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

Momentarily stunned by the sight of a lone sock tree, sprouting furvently in the late summer breeze, the keeper passes by, unseen as yet by all those things that yet have had the foresight to see his passing by. A sock fruit, ripened by the late sun, scilently falls to the soft grassy carpet, and whimpers scilently, for her missing half, and yet still all remains more or less quiet, except for the occasional sound of passing thermonuclear power stations, lolloping over the horrizion.
The keeper stops, first by one cage, then by the second, inspecting as he daily does, the zoo's inmates, strictly maintained within their unnatural habitation, and, then suddenly, from the corner of an eye, he notices, in the subsequent cage, a sight beyond anything that would by any relm of doubt, pass into what he might otterwise refer to as a run-of-the-mill day's inspections of the cages....

I'm bored.

Deep, from within the agrivated cage, a low rumble eminated, as the stone water-pedistil began to rise, from the bramble-covered earth.
As it rose further, the top toppled, landing to the ground with a loud squish. The keeper watched on, mesmorised, his cage inspection long ago forgotten, as the sight unfolded before his eyes.
The cage's inhabitants, a flock of thongs, scattered to the outer reaches of the cage, to escape the unfolding eruption from within the earth, clammering at the cage bars to attempt escape...
Suddenly, the pedistil had arrisen sufficiently for the entire structure to topple, and roll, unencumbered across the enclosure, before finally crashing through the cages bars. Grasping their chance the thongs escaped through the opening, but still the keepers eyes could not relent in their observation of this most peculiar of peculiar happenings within the cage.
The sock-fruit continued to whimper quietly, with still no one regarding its pitiful plight...

still boared

* orders another batch of popcorn and waits in the vain hope of seeing Nighthoover entering the scene for his great monologue *

The rumbling continued, as the thongs scattered, and the ex-pedestal site, moved, flexed, warped and buckled, seemingly at random, a crevice, then a small hole opened in the earth itself, at its previous site, and from which small rabbits, and party streamers emerged, pushed forth, as if by some unseen force, pushing, aand ushering them forth.
The crevice, now truly a hole, enlarged, darkened, as in turn it began emitting an eary light, a strange, blue-black glow, that cast dark light shadows apon the rabbits as they fled admist the assorted coloured party streamers.
The zoo-keeper watched mesmorised, affixed by the sigh, yet, as he watched, strange, dark, hidden memorys from deep within began to bubble to the surface of his brain, in the exact same way large rocks don't bubble up from the bathroom floor.
A spandex clad guitarist momentarily popped into his mind, and he shuddered, as the strange sight before him, in the cage reminded him of this forgotten, deeply hidden memories, that many years had managed to expunge from his every-waking throught.
The zoo keeper therefore, didn't notice another sock-fruit fall from the sock-fruit tree, and join her lost companion, nor, did the keeper notice, the two socks, reunited as they were, happily dash off, out of sight, in search of a drawer to call home.

The strange light darkened, grew stronger, as the hole enlargened.....

and baited breath

The keeper's mind, struggled, attempted to quench and dampurn the rising thoughts, memories, of all those long, long years ago.... harder and harder he pushed asides the memorys, as he stood transfixed by the sight of the hole.

Meanwhile the socks, paired at last, still searched, for a drawer, within which to call their home.

The hole widened further, took form, and disgorged a large quantity of fish; the rabbits had long ago swam off.

From within the light seemed to firm up, become more solid, and from within the dark light, a figure, no, a form began to emerge.

The zoo-keeper attempted to run, he willed his feet, his muscles, but something, or someone held him ridgid to the spot, unable to escape the sight, the fate, unfolding before him....

Is it a bird?
Is it a plane?
Is it a - Balrog???

only time will reveal... or at least, un-reveal what it was, or may be, or indeed will, one day be, for all times are but one time, and yet all times are thereby no time, as time itself flexes apon itself, creating its own perpetual state of both being, and nonbeing, forever, and yet, never, existing, as its own existance can only exist, dependant on its own existance, the ever-moving, always stationary flux of the static time dimension in the moving time dimension- all slightly muddled up and muddied by the eternal illogical and logical randomness of that which unreality itself can only be said to make un-real; hence real to its own position, in the essence of time itself.

Mist cast detachidly around the gaping hole, the light that emitted, and the form that emerged, the mist spinning around, catching and emitting the light....

The Zoo-keeper's mind pleeded, whimpered like a startled frightened gazelle, grasping furiously for long-forgotten memorys, long forgotten words.... A guitarist... A bar... no, many, many bars.... Way too many bars, now he came to think of it.... The dogs, dressed in human clothes, or were they pictures? Was it all pictureds, an imagined memory of a imaginary pictorial phantom memory...
Again and again he attempted to force the thoughts down, to try reforget that which he couldn't even recall... and each time they came back, stronger, firmer, but yet somehow always out of reach, out of full acceptance of reality, always just slightly out of focus... A drag act... or at least people in drag... A tunnel... a tube train... some other place, some other time... A word... a place name came into his mind, and then abruptly ran away, as if terrified by its own realisation, in this place, this time, this.....

A figure steped out of the mist, out of the dark murky light that gushed forth from the hole.
"come on, we're waiting, we're all waiting'.

The Zoo keeper suddenly lunged forward, grabbed, grappled, and clutched; he got the word, the word previously escaping his understanding, his consciouss...

And, as he grasped the word, he crumpled, as all the pain flooded back, all the memories suddenly joined up and solidified, into the understanding, the realisation of what he was escaping here, escaping from in these past years, decades, at the zoo.

He knew now, knew the word, and knew he must follow, through the hole, the tunnel opening into the ground.

The word, was, simply,

'hooverville'

Hooverville? Hooverville? I seem to remember ... a movie? An album?

Hey, wasn't Hooverville the hometown of Sy Borg?

, don't mind me please continue

its a very brave, or very intelligent man, or woman, who claims to know hooverville... Some would even go so far to say, that it was a foolish the same, who would, if pushed to it, claimed to understand hooverville, for, lets face it, so few have, or at least openly reveal that, they have both visited, and returned from such a place. 'Surrounded' 'in mystory', or 'you never fully get hooverville', or, even, 'no one can ever understand' .. 'hooverville', being some of the more common, and most easily quoted things that some have revealed about hooverville, or, at least, the kinds of statements, those few dare to utter for fear of the backlash, or, indeed, the legal ramifications.
Not so much secret as it is secretitive, less hidden, than rarely observed, and less spoken of in hush terms, as it is, just wholesale, unknown, or at least disregarded.
Some, though often not open to say such, might even gravitate so far as to say, a place the least talked of, the least thought of, the least drempt of, the better; Those few, are, moreoften than not, of course, the very ones, who themselves, have, on pressing, actually been too, and indeed returned, from hooverville.
Of course, many, many other people are rather quick to point out that the kind of person who is the kind of person who has been to and returned from hooverville, is, due to this very fact, the exact same kind of person, to whom, we should pay the least attention in terms of their view, or perspective, on hooverville; By, as they point out, often at great length, virtue, of how, in virtually all cases, the way in which the minds of such people often show, and demonstrate great variability in their relative, and absolute values by all measures of sanity, and stability.

its probably in to this latter group, to which the zoo-keeper falls. Though, of course, he was not always a zoo-keeper. Few things are perpetual, as most soon realise, and zoo-keepering, is, in this regard, not an exception.

Far be it for me to say I know *anything* about Hooverville. I've only ever heard whispers (in Chinese) claiming Sy Borg came from there. For obvious reasons we'll never know because Sy was - erm - well let's just say Sy Borg died under circumstances better not mentioned here