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

Chapter 4

The mourners at Uncle Floyd's funeral wept buckets of tears during a slide show that was cobbled together from photos of his life. It wasn't clear whether some of the scenes were provoking tears of sorrow or fright, however. The polar bears that seemed about to maul Uncle Floyd looked pretty scary, all in all! Floyd's children were cute as buttons in the early pictures, and they continued to look better and better. I found myself weeping from envy, thinking that the good genes never got to my end of the gene pool. But, I reflected later, it's not hard to look good when you're young, as my kids did. Looking good at Uncle Floyd's age was trickier. My real envy was that, with thirty more years under his belt, Floyd had looked younger than me!

Klondike O'Leary was the life of the wake, so to speak. It amazed me how well he hid his sorrow as he sampled rich pastries and scarfed down copious quantities of the mulled wine that Floyd's daughter had provided. I saw her shaking her head as she watched him guzzle it. Who got to be ninety with an undiminished capacity for holding one's liquor?

Two days later I sat at my breakfast table waiting to be picked up for my ride to the airport. My bags were waiting at the door, I had made sure all the dishes were washed, the hot water turned off, and the refrigerator empty of anything that would go bad if I didn't get back soon -- or at all.

Since the funeral, I had spent the better part of my time searching the Internet for info about the island I was soon to get up close and personal with. Little was known about Uninhabited Volcanic Island Number 115. Even the photos taken from communications satellites were often blurry due to clouds that tended to hang around the island's central volcanic cone. When there were no clouds in the way, there was a greenish tinge to the cone, thought to be caused by trees that grew on the slopes. The absence of a crater was attributed to eons of erosion that had backfilled the hole. The island around the cone was unremarkable, sort of a generic overgrown jungle ringed by a sandy beach.

This would have begged the question as to why the island had gone undiscovered for so long, had it not been for sharp, jagged rocks poking out of the sea all around the isle, and a high-velocity vortex ringing the rocks. Ships that were able to brave the current of the vortex would need to be very lucky to avoid the jagged rocks. I crossed my fingers, hoping that the wheelchair-bound captain with the bad heart would have some tricks up her sleeve for getting through to the island where all other ships had failed.

I was jolted out of my reveries by the loud sound of a motorcycle pulling up in front of the house.

I put my coffee cup down and headed for the front door, where I beheld a young man in a blue-striped button-down shirt, a blue sweater vest, a pair of white chinos and a motorcycle jacket. He had the fresh-scrubbed face of a college undergraduate and the toned body of someone who liked to spend time in a gym or pool. My flabby arms would be of little use against his toned ones, but I was resolved to resist a ride on that deathtrap bike of his. Well, his eager face looked good-natured enough. Maybe he would yield to my wishes.....

[Amy P]

Paul, I am looking forward in reading the next chapters.

White trousers and a death trap? Hope this young man gets eaten by a polar bear or three!

He's a preppy who's never been on a motorcycle before.

One of Uncle Floyd's sinister jokes, manipulated form beyond the grave.