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

they realised that in this reality they hadn't actually bought any liver patches... it was in that other alternative (which nobody continued with) where they bought liver patches, and they turned out to be some horrid trick anyway and not really liver patches. So they all went to the owner of the pub and explained that they had not broken the rule after all.

he realised that in this reality they hadn't actually bought any liver patches... it was in that other alternative (which nobody continued with) where they bought liver patches, and they turned out to be some horrid trick anyway and not really liver patches. So they all went to the owner of the pub and explained that they had not broken the rule after all.

(oops )

Lucy looked up from her reading and nudged Merlin out of his slumber. "Did you just feel a time ripple a minute ago?" she asked.

"Yes, I did. It leaves me with a sick feeling of nausea and deja vu. Unmistakable."
"Hey, Merlin, did we ever find out what happened to that phone booth?"

"Probably" said Merlin,"although I wouldn't want to say for sure. If I say yes I will undoubtebly be corrected by at least one researcher and likewise for the response of 'no'"
Just then the Dutch royal family (escorted by a gam of mauve weasels (all riding unicycles made entirely of Bob Evans breakfast sausage whilst juggling rubber chickens, of course)) made their way into the pub.
"There's no need to look at us like that," one of them said,"we were just getting a little bored so we decided to re-enter the story. Oh all right we'll leave then."
And off they went.
One of them turned around just before he was about to exit the pub and said:
"Hang on, I'm not just going to walk out the story without contributing to the plot in some way"
So he reached into his pocket and pulled out...

...a copy of the Iliad. Even the weasel didn't see that one coming and decided to just leave with some dignity. Arthur now met up with the Merlin and Lucy. Arthur told them about the liver patches incident and they all decided to relax and get a slurpy. But there weren't any 7-11's in the building so they left. But as they spotted a 7-11 something happened.

Just as they approached the 7Eleven, the sign out front changed to "United Dairy Farmers" and the big slurpies all turned to half-gallon ice cream containers. "Drats," said Arthur, "I'm fresh out of plastic sporks, too."

"You think that's bad?" asked Lucy. "I've left my last batch of vodka brownies at home. You can't expect me to eat chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream without a brownie underneath, can you?!"

Merlin looked at the two incredulously. "What on -earth- are you two going on about? The dimensional shifting going on around here could get dangerous, and you're worried about something called a spork and a brownie-thingamajiggy?"

Death, who just loved surprising people, chose that time to whip his brand-new Jag into the parking lot. "Hey guys! I just spotted a Ben & Jerry's down the road. Hop in! I'll buy."

So, after fighting for a while over who got to ride shotgun, they all piled into the back seat (because just at that time a firey-looking redhead happened to walk by and Death managed to charm her into the front. Together they headed off to...

...ben and jerry's.
As they got out the redhead took of her mask and revealed herself to be a him. It was Donny Most of Tv's happy days. Apparently he was in an undead state after being killed, and wanted death to end his putrid existence. But death was so startled that he started to question his sexual preference. Luckily for him the dimensional shifting had turned Lucy into a physciatrist, and the jag into her office. They sat on the couch and death recalled his child hood, like the time...

his father had decided to call himself Talullah. You see, Death and Arthur were actually one and the same... (these characters are surprisingly like the ones that were in Chapter two, only in an alternate universe or something.) After the Trinity became famous it became quite fashionable for metaphysical beings to be several people at once.

Since it was from a different universe Arthur didn't realize that fact. Just then the dimension shifted again and the trio had no memory of the last 24.96038603 minutes. As they looked around they realized that they were in a strange shack and it was snowing outside. Just then Bob the mountie burst in and said...

(sorry for replying to myself, I just keep forgetting the write this. Shouldn't we give our ongoing story its own guide entry? After all the load time is bad enough without having to wait for all those links to other conversations in the ask H2G2 forum. It's just a suggestion, and I would be happy to make the entry if anyone wants me too, or someone else could.) If you like this idea then just write so in parenthesis, but for now lets just keep this conversation going until there is a consensus.

"Who am I? Why am I here? How did you guys get in to this place, and would you mind leaving?"
"Listen," Lucy the psychiatrist said."We just had a lesson in here, Death here is rather upset, what do you mean by asking questions like that?? You are confusing my patient!!"
"No, it's ok," Death said. "You see, I know the anwer.. we are all here to... "


(yeah, we should make our own guide entry!!)

rehearse our number for the Silly Story Salvation Show (on Saturday). Of course you all know your lines, DON'T YOU.

He was greeted by a chorus of timid yes's. Bob, to whom all of this was a surprise, was handed a script. They spent the rest of the afternoon rehearsing, with Bob becoming more and more enthusiastic as he realised that he had a very important role. As they were wraping up thier last dry run, a knock came at the door. Bob opened the door to find ...

a letter.

"Dear Bob," it began, "Please inform the trio (erm.. wait, that's now a quatro? Ah! A quartet (are you sure they don't sing? We have an opening for.. erm.. wait a minute, this nested parenthetical phrase is beginning to be longer than the letter, see enclosed brochure instead) now that the RedHead arrived) before you that they should find a page all to themselves and set their continuing fora (threads) beneath that." It was signed, "Writer 40077"

"Wha--?!" spluttered Bob. "Thread? Page? Writer? Fora? What the blazes?"

"Oh," said Death, "Don't worry about it Bob.. Just follow us."

At that moment the shack disappeared and they found themselves in...

...normality.
"Hmm, that's strange." said Lucy as she found that Bob had dissapeared and that she was once again standing with Arthur, Merlin and Certainlydeathbutnowalsopossiblyarthur.
"Hang on a minute," said Arthur,"I'm a little confused here. If Death and myself are one and the same person then how is it possible we can both exist at the same time?"
Just then a blue phone box materialised out of nowhere and out stepped someone who looked suspiciously like Arthur.
"Who are you?" asked Arthur suspiciously.
"I am you" said The Other Arthur simply,"I am you from the future."
"All right then," said Arthur,"what number am I thinking of - if you are me you should remember which number I am thinking of/you were thinking of. Hmmm?"
"69 dudes!" said The Other Arthur. Arthur took himself to one side and had a whispered conversation with The Other Arthur
"Listen," began Arthur,"can we make it 68? Only I don't particularly want to get sued for infringing on any copyright laws."
"Sure," said The Other Arthur,"fine by me."
They walked back to the rest of the group.
"Anyway," began The Other Arthur,"I turned up to say that the only reason it's possible for Arthur and Death to exist at the same time is because this is actually a story and anything can happen if the writers want it to. See, I can even do this."
Whereupon The Other Arthur and his telephone box vanished from the story (for now...).
Suddenly an h2g2 researcher materialised.
"Sorry," he said in a hushed voice,"I don't wan to disturb the plot too much but I just wanted to say that I think one of us should point one of the important Editors in the direction of this story, only I think it's side splittingly funny. Thanks."
And he vanished.
"Well I'm not quite sure waht that was all about," said Merlin who hadn't spoken so far this post.
Suddenly...

the world ceased to exist for a few moments. No one noticed, but it is worth mentioning.

"Meanwhile, where are we?" asked Lucy.
"Hey, this is where I used to work!" Death chimed.
"The morgue?"
"No, the bar from chapters one and two!"
"You mean we're right back where we started?" Arthur asked.
"No, this is where we started." Merlin said. He waved his wand with the intent of sending them all back to the park, but since he miscalculated, and his wand was running on low anyway, . . .

(BTW, I'd be glad to set up a Guide entry for this story. What should I name it?)

(I don't know--perhaps we should set up a new thread for a name-the-story contest?)

(How about, 'The amaziing plotless story which just keeps going and going and going... with not one, not two, but a whole heap of superfluous characters - order now and get a FREE dictionary of collective nouns!')

I started a conversation in this forum that asks what we should name it. It is called "What should we name our story2?" yes the 2 is in the actual one. Sorry about that. But I accidently hit enter before typing and I was afraid that I had started a blank conversation with the other title. So find that conversation and we can discuss what to name it. I don't know who would decide. Maybe after a week of suggestions we would have 2 voting days in which you could cast one vote for your favorite title. Sorta like the elections going on here in the U.S. right now.
But back to the story for now:
...Merlin had accidently sent them into the future. But only for 0.00000000000000000000273827349270000000000045 seconds. They didn't even notice it because after the 0.00000000000000000000273827349270000000000045 seconds
they were instantly transported back to the hospital where they had been given liver patches, but not that one in particular since the dimensional shifting had placed them in another slightly different universe. They all decided that stuff was crazy enough without dimensional shifting and that they had to stop it. So they decided to...