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

As it started I was coming to the end of a boulevard in a city. It opened onto a busy street, with trolley-buses going by and stopping for commuters. I crossed the street in front of one and zig-zagged left then right onto a spacious pedestrian-only avenue between two city blocks lined with small cafe's, and boutiques in well-kept brick buildings. Midway up the avenue I exchanged pleasantries with an older woman who was also new to the area before continuing on. She was sitting at a cast iron patio table of an open air cafe. She was slim with short white hair and wore a turqoise business suit.

That was when I realized you were ahead of me about 50 feet. I had just caught up to you at the other end of the block, and it seemed like to reach our destination we would need to continue in the same direction but to do so had to skirt around a park. It was just as I'd caught up that noticed two things. One, I was in a grey suit. Two, a small object was falling in an arc towards us out of the sky.

It fell behind us and broke into pieces. I could hear it hissing as it came down. A second object followed seconds behind and this time I saw it sooner and made it out to be a rocket. I shouted "ROCKET ATTACK" and ran to the left, towards the corner of the avenue. You ran forward, and the last I saw you, you were running around some trees at the edge of the park. Three or four more rockets landed near the spot where we were standing when we met, but then started hitting closer to me so I continued around the corner of the building on my left and began to trot down the street. I was watching the sky to the right, where the rockets were coming from. They were more frequent and landing closer to me now.

I ducked into a dead-end alley that slanted downward and stopped abruptly. I was now sided by brick walls on three sides and the rockets were coming faster and faster and were no longer taking lazy arcs but were hissing past me like arrows, nearly parallel with the ground.

Now I had to actually evade each one as they whizzed past. I narrowly missed getting hit in the left knee, then arched forward to let one pass where my abdomen had just been, and next arch my back and snap my head back as one targeted where my head was. Each rocket was white, about three or four feet long, with a white rounded but sharp-pointed nose cone, with a red dot at the point and a red circle around the section where the nose met the body. As they approached, they looked like smoking bulls-eyes with fins.

I fell back, and now lay on my back watching rocket after rocket appear, grow, glide by, inches above my body. I realized that I was down the incline far enough to prevent being struck. They couldn't get the arc quite right. Too high missed me, too low struck the pavement before it got to me. I lay there for a few more seconds thinking that they had to run out of rockets at some point. Most seemed to be passing over my legs and hips. I flipped onto my stomach between shots and started dragging myself forward to get out from under their path. I made it about three feet, but then found I couldn't get any traction. The cement incline was covered with some sort of waxy coating that made it difficult to propel myself.

Then I woke up. Well you always do, don't you?