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

Hi,

There are a number of things I wanted to say so I've posted them as a message.

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Firstly, thanks for your review of The Spider Lady story. I did post a reply but I'm not sure if you have seen it.

Here’s a copy in case you missed it…

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I'm so sorry I haven’t replied to your comments earlier. I'm new to the site and thought that critiques would appear in my conversations list.

Re the “Spiders” - visualisation of Snakes or Bugs is a symptom of Delirium Tremens, which occurs when an alcoholic abstains from drinking.

From your remark I will consider making the point more strongly in the final paragraphs.

Thanks again for taking the time to read and comment on the piece.

I will try to return the compliment soon.

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I had a look at your life story, “My Funny Valentine ” and I agree with the sentiments expressed.

Mind you I did read somewhere that the best way to make a lady laugh is to give her a couple of test tickles. (I stole that from a birthday card ).

This reminds me, in my experience ladies tend to laugh when I get undressed. Is that a good thing, do you think?

I didn’t quite follow the arguments of one of your respondents, as I'm not sure what reproductive organs have to do with writing. Perhaps I should write under the pseudonym “Natasha” to confuse him. I think I would like that. I'm sure there’s no law against a 6’ 2” bearded monster called Natasha… is there?

I case you’re wondering, though I like “Moulin Rouge”, it’s mainly the bits with Nicole Kidman that induce heavy breathing.

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I've just read “Mine's a Carlsberg...”, and I loved that too.

Have you considered doing a “Penjen” diary for publication?

==========================

Are you preparing an entry for the “End of Story” competition?

Which brings me to my last point, could I ask a small favour, well size 16 actually.

I've drafted a couple of “End of Story” stories and I can’t decide which is best. (We are only allowed to send one).

Would you have time to say which you thought was the best?

Please, please, if you are busy, please say “No”. I won’t be offended in the slightest.



Regards,

Thoth…

Alias Mike.

Hi there Mike/Thoth,

I did receive your thanks for the 'Spider' crit, (and also likewise to you for your comments on my work, cheers). Sorry I didn't reply back. I enjoyed your explanation. AND, the good news is that I still recall your story without having to go back and check - comforting sign that!

Little Pointer: In the throws of a future strip-tease; just grin and bare it. You're much better keeping abreast of the situation than making a tit of yourself. Should go down, down real well. As they say: keep up the hard work and good luck!
(NB: Replacing the 'L' with a 'F' is optional).
I do confess, I do digress in the unneccesary rant of social undress...

END OF STORY:
Wish I'd time to enter.
Snowed under with other work so unable to attempt. My nature of work is swamped with reading, selling, lending and reviewing books where the luxury of a creative crafty spell is scarcely scorching the tips. I sneak into this site regularly for a little light relief and have become a little addicted, yet enjoying the fun and the talent. At least it keeps me away from the telly and walking the dog. Poor dog, though.

ANYWAY, I have already downloaded all the eight stories to date. Haven't read a single one as yet! Always meaning to, then you come along and force me to reconsider! Shucks!
And I will, as you put it so sweetly sincere!
I'm a bit pushed this week, (have about 10 books to review by Thurs am), but will definitely have a look and comment by end of w'end. Deadline is 31st May, right?
I will try to be objective and honest and, if I feel that any feedback will be of help, whether as a correction or criticism, whether good or bad, then I feel that I have contributed. I will always return the favour if someone has bothered to remark on mine.
I appreciate honesty and directness and feel that it is my return favour to justify the same credit to whoever when due. I like what I've read of yours to date and will be continuing to read and will respond in a way that is sincere and genuine, within reason! So let's get the party started! I only hope that my view will aid and not hinder. Afterall, it's the general reader that pivots success on a particular writer and not marketing ploys, big whack publishers and the like

Will you be posting them as works or in the review circle? Alternatively, you can send them via this thread for a more private reading? Either way I will comply. Just give us a shout. I won't really be on site tonight, but then again I might nip back if get fecked off doing stuff that I'm meant/have to be doing!

So, fire away!

PenJen

PS: Do you REALLY have size 16 feet?

Ok here they are…

Firstly thanks a million for looking at these. I noticed that you review books and stuff and as a tyro at this litter r t lark your advice will be highly valued.

If you find you don't have time please say so.



Don’t worry too much about the speeling, and grammar or puncture marks. I know a lady who does and she puts me right in that department. But if you see some glaring typos feel free to comment.

=========

A very quick précis of Alexei Sayle’s tale – in case you don’t have time to read it.

Rory and Janet let Byron and Danuta, (a Croatian lady) use their spare room. To get rid of them Rory invents another guest, Katherine Walker. Byron leaves luggage in spare room so Rory has to make it look as though Katherine is living there.

Alexei's Teaser…

When Rory’s irritating friends Byron and Danuta overstay their welcome, he invents a fictional lodger to get rid of them. But in the process of imitating Katherine Walker he gets drawn into a fantasy world which takes over his daily life. Has Rory’s invented woman become an obsession? And what happens when his friends insist on meeting her? a tale of social embarrassment, overstayed welcomes and a plan which has gone too far.


=============================
Now my bit................


*****

Time passed and Rory realised Katherine’s room couldn’t remain static. It had to live and breathe, the looks and smells of the place needed to change day by day. It needed things heterosexual males couldn’t fathom… it needed girly stuff.

Over the next month he added a pot plant, a feng-shui book, a bowl of potpourri. He bought a blond wig and left hairs on the brush, he installed a coffee machine. He laid in a stock of coffee, a mix of Arabica and Robusta beans, bought some organic sugar and… a cuddly toy.

Byron took to making daily calls for his cigarettes, and Rory was finding it hard to fend his continual questions. He was also starting resent Byron’s intrusion into Katherine’s life.

“How come Katherine’s never here, what’s she do all the time”, asked Byron?

Rory improvised, “She’s involved with an animal group, err, Send Animals Home, that’s it, Sah, it’s new, so she won’t be around much, not till it’s up and running. In fact she told me she won’t have any spare time for quite a while.”

“Sah? Never heard of it.”

“Yeah, they haven’t got their act together yet.”

“What’d they do?”

“They send animals back their own countries. They think it’s traumatic for them to be away from their homes, tigers to Asia, lions to Africa, echidnas to err, Belgium, and the like.”

“Interesting”, said Byron looking pensive.

*****
Meanwhile Danuta was sick of Katherine; the skinny arsed bitch was taking over Byron’s life. She thought he was like a ram sniffing out a ewe on heat. Back in her home village she was known to have a way with problems, they called her ‘The Trouble-Shooter’. When Byron left to fetch yet another pack of Monkey Priest, she set out to find a gun dealer. She found one in a gay pub appropriately called, “The Jolly Roger”. He guaranteed fast delivery, and the next morning her Dragunov Sniper's Rifle arrived from his warehouse, courtesy of DHL.

As Katherine hadn’t had a boyfriend for so long Rory decided her taboo against sex toys would have to go. He’d never been in a sex shop before and he found the choice bewildering. There were, up and downers, jelly effect, wood effect, marble effect, vibrating eggs, silent runners, multi-speed remote controlled ones, some with glow in the dark buttons and one that intrigued Rory with the blurb, “A vibrator so good it speaks for itself”.

The blue, shaven-headed, alien behind the counter displayed as much life as a museum exhibit. She had so many piercings Rory thought she’d contracted some obscure chromium based acne. A sadistic idea flashed thought his mind. He pictured a colossal magnet in the room above, connected to a button on the counter which customers could press to get the zombie’s attention. He visualised a fantastic scene of nose rings and tongue studs being ripped from flesh. In the end he choose an “Ebony Bouncy Bunny (petite); batteries not included”.

Saturday morning came and Rory missed the radio announcement about a flock of ostriches roaming the M1. Apparently someone from a group called Sah had released them. At his house in Bedford the Right Honourable Joseph Parrot MP, junior minister for floods, heard the broadcast and was totally pissed by it. He’d arranged to be ‘home alone’ and his assistant, Hannah, was heading his way, or she would have been if she wasn’t stuck behind a flock of f***ing birds. What’s the use of power, he figured, if you can’t use it, so he phoned GCHQ and ordered the duty officer to monitor calls about ostriches and a new terror group called Sah.

Over the next hour the computers flagged two calls, one by an MP, who masturbated while someone called Hannah talked dirty, and another which was picked up by an answer phone. The caller told how he’d set the ostriches free, and Katherine and Sah should take him seriously. Seconds later Rory’s address was passed to the Rapid Antiterrorism Group.

Back in London Jenny found the vibrator’s wrapping and decided she’d had enough of Rory’s fixation. She ignored the ringing phone and went to find him.

“What the f**k’s happening Rory?”

“Nothing, why?”

“What do you mean nothing? Do you know what happened last night? Last night I cooked your favourite meal, I said we could do that funny thing you like. And what did you do? You went out and bought a bloody dildo for Katherine. You’re f**king obsessed!” she said, and stormed off to the kitchen.

When she spotted Katherine’s sugar bowl she flipped, suddenly millions of Jenny’s neurons began forming strange and chaotic patterns. Feeling unusually calm she took a sachet of rat poison from under the sink and mixed it with the sugar. “That’ll fix you, you bitch”, she said, and went out to buy some shoes.

It took twenty minutes for the RAG team to arrive, and in their jargon they were ‘tooled up’ and ready to ‘kick arse’. They approached the flat cautiously, edging along the wall, like frogs climbing a fish tank. Constable Boyd was on point and he was really disappointed to find the door open. He liked smashing doors.

Meanwhile Rory was pondering the prosaic question of where to leave the ‘Bunny’. According to tradition the correct place was in the bedside cabinet, the one nearest the door. But for Byron’s benefit it had to be visible. As Rory mused he put the wig on and sipped a black coffee, made with lots of sugar, just as Katherine liked.

A hundred yards away Danuta focused the scope’s crosshairs on the longhaired silhouette, and fired. At the same instant Rory realised he wasn’t alone and jumped to his feet, turning Danuta’s headshot into a shoulder wound. Fortunately the wound wasn’t deadly; equally fortunately Rory hadn’t drunk enough coffee for the poison to kill him. However the excessive blood loss due to the poison’s anticoagulant would be terminal; though fate had other plans for Rory.

Just as Danuta’s shot struck, Sergeant Daniels crashed into the room. He heard the shot, saw Rory spin round and spotted something black and threatening in his hand. The Heckler & Koch MP5 was set for a three shot burst. Thwack, thwack, thwack it went, like a flatulent sumo wrestler. Rory just had time to look surprised as he slumped to the floor. Dan walked over, saw the vibrator and swore, “Shit, where’s the ‘Emergency Gun’?”

Someone handed him a small revolver. He took the ‘Bunny’ from Rory’s hand, replaced it with the gun and holding Rory’s finger on the trigger fired a shot into the wall.

Epilogue

After Rory’s death Jenny studied to become a feng-shui practitioner. She also invested in an ebony bouncy bunny (large) and lived happily ever after.

Byron and Danuta moved to Laos to start a Latin-American dance school.

Following five years of therapy and ridicule, Sergeant Dan Dildo, as he came to be known, took the express way down from the post office tower.

All the ostriches were recovered, save for one that disappeared after wandering into a travellers’ camp.



- fin -


Second story to follow...

Mike,

Leave this with me. Have started to read... I like.... I HAVE to do some work now but I promise I'll get back to you on this one tomorrow night. OK?

Jen

The second one.

Dryad – Joanne Harris.

Joanne’s teaser.

An unhappy marriage, a lonely woman, and a very unusual love affair – with a tree. But is the woman mad, or misunderstood, and what happens when her husband realises something is wrong?

Quick Précis

Josephine is in love with a tree and spends her days drawing it.
Her husband had just discovered she has a lover… (tree).
She’s telling her story to Laura who is also in an unhappy marriage.


Starts with Laura reiterating what Josephine told her.
That is this is what Josephine said…


==============================
My bit...................


His rage was tangible, it was an insanity that was about to break in an orgasm of violence. His breathing was coming in convulsive gasps; his unblinking stare never left my face. “Who is it?” he snarled again.

I realised with absolute certainty he was going to kill me. I edged back towards the door. When I retreated Stan advanced, step by step we moved like synchronised dancers. He stooped to reach into his tool kit and I saw the glint of metal in his hand. I turned and ran, I ran to the only friend and protector I had, I ran to The Beech.

I could sense Stanley getting nearer, and I had one overwhelming thought, that was to reach my tree. Just as my hands scraped the roughness of his bark I heard a symphony noises, a collage of sounds, there was a cracking whip, a rusty hinge, the howl of the wind and a gasp from Stan. When I turned round he was lying on his back with the handle of a chisel sticking from his chest. He had tripped and stabbed himself when he fell. You can still see the twist of root which snagged his foot.

The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death. Luckily for us he was well insured - but you would expect that of Stanley wouldn’t you?

Twenty years ago Daniel emigrated to Australia, I think he still blames me for his father’s death, we exchange Christmas and birthday cards but we don’t have much contact. That’s why I arranged to transfer this corner of our garden to the botanical society; I thought it would be safer for The Beech - in case anything should happen to me.


*****

While she had been talking I couldn’t help feeling simultaneously mesmerised and embarrassed, I had a sense of being a voyeur, of spying into her life.

The rain had stopped and she started to pack her things, “So now you know it all my dear”, she said, “But tell me one thing, may I know your name, mine’s Josephine Clark?”

“Laura Walcott”, I told her.

“Laura Walcott, and you live close by?”

“Yes, in the old vicarage.”

“Well it’s been wonderful talking to you Laura.”, and with that she left.

*****

The next time I went to the gardens it was with baby Chloe and I was eager to show her off Josephine, but strangely her bench was empty. Over the following months it remained empty and the memory of that rainy afternoon dissolved like last year’s fallen leaves.

Six years passed and I had all but forgotten Josephine, when a solicitor’s letter arrived. I learnt that soon after our meeting she had suffered a massive stroke, and since then she’d been confined to nursing home. I felt my heart rend whenever I imagined her imprisoned mind dreaming of her Beech. To my great surprise I read that she had bequeathed me her drawings. There are ten boxes of them, every one meticulously dated, some with notes such as, “Today he looked happy”. David calls them junk and wants me to take them to the tip, but to me they are priceless, they’re a pictorial love story lasting fifty years.

The letter arrived too late for me to attend the funeral, but I was in time to see her ashes interred. And life had two more indignities to throw at Josephine – her last request was that her ashes should be spread under her tree - but due to some ludicrous by-law this was denied her, and as the priest droned his ritual I noticed they had chosen a wooden casket.

Six months later, while I was sitting by The Beech, I discovered some fallen twigs and on a whim decided to take them to Josephine’s grave. I knew which niche was hers by the named plaques to either side. It angered me to see Josephine condemned to lay under an anonymous slab with a just a few scattered twigs for company - she ought to rest with her lover.

The cruelty of this injustice just wouldn’t go away; it simmered and boiled until I could stand it no longer. So a week later I returned to the cemetery armed with a trowel and a Tupperware box. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, and my heart raced at a thousand beats a minute. When I was sure no one was around I levered up the slab and took the casket. I emptied the ashes into the box and put everything back in place. That evening I went to The Beech and dug a hole amongst its roots to receive her remains. I would have liked to have marked the spot with a stone, but as that wasn’t possible I arranged for a metal bench to replace the wooden one.

*****

It’s been fifteen years since my Burke and Hare escapade, and it won’t be long before Jodie, my darling second daughter, will be off to university. Soon I’ll have the big question to answer, the one I've postponed since that wet afternoon. Should I stay in my comfortable marriage, for that’s what it’s become – comfortable, a marriage of convenience - or should I choose freedom? It’s not that David’s been a bad husband; he’s provided and cared for us in his way, but what would freedom mean? Would it mean years of madness then burial under an unmarked slab? Is madness the price of freedom? Or was Josephine’s and The Beech’s love real and might there be a life of passion and purpose waiting for me?

Recently I've taken to visiting The Beech to see if I can read his words as Josephine did. I have always believed she sensed my inner struggle all those years ago; and somehow she tried to help me find an answer. I don’t know what I expected; perhaps branches shaping words, or an ethereal sense of communication. Whatever it was I didn’t find it.

Since I could find no solution in the gardens maybe the answer lay in Josephine’s drawings. I spent a month studying the pictures; they were exquisitely images. Like a master of life drawing, with every loving line Josephine had captured the exterior beauty while revealing the strength beneath. But I had begun to doubt what happened between her and The Beech was genuine, and if it wasn’t, would freedom lead me to the same folly? Then, just as I was about to give up I spotted something.

Nine a.m. the next morning I was outside the library, desperately impatient to unearth copies of our local paper. Eventually I found the article I was searching for in the 2nd of September 1939 edition. The first pages were full of Germany’s invasion of Poland, but in a small note on page five was the report of the tragic death of a local carpenter, who fell and accidentally stabbed himself.

I didn’t need to re-examine the pictures, I already new that date. The evidence was incontrovertible, only on the drawings after Mr Clark’s death was the knot of roots where he tripped visible, on the drawings prior to that, the ground was flat.



- fin -

Any preference… ?

Which do you think is the best?