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

Hi Les, sorry to be so demanding of you but I agree with you that foxes/dogs could be better and Im at a loss as to how to remedy it! Im not going to read it for a week and then see what I come up with when I look at it again but would very much like your opinion in the mean time....thanks for taking the time to get back to me in the first place! Cheers, Amy Ochsterboxter.
ps...I really enjoyed writing Jock Talk even if Im giving us a bad rep!!
Take care!

I have polished a part of your story in the way I have to polish my own. The first draft, the first flush of writing is the fun. The work comes with the rewrite. I am no expert, my polish can be polished even more and by you I hope when you see what it entails and I trust you will from what the little I have done. Demonstration is better than explanation!

He turned this thing in his hands, around and around, tracing its sharp edge against his skin. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw that his face was etched with bloodless scratches. He smiled. For hours, he worked on his next move: Where to go, what to do? He crossed to the window and checked outside. The glass was cool as he pressed his face against it; his breath clouding the pane. He wiped it with his sleeve, smearing the dirt and blood, making a pattern from which he could not tear his eyes. Try as he might, he failed. He told himself again, that this was yet another failure on his part: “B*****d that you are and always will be… Just do it! Just do it!"
So there he stood, staring at the window, with all that shit outside and his breath hitching in his chest, while he stood and stood; and watched… and waited.


That evening he had taken a train to a place he didn’t know. A quiet town, where unknown, he had walked through unknown streets. The air was sharp. It made him think of the blade in his pocket. He felt safer knowing it was there. It was then he saw a fox skirting the pavement, sniffing the street for the dogs that had been. He followed and thought of what to do next. The fox kept turning and watching him. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up and he finally stopped. His inner voice whispered to him; told him that he knew what to do. Am I crying now? He thought. In that moment, the fox had disappeared!

He carried on following the way he thought it might have gone: treading the wet pavements with sinister intent, until he reached a shop, with all its windows blazing in the dark. He went in and stood before the counter, trying to form words that wouldn’t come. It was the noise and the lights. They were too loud and bright. His head filled with pain when he tried to speak. The man at the counter was watching him, checking him and looking too deeply into his eyes, “Speak up mate. I can’t hear you.” prompted the man, “What do you want?”
It sounded like dogs, barking. Not words, only barking had issued from the man. Scared, he turned and ran back out into the night.


The echoes of his running faded into silence, when, out of breath, he stopped for he had seen one of them coming towards him: These b******s are everywhere. He thought. Although the man coming towards him had his head down and his face was hidden, he knew it was one of them. With their being so like us, it is hard to tell, but their sharp teeth and their smell give them away, every time. Then, quick as that, his blade bites into the dog man. Quick, he thought, because he had to get him, before get he got him. So f*****g get him, quick.
The man went down and seeing the look on his face, he couldn’t stop. The screaming gave him power. It turned his legs and arms into steel and nothing; nothing could stop him! When it was over, he cried.


Ignoring the tears and the blood, he left the dog man lying and walked away with the knife still in his hand, mindlessly wiping the blade on his trouser leg as he distanced himself from the scene. The darkness and the silence calmed him and he smiled. By then he was breathing deeply with easy breaths and the thought of buying a beer entered his mind. He was thirsty.



He had not felt this calm in a long time. No-one knew him here. He was safe. He had dispatched a dog-man, but others would come. They were many, but he had his knife to protect him and his knife was quick. He knew that for a fact and it made him stronger. He followed the smells and the lights. People went by him without a second look. He noted them as they passed. IN their thoughts, they called him hero for what he had done; for how he had saved them. Those laughing girls were laughing because they loved him and he could, if he wanted to, have his pick of the best of them. This cheered him on. He was running again and the air around him, still so sharp, pulled him through these streets as if he were a king.

All the best,

Les.