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

The long-awaited, utterly brilliant prologue

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Augustus Mardachian was bright, hardworking, and honest. Most parents would have been delighted to see the family line carried forward by a lad of those qualities, but the senior Mardachian was ambitious. He expected nothing less than greatness from his son, whom he endeavored to make worthy of the name of the Roman Emperor Augustus whose name he had been given.

The pianoforte in the Mardachian parlor sparked Gus’s curiosity when he was four, so his father hired one of the best piano teachers in Litestvia to turn him into the next Mozart or Beethoven. Augustus was to become a fine pianist, but he was never a genius. Undeterred, his father brought in composition teachers, singing teachers, and special tutors to coach him in Latin, Greek, and writing. One day a vase fell from a shelf in the living room, and Gus – who was eight by this time -- caught it before it could break. This seemed like proof that he was born to be a great athlete, so a procession of sports coaches began arriving at the Mardachian house on a regular schedule.

By the time Augustus Mardachian was 18, he had an attractive singing voice, a good command of piano technique, talent in most of the sports of his native land, fluency in numerous languages [both ancient and modern] and an ability to write attractive poems and stories – but he was no genius in *any* of these areas.

Disappointed, his father fell back on one last hope: Augustus was versatile, like the great American statesman Thomas Jefferson. It was time for the lad to seek his fortune in America, which seemed ripe for Augustus Mardachian to take by storm.

Standing on the dock awaiting his ship, Augustus chanced to meet a woman about the same age who was also headed for the United States. Her name was Josephine, and she too had been pushed to excel all her life. “Frankly, I am tired of the whole thing,” she confessed. Augustus had to admit that he felt the same way. Perhaps they were soul mates. It was even possible that together they could achieve a greatness that would have been unattainable for them as individuals. Then again, maybe just being soul mates would be enough.

They landed in Washington, the capital of the United States, in 1838. Their families had given them some money to establish homesteads, so they pooled their money and began combing the area for suitable spots. They could not agree as to which state their homestead would be in, however. Augustus wanted to be in Pennsylvania, a Northern state with cultured elites in the great city of Philadelphia. Josephine fancied herself a Southern belle sipping mint julep on the veranda of a great Southern plantation in a Southern state like Maryland.

They compromised by fashioning a plantation from contiguous land along the Pennsylvania and Maryland borders. The Mason-Dixon Line, which separated the North from the South, ran through the middle of their house. Augustus reasoned that a war between North and South would entail problems for whichever states lost. If the plantation straddled both regions, the family was assured of being part of the winning side. If the unhappy South seceded, then the family would have *two* plantations, a net gain of one. What wasn’t to like about the plan?

As mentioned before, Augustus did almost everything well. The exception to this was his handwriting. When Josephine gave birth to twin boys, she named them Melbourne and Knox. When Augustus wrote out the names for the local clerk, his a’s looked like e’s, so “Mardachian “ became “Merdechien.” This was a ghastly mistake! Anyone fluent in French wiould know that the name meant dog poop.

Augustus and Josephine decided that they needed a new name, preferably one that spoke to American optimism and greatness. Taking the first four letters of each son’s name, they tried sticking them together. They tried Melbknox. Then they tried Knoxmelb. Neither had the sort of ring they wanted. Then Augustus reversed the order of “Blem” and dropped the “k” from “Knox.” The result was Blemnox, and the rest is history.

The plantation prospered. As Melbourne and Knox grew, they helped their parents build a magnificent home. There were differences of opinion as to style, but compromises were made. This is why the south side resembled Monticello, the East side was reminiscent of the White House, and the north side mimicked Peace Field, the home of President John Adams. About the west side we will say nothing except that three out of four isn’t too bad. The interior evoked famous rooms in celebrated buildings all over the world: a hall of mirrors like that found at Versailles, an annex with a courtyard like a Venetian palazzo, and another annex built of logs. How fervently one might have wished that the Blemnox legacy of confusion would have stopped with the foibles of the mansion. But the Blemnox saga had only just begun. Worse lay ahead…....

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Deb

Is a hookmark like a bookmark?

I'm still not sure whether a prologue is needed. I wrote it in October as a piece of backstory that I could refer to while I wrote the actual story. At that time, I hadn't decided whether to write about Blemnox at Nonowrimo or at H2G2. As I wrote the story, I plugged in bits of the material from the proliogue. If the prologue just gets dropped, it will not be a great loss, except as a bit of comic relief -- imagine a book where the prologue comes at the end rather than the beginning!

[Amy P]

"Is a hookmark like a bookmark?" [paulh]

Yes