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

On second thought...put in a grass field with one big imaginary Bodhi tree in full flower just in front of the temple entrance...just like the one Budha was enlightened under...and a sleepy few turkey vultures roosting on the rims of the pots...

Prepare cookies shaped like hearts (like the Heart-shaped leaves of the Bodhi) and a meal of Rice and Milk, the Buddha's first meal after enlightenment. Put the food in the temple.

(jungle drum tempo increases)

(enters journal) (looks to the left, looks to the right)

Uh oh ...

Remembers everything.

Darrell and Phred Firecloud appear to be setting up a jungle scene, using all the wrong props.

Darrell! Phred Firecloud!

Siddown here! Now! (pulls up an imaginary chair)

Phred Firecloud sits on the chair, Darrell sits on his knee.

(pulls up a another imaginary chair). Here, I have chocolate parrots.

The (Imaginary) Trainee Spirit Guide and Phred Firecloud wait patiently, sitting side by side, amongst the props of a bungled jungle scene, eating chocolate parrots.

I love it paul! Vignettes! That's the word!

Its strange, over breakfast in Cafe Stay Home,we've just been sifting through our old photo box.

So I have been thinking about old photos. How, in some ways, they capture the places and times of our youth, and yet the places remembered in the mind, beyond the photograph, have another layer of enchantment.

I don't quite know how to express it, layers of enchantment isn't perhaps how I want to say it, but its so interesting what you say, about the places of your youth, and then how you are adding fictional characters.

My husband was a librarian at one time. He drove the mobile library van! Not really a van, more like a huge truck. He noticed that the library provided community, and people looked forward to the time when he parked up near their street.



I'm looking forward to venturing into the strange rumours. heheh.

These parrots are good, Boss...can we put some hammocks under the ree and take a break? We all could use some enlightenment from time to time...

Darrell, I understand the suspense buildup on the jungle drums, but if you've put zombies in the jars again... I don't think she will be crazy about it..especially since the only visible escape route is the dark entrance to the temple...and get out of that hammock...

OK. (returns to the other world, that's the other other world, not the other world)

Gets in further bossy mode.

Darrell has started to eat the heart shaped cookies, because they've eaten all the parrots.

At least they're still sitting here.

Now listen to me, Laurel and Hardy, if we are going where no Spirit Guide has gone before, we need a meeting, a compass, a black cat and the address of the Key West Fantasy Fest organisers, so we can pay for damages. Plus I can get contact details for that shiny muscle man I saw in the bus station who was heading for the parade dressed in sparkly underpants, mmmm, oh sorry, that's my private life.

Out of the hammock please, Darrell.

And please put a lid on those zombie jars.

Meeting! We need a meeting!

OK, Phred Firecloud. You start ... how do we go where no Spirit Guide has gone before, without bungling the jungle, or without a grumble in the crumble?

That looks better...throw in a few hundred more turkey vultures... you can't have too many of those...put a bunch up in the Bohdi tree...and lots more strutting around on the jar tops...perhaps the distant thunder of exploding bombs from a B-52 Arc Light strike?

Meeting!

Or else I'll stomp orf.

Orf is poshspeak for off.

Breathe deep.

Close eyes.

We are on a journey. We are feeling relaxed.

We are flying out over Key West, The Hotel Saint Christopher, the jungle ...

Welcome Lady CC. Want to go look in a jar?

Uh oh.

My stomping orf was no deterrent.

The meeting crashes to earth.

I have curly lines coming out of my head like they do in cartoons when they've had a knock on the head.

Darrell, Set Director is peering over me, with a jar.

We could be still in the Bungled Jungle but I'm not sure.

The jar! Not the jar! Don't open the lid.

Every thought you've ever had is stored in that jar, in zombie form.

I don't know what that means. I just said it to Darrell. It was a spontaneous happening.

(And now I have to now go into what is sometimes known as my real life )

When I return to this journal, I shall come bearing fire extinguishers and maps of hopeful things.

That lid was jiggling a little...would you like some heart-shaped Bodhi cookies to go with the chocolate parrots?

May I suggest a short nap under the Bodhi tree? I know things have been stressful for real people lately. Sometimes a nap puts things in perspective...

Boss! look at the symbols carved over the structure's entrance...I think it's written in Klingon

poH 'oH Huch

My universal hand-held translator returns "The Time is Money".

I think the whole structure might be an abandoned Klingon time machine left here centuries ago by Klingon raiders.

(Jungle drums stop abruptly)

the idea of planting clematis around the train station was that the vines would climb the walls.

Fortunately, the turkey vultures will not eat the clematis.

No worries..the clematis would not have survived the climate anyway.

Hey boss...I was reading my Hitchhikers Guide and there's stuff about Buddha and what he learned napping the Bohdi Tree...the article is A195626...here's a quote:

Buddha held that there is no security anywhere. 'We are all subject to birth, sickness, old age and death, and without an awareness of death, life can only be lived on a shallow level,' he said. 'Suffering begins from basic bewilderment. From that fundamental of not knowing who or what we are, we base perceptions on an idea of ourselves as a permanent entity.' Buddha saw the end of suffering as enlightenment or Nirvana.

There's a simple explanation, Darrell.

You know how you really liked the song "Christmas in Cambodia" and then one day you wake up in a hotel in Phnom Penh, on Christmas Morning? That doesn't just happen...that was arranged...we're living in sort of a TV series and nothing happens without a reason.