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

Laying back in her bower, thinking of England´s great glories, she chose this time Robert Burton. Mr Burton would be, as always, in his library, reading or writing his Melancholies. She would be her discreet, kind and silent assistant.
She left the cup on his table and read aloud from his writing: -"Sed amor, sed ineffrenata libido, quid castum in terris intentaque reliquit?*, Mr Burton looked at her bright eyes amazed.





*But love, unbridled passion, leaves nothing on earth untempted, nothing chaste?

Jeff and Mike had overstayed their welcome, leaving the party much too late and with too much liquor in their bellies to find their way home, which explains why they now found themselves, the next morning, in the middle of nowhere, reading a glum sign that said, "You are in Dystopia, and it is too late to go back."

"Well," Jeff reasoned, rubbing his eyes, "even in Dystopia there must be *something* that's not too terribly bad."

It certainly began to look that way, as the Dystopia Public Library was modern and up to date and well-organized--until Mike noticed the dead princess whose corpse had been hidden behind the books on the Mystery Story shelf.

There was a free concert in the park, and that was pretty good, even if the performers were all frogs, and there was a mandatory pie-tasting session which featured numerous different kinds of fly
fillings.

Jeff finally found something that seemed too good to be true--a drinking contest--until, halfway through it, he read the fine print and realized that the first prize was two weeks in Hell.

I am not a criminal, so the Government's plan to draw up a database, collecting biometric details, and the issuing of a identity pass should hold no fears for me.
I simply sell ice-cream from the van my Uncle Luigi bought for me.
Now Uncle says he is getting to old to travel to Sicily.
He says it is a family thing; a family thing!
He wants me to take over the business, and has warned me about the Home Office plans.

He sat at the keyboard feeling foolish because his befuddled brain had mistaken five sentences to be five lines, which he had managed easily enough. "I wonder", he thought, "if stream of consciousness type writing would allow you to fill several pages with one sentence?" As a man who, in his social life, was seldom able to string enough words together to make one recognisable sentence, how was he to manage 'five' sentences.
Would four sentences be enough then?
Better not risk it.

Charles Dickens, sitting at his desk wishing he was a real writer, was considering whether a conditional adjectival clause would be the best form to use when putting out this idea of his about of a time in history when things were both better and worse than they had ever been before, when, scratching his left ear with his right forefinger, he suddenly noticed that a cat had come the the open window just as the first sentence of his latest book was starting to solidify in his remarkable brain.
"Puss Puss", he called.
"Meow!".
"Puss?".
"Meow?".

Have you always made typos?
Well not so far as I can remember.
How far back can you remember?
Five minutes.
I see.

Late at night, I was exhausted and bleary-eyed from poring over musty old books with small print, when the wind blew a window open, and in came one of those big black birds that live on carrion.

I was going to shoo the big pest away so I could get back to my depressing reading, but before I could do this, the dratted thing said "Nevermore!"

"Oh, great!" I said under my breath, "so now a talking bird with horriblely bad-smelling breath has escaped from the nearest sideshow, and is foraging for handouts in my neighborhood, and I'll never get any reading done!"

The bird heard me, though, and surprised me by replying in very articulate English, "Excuse me, sir, the mistake is mine, for I was expecting to find a Mr. Poe here, a most pessimistic fellow whom I enjoyed discussing doom and gloom with."

It seemed a shame to silence this exquisite-talking creature forever, but I was very hungry, and I must say he tasted great after stewing a couple hours with some basil, a little thyme, a teaspoon of curry, and plenty of caramelized onions and mushrooms.

Reposted from Post1:
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I'd like to see what we can do with a FIVE SENTENCE LIMIT. Other guidelines:

1. They should make sense
2. They don't have to be 'proper' sentences with a verb.
3. We can rethink and alter things later, esp. the no. of sentences, if five is too restrictive. But I want it snappy and short.
4. No long run-on sntences ...and...,...and..., please, even though James Joyce and Jack Kerouac used them extensively - so I'm not saying they're necessarily wrong, just not right for this game.
5. It's no more than a game. Bad shorts are quite acceptable.
6. No poetry please!
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Note: The five sentences limit is a limit, not a requirement.

Some people are drifting towards breaking Rule 4. I already suggested a change to ten sentences if five is too restrictive. This can be discussed and perhaps changed, as can any rule - on the SHORT SHORTS DISCUSSION thread.

Fluffy's latest seemed OK to me, in that the sentences were naturally long, and not forced. This is not a criticism of Fluffy.

Look at the models of different sentence numbers in Post 1, or the model of five short sentences a couple of posts ago by frankandsense if you need further guidance.

I don't enjoy this sort of jobsworthing. Neither do I want to spend my time policeing or jobsworthing the whole thread.

Replies on the Discussion thread please.

Jabs.

She called me WHAT?

Siting down drinking a cup of tea. Wondering what I should write about. Then I looked out and see 12 helicopters fly over head. Neighbours and passerbys stop and watch too. The reason for the flypast is to celebrate 100 years of the Naval airfleet.

I'm drinking clabberberry tea in my leafy aerie. Further down the canyon, clouds of dust are being kicked up by some very large, destructive creature.

No, no, please don't destroy Gondrick's castle!

There is no further need for me to stay in this place, as the most beautiful and interesting part of it lies in smoldering ruins.

I wonder if my cousin Shegundula in Shangri-La has a spare room that I can stay in until I get my bearings....

Alone in the big house, she decided to do some exploring.No one had said she couldn’t, after all. She opened the door of her room and stepped into the corridor. Picked the lock of the room at the other end of the corridor, the one she had definitely been forbidden to enter. The room was empty, the burglar alarm went off.

Farmer McGregor had been chasing him for what seemed like an eternity, but at last the sounds of pursuit died down. Out of breath and totally spent, he crawled inside a hollow tree to rest. There was a short passageway leading to a door, which gave into a room where a little blond girl was playing cards with a man in a top hat and a woman with a battered crown. The little girl seemed to know who he was, because she turned and said, "You would not *believe* the kind of day I've had, Albion!"

He went to the doctor with a banana and custard in one ear and some cake and raspberry rum jelly in the other. " I'm a trifle deaf," he said.

She was a great pool player. She always wore unusual colour combinations but seemed ahead of fashion for all that. Told me she got most of it by shop lifting in town. Twenty six years old she was. I say was, because she was burned to death in a fire in her flat, and we don't know how to cope with the news.

This is the smoking room where you can sit and talk.
This is our kitchen where we keep our mugs and can make tea.
This is the common room, and this is Jim.

Who was that Jim, one of the doctors?
No, that's Bert,our axe murderer.

A man named Tod wanted to write a story. He had little ink and only an old receipt to write on. So, he wrote a tiny story. This is it.

I haven't always been a dragon. Once I was just a bad boy.
Mummy let me play with her scales. I found a fork in the drawer. Daddy had a cigarette lighter.

The screen door opened with a bang, kicking up such a cloud
of dust that Miss Muriel's chickens scattered in all directions.
Out came Miss Muriel herself, cradling a squirming baby dolphin
against her pregnant belly. "I'm crazy, not eccentric!" she was
screaming into her cellphone at Tom Wootle, her three-headed
agent from another galaxy.

In the next field, cow detective Myrna Yates took note of the commotion and then resumed her investigation of Pearly Oinkster's tragic and suspicious death.

AFTER DISCUSSION, RULE 3 HAS BEEN SHARPENED. FROM NOW ON LONGER SENTENCES WILL BE ALLOWED, PROVIDED THEY'RE NOT SIMPLY RUN-ON SENTENCES TRYING TO EVADE THE RULES.....,.........,....................,........

Actually, looking at the original rule, genuine long sentences were allowed from the start!
Sorry -

Jabs