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

(No, no, I got this.)



In a strange -- and statistically unlikely -- twist of fate, the entire world's water supply is somehow tainted with LSD. Just the right amount of LSD to give everyone and their grandmother a suitably pleasant buzz, but not enough for anyone to have a medical emergency.

The accompanying hangover after Christmas Day is horrific and all-encompassing. But not that big a deal.





Context: Lately I've been using an absurd number of online tarot games. They've said -- fairly consistently (in their cryptic way) -- that sometime this month I'll receive a message from an old friend of mine who I unfortunately had a falling-out with. However, such a message has not, thus far, arrived.

And while I find the idea of reconciliation with this individual... compelling.... It suffices to say that if indeed such a reunion is even desired by them, then -- without getting into the personal details of the seperation -- they would almost certainly have to be the one to initiate any further contact.



So....

I wish that I could, first: Believe the apparent message of such silly, yet annoyingly consistent, forms of divination.

And second: That this "old friend" of mine will actually drop by to say hello, as it were.

In order to get over the first wish, you call the manufacturer of the tarot cards to question their calibration methods. As it happens, your "old friend" is the CEO of this company. You get offered a job in the calibration department. Unfortunately you do not read the small script in your contract. You are now chained to a desk for observation, as a calibration gauge.
Your "old friend" does fate experiments on you.

I wish I could get more sleep.

You sink into a deep depression. Sleep is now ALL you can do.


I wish China wasn't obsessed with trying to control its own population, much less the rest of the world's.

China stopped being obsessed with controlling its population. About half a billion of them decide they' rather be in some other country, and China isn't going to try to keep them from leaving. Three guesses where a lot of them will want to go.

I wish we didn't have another month of Winter, with the danger of big snowstorms.

Climate change means that from now on, there will be only two seasons left. Flood an Drought. Pick your favourite...

I wish there was a cheap way to be environmentally friendly that doesn't cost me my job.

Reviving the slave trade as an alternative to machine culture is 'environmentally friendly' ...and job security is assured.

I wish I could take up fish farming.

If you live close enough to sea level, you may be able to do fish farming in your yard (assuming you have one) in about 25 years, if you can wait that long.

I wish I could be younger.

A new drug is developed that allow its users to maintain their youth forever. The only catch is that in order to use it, you have to kill people and harvest their pineal glands.

You can live forever.... as a MURDERER!!


I wish more women had sexy Russian accents.

You could find plenty of them in Moscow. The downside is that you'd have to stay in Moscow. Did I mention that horrendous cold in Winter there?or that restaurants are quite expensive? If you settle down with a woman who has that sexy accent, and have school-age children, good luck finding a school for them! There's bribery and corruption. Good luck finding a medical center, especially one you can afford. I hope you have good insurance. Traffic is heavy. Public transport is crowded at rush hour.

I wish the Wizard of Oz could help me find my way back to Kansas.

The wizard kindly drops you off at Cafe Kansas in the Dutch village of Cuijk. Unfortunately it is closed due to Corona lockdown.

I wish I could keep working from home when all this is over.

You can, for half of your current salary.


I wish I could live in a perpetually looping temporal bubble of the year 2011.

You find that the Spanish inquisition has invented time travel and has chosen your version of 2011 to hunt down left handed Goth people. This will repeat every year until they catch you.

I wish I knew my assumptions were right before they backfired at me.

(Ah. Fortunately I'm right-handed.)

(Good call on the Goth thing though.)



You are granted precognitive psychic powers and can now see into the future. Unfortunately, you learn that the future is predetermined and immutable. Nothing you do will change it, because your actions have already been taken into account.

As if that weren't enough, you're not able to "turn off" the psychic powers. You can hear everyone's thoughts all the time and you can't stop it!! Sleep and peace-of-mind are only distant memories to you now.

It's enough to drive a sane man mad.....



I wish I knew what Met (and only Met) was thinking.

(Met's a girl I know, if you're wondering.)

Apparently Met is thinking:

This Evening and Tonight:
Dry and sunny this evening, remaining dry overnight with just some patchy cloud later in the night. Warm overnight in London, but cooler in more rural areas and near the coast. Minimum temperature 7 °C.

I hope it makes sense to you.


I wish the campsites would open again so that I can have a normal holiday.

the campsites reopen, but a large group of huge bears turns up to create havoc and eat as much food as possible.

I love this weather, an wish it would continue for another month.

This weather continues in another month. June 1938 to be precise.

I wish the temperature differences in my house would be smaller.

(FOR another month, not IN another month.)


You wake up and find that while you were asleep your house was transported wholecloth into an underground bunker. Food and water are delivered to you through a newly installed chute and the temperature is perfectly controlled and constant.

You're also locked underground, with no way out of the bunker. No explanation is ever given.



I wish to live in a more rural area.

You suffer a miscarriage of justice and find yourself in jail for a crime you didn't commit. You are chosen as one of a contingent of prisoners to commence the terraforming of Mars. Despite the exceptionally low population density on your arrival at the red planet you still have to share a cell.

I wish I was better at foreign languages.

Due to an update to the Versailles treaty, you are now living in another country, making your original language foreign. You speak it very well. Shame you don't understand a word of your new countrymen/women.

I wish the grass in my garden was greener

The paint factory your garden backs on to explodes. The greener grass that this results in looks pleasant enough in its own right but clashes horribly with the shades of pink and orange dripping down the back wall of your house. The few parts of the neighbourhood that are left un-painted due to being in the shadow of large structures are soon covered in green paw-prints from the local cats.

I wish I was involved in a sports tournament in some capacity (for context, I regretted when I was in my teens not answering a call for boy girls and boys for a tennis tournament in my city - I doubt I'd have ever been picked as my knowledge of tennis rules was patchy and I wasn't athletic but the idea of just having some involvement really appealed).