity. Except for the main character - she goes time-travelling, with painful results.

It's a good play, though don't watch the movie because they plastered on a 'happy ending'.

If you ever get bored enough, here's a stage version with Hal Holbrook. (Holbrook was considered a top stage actor in the US.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEoXuXRoOdY

[I'm listening to the Ghostbusters theme ]