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

Paul I havent forgotten to catch up with your story. I've had a bit of an emotional swirl over the lunar eclipse so I'm moving even slower than usual. I'll be there!

Stumbles back to the limo. It's a high-end pink golf cart tricked out with a flamingo neck and head. He worries...he's still on triple-probation as a spirit guide after the Trump fiasco...He slides the pizza box over and waits for the bus...he's heard rumors...for all he knows she might want to hijack a cabin cruiser to Bimini or Havana...or dance with the lobsters 80 feet down on the reef in the moonlight...

(In the bus station)

Curious characters are wandering about in attire that a posh English lady may, or may not, have witnessed before. It all depends on..

On what?

Is there some kind of festival going on here? I hope its a festival. If this is every day in Key West then..

Perhaps my journey doesn't begin and end at the bus station.

Wheres Darrel?

Oh, txt coming through. 'I'll be picking you up in my high end pink golf cart decked out to resemble a flamingo.'

This worries me.

Phred Firecloud txts to remind me that Darrel is only a trainee imaginary spirit guide. He hasn't qualified yet.









I just had a txt.

Pleased to meet you Lady CC. I hope you enjoyed your trip. Just let the paparazzi take a few more pictures...then tell me... why did you call this meeting?

Darrel is on the loose. There are paparrazzo on the borderlines of my imagination.

I buy a postcard from the souvenir stand. It has a picture of a hotel on it and I ask a cab to take me there.

It turns out to be the Hotel Saint Christopher, a lovely place I saw once in a dream.

I txt Phred Firecloud who says he knows exactly what to do about everything. This is good. What I need in my life right now are people who know what to do about everything.

I sink into the silken sheets. Ouside there are fountains, the sound soothes me. The walls of the Hotel Saint Christopher wrap protectively around me. In the distance I hear the revelry. The festival is underway. Phred Firecloud will know what to do about it.

'I'm glad all this is imaginary I chuckle to myself.

I idly flip through the folder of hotel information. It invites me to have a nice stay. Signed Darrel. Hotel Manager.

The Afterword

I like this Hotel Saint Christopher. People used to wear a Saint Christopher charm on a silver chain to protect their travels.

Darrel, Hotel Manager. A true story from another hotel folder. OK so it was Darren in real life. Imagine if it had been Darrel. Actually, best not to think about Darrel as a Hotel Manager.

I don't think Darrel is going to make it as a spirit guide. If surviving the Key West Fantasy Fest is one of his tests, then he's failed the fest test for sure.

What about Phred Firecloud then? Who are these wild characters from Key West,who exist on the borderline between imagination and something entirely other.

I wouldn't recommend being chased by paparrazzo in your imagination, or for real.

I like writing Afterwords in imaginary hotels. Probably better than living in the Key West bus station although the lime ice cream was good.

Ok guys...put the ladder back...no shots through the window... we're going home...

What strange world have I wandered into?

You don't have to live in the bus station, Cactuscafe. You can rent n apartment at Clematis Station in Crepuscular Meadows. You'll have to get used to some strange company, though. They cultivate outrageous rumours to prevent further loss of the few gray cells they have left. <bluish.

What?? A very strange world indeed. What exactly happened here? I remember nothing.

(checks out of the window, to witness disappearing paparazzo)

Did I know these people? I might miss them. Ssssh. They didn't hear that.

You're right paul! Clematis Station here I come! Strange company?! I thrive on it. Apparently.

So! I'm straight in there. Freckles. I can see the filmic image of this kid in my mind's eye. The cinema of the mind's eye. I like that. I wonder do they have popcorn?

When you bring out the movie, I'll see how close I was.

The movie???

I'd also never heard of Benjamin Button! Have now. Just checked.

Maybe Crepuscular Meadows would soon forget he was ever there. A pity, but that's how life is sometimes.....

Ah now that's a teaser, heheh, don't do this to me Mr Author. We all know that Freckles will return, don't we don't we don't we. Hypnotise.



I was going to comment in the posh software of the Guide Entry spaces, paul, but I went all shy. Also I appear to be completely bonkers at the moment, so I think I'd better go there to read, then come back here.

Plus I can keep an eye on parallel universes unfolding around me.

Ah, now I'm in the dining room at Clematis Station!

I could live here.

Oh, I do? Help!

This is hilarious and splendid.

I really like the petite size of these episodes, text wise, its good for how I read.

When I see clematis growing, it will never look the same again. I might have to run away to write strange poems to clematis on a bus ticket. Bus ticket?? No! No!

Ah, Julia Lindstrom, your meatloaf is a legend. I think I love you.

Julia Child, (checks) OK, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking (and subsequent TV programmes). The French Chef. Premiered in 1968.

You never know, do you? (adds to the list of things that happened in 1968)

Stosh!

Ah, great stuff, OK, well have to somehow return to my other life for now. Damn. . (looks around, coast seems clear for transportation, to where? to what? to when? to how? to now? to then? to ...

I've just added the latest installment, about a man who walks his dog around the park, only to find that another dog comes running to be with the dog. Not that he humans wanted any of this.

(Returns to this world from that world via another world) (looks left, looks right, all clear)




I think I'll go check this installment. heheh. Can't wait. So I'll get out of sequence with my reading, but not really, because the magic thing about these episodes is that, to me, they are worlds within themselves, as well as being linked to each other. So I could in fact shuffle the pack, and they'd still make sense.



Well, this is the way I read books or magazines anyway. . I'm always shuffling the sequence, doesn't always make sense though.

Happy Heureux! Happy Mr Woof! Look away, Mrs Mumble and Guy. heheh.

Freckles?? Oh! Freckles is here!

So a return to the sequence for me, to find out all!

I can visualise Guy sharing his champagne and pate with Heureux. What a curious chap is Guy. I imagine him wearing a cravat.

I find these descriptions of life in the park to be very enchanting.

Really strange, because I just came back from a bike ride, and walked through the park in the nearby small town, its a place I love, and the atmosphere is very similar. Often I sit on a bench and watch the dog walkers. I will always think of Heureux and Mr Woof now, Guy, and Mrs Mumble. And Freckles of course!

I imagined myself in the Clementis dining room, but I find myself in a field of flowers, all alike. The field is enclosed by dense tropical rain forest which stops at the edge of the flowers with circular mathematical precision.

Lady CC is nowhere in sight. This might be the wrong imaginary continent...maybe the wrong Earth...jungle drums begin to echo.

A large ancient edifice stands in the center of the field. Something religious? A King? A small dark opening is in the center of...the Temple?

About 100 large jars are scattered around the field. They are open on top but I can't see what's inside from here. They look like they would hold about 100 gallons...big jars.

I think I need to call for help...

What I'm doing with these vignettes is reliving happy memories of my youth in a place that is a thinly veiled version of my home town.

I've invented fictional characters to put in the town, though.

When I worked in a library, I noticed that there are a lot of elderly people who desperately want something to do. Granted, I'm embellishing the strange rumors that fly among idle elderly people, but not by much.

Idiot! You have imagined yourself into a field of clematis flowers...I would have thought that the demotion to Spirit Guide Trainee after the Key West fiasco would have sharpened your wits...

How did you know she wouldn't like limos, debauchery, and paparazzi? You are a Spirit Guide...you get paid to how to guide spirits, not spend a bunch of imaginary money on an imaginary fiasco...

No more foul-ups...I'm watching you. Call me if you need help.

Technically, a field is not a good place for Clematis, as they are vines. they need to have something to climb.

My Park has a Clematis plant -- when it's in bloom, the blossoms are double-petaled, light purple with yellow centers. Quite striking. The trellis I put up for it is too small. Next year, they should have a larger one.

We could have pick.ed a more interesting plant, but you work with what you're given

Darrell... .pull all these creepy imaginary clematis vines and install a bunch imaginary Bohdi Treea...they work much better with the "golden triangle" setting we are trying to slowly comprehend..hurry, help should arrive soon.