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

As the Chinese poet-drinker Li Po gazed up from his boat at the silvery moon, the stars in happy chorus appeared to him to sing out once more their complete approval at his own songs of drunken laughter.

"Again my cup is full of wine!" he exhorted. "And again I can see in my wine the reflection of all the night with it's glittering stars, glittering the way the moon does mirrored on the lake!"

And as the boat tossed gently to and fro, Li Po whistled out loud a tune - a tune that seemed to have scurried up to him from under the rushes and out of the reeds - a tune that might have drifted along across the water and flown into his ear like a tiny hummingbird whispering all it's secrets. He continued to whistle until his whistling turned to song and then the song gave way again to laughter. How full and erratic and loud and fit to burst was the heart that still triumphed in his breast.

"What a life! What a life!", he cried out, "What a stupid, absurd thing it is. Am I." And once again a song danced out of his grape-stained lips.

As the warm evening air carried aloft its delightful music, Li Po roused himself enough from his reverie to recall the dream he'd had the night before and thus the reason why, in the first place, he had the prescient inkling to row his boat out all alone at dusk into the heart of this old blue lake.

He continued to sing, but now with purpose. And after a while, out of the silvery night, a magnificent kingfisher appeared, all its colours sparkling, caught in a moonbeam. The bird landed upon the boat and stood at the poet's feet, gently holding in its bill a firefly so bright and incandescent that Li Po's face lit up as if he were sat by the hearth of a fire. After a pause, its tail still bobbing, the Kingfisher let go of the firefly leaving it to hover and buzz around the poet drinker's smiling head.

Whoosh! A flash of silver and the kingfisher was gone and still the firefly hummed in the air. All was quiet save the golden insect with its precious glow. Then, its mind made up, or so it seemed, it flew straight into the lake - a tiny golden dart, fizzing deep into the water like brilliant magnesium, leaving behind in its wake a trail of crystal bubbles. Down it went until it finally disappeared, and all became calm once again.

Li Po shuffled a little, got up and peered over the edge of his boat. Silver ripples lapped the hull as he stared into the darkness of the water. Almost imperceptibly at first, a faint glow appeared to sway and blur deep beneath the surface of the lake. Brighter it became but distant too it remained for it was deep, deep down. While Li Po fixed his gaze on the tiny golden spot below, he scrabbled around in his bag for a hook and a line. Once found, he untangled the line and coiled it in a loose loop around his arm. Attaching a lead weight and the little hook to its end he took aim at this shimmering target deep in the water. Throwing the line from his hand he watched it unravel. The lead broke the surface of the water and slowly, lazily it sank to the bottom of the lake.

Li Po sat down and waited. Indeed he waited for a long, long time, chugging all the while on his pipe and pouring himself wine from a flask. And still he waited, staring occasionally down at the glow at the bottom of the water. Sometimes it was bright. Sometimes it was dim. And sometimes it all but disappeared. But still he waited, a faint grin on his happy, leathery face.

Suddenly the line sprung taut - a shower of tiny droplets falling down upon the water's surface briefly twinkling by the moon like little precious gems. From the poet's hand to the surface of the lake the fishing line was tense, straight and quivering. Li Po, now aroused from his thoughts, pulled hard at the line and drew it up with both hands onto the boat. After many moments the whole of the line was onboard and, flapping violently and comically at the end of the hook, was a very big, very fat fish.

Li Po wasted no time at all in removing the hook. Holding the fish he squeezed it like a purse, forcing open its mouth and from its mouth he pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment paper. No sooner was this done did he let go of the fish which flew out of the poets hand back into the water. Oblivious, Li Po hastily donned a battered pair of spectacles and with massive concentration he nervously, yet carefully unraveled the wet and withered document. And this is what it said:

"Li Po, you're a drunken f**king idiot."

Li Po slowly raised his head as a great wonder dawned upon him. He unhooked his spectacles and the arms that had raised the paper to his weary eyes now fell down again against his sides. And then he began to howl with laughter. Li Po was beside himself. The tears ran down his face. He bellowed and guffawed and roared and sobbed and wailed and groaned in absolute joy. In absolute laughter. Really, it's impossible to describe just how funny it all was. Supporting himself by holding on to the side of the boat to steady his legs, he giggled helplessly. He tried to regain his composure but the more effort he made the more hilarious everything became. This was indeed the moment of revelation he had long since stopped looking for. All the striving after everything, all the self-imposed exile and loneliness and the terrible, insatiable thirst to do exactly the right thing and to know and to know and to know! And for what? To what end? For what purpose?

Well now he knew. He couldn't quite articulate it with words but he knew deep in his heart that this life of difficulty, with all its yearning, desire and ceaseless striving, that all this was good and necessary in order to help us learn the knack of listening, deep down into the very soul of things, to life's great cosmic joke. Li Po finally seemed to give in to that which was shaking his own soul. It was as if all souls everywhere were reverberating at the same frequency, a magic conversation with the secrets of the world, the laughter of souls.

He stood up and stared at the moon with tears in his eyes. He stretched himself and spread his arms out wide and allowed himself to topple from the boat into the water. His body turned upside down and with a sudden splash of sound he fell into the lake face first. There was no struggle and there was no effort and very soon the poet's aged body had disappeared.

Apart from the gentle lapping of water against the swaying boat, there came again a great stillness to the night.

And then, just as before, and with a flash just as bright, the silvery kingfisher returned to perch itself upon the rim of the empty boat, it's eyes nervously bright with the moon. Moments later with a rush of movement up from the water appeared the brilliant firefly to hover and hum next to its friend.

And so the two remained, paying vigil, as the boat rocked and swayed upon the lake, their souls watching life at precisely the same frequency at which life was watching them. All was safe and still. All was truly peaceful. And yet, drifting with the mists across water, it was possible, if you knew just how to listen, to make out a soft strange, music - a music like no other, like night-secrets turned into melody and which rises out of hiding places from amongst the bent rushes and the swaying reeds, the rushes and reeds which keep a boundary between this world and the other.