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

I've said before that I haven't got many RL friends. Well, that's true enough, but on the other hand, I have a huge number of acquaintances. I like it that way. RL friends require time, effort and emotional input; they've really got to be worth it. Acquaintances come and go in a conveniently casual sort of way.

Whenever the walls start closing in, I take a bus into town and wait to bump into someone. It never takes long. Being unemployed, my acquaintances comprise the sort of people you find on benches and in doorways, or working behind the counters of bookshops and libraries, or sitting all day in the local pubs trying to stretch their giros across a drinking week. Even if I don't bump into someone I know, I'm generally approached by someone who has an interesting story to tell.

I met several of them on Friday. On entering the first pub on my round, a drunken Scottish accent came floating out of the gloom: "[Snailrind]! She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies! I haven't seen you in *ages*! What have you been *up* to? Something literary, I hope."

I've known this guy for about nine years, though in that time I've only managed to slip about four sentences between the rare pauses in his monologues. Let's call him Byron, since I'm pretty sure he believes himself to have been him in one of his past lives. He certainly dresses like him.

He had a breathtaking young American woman on his arm, whom he introduced as Artemis. She introduced herself as--well, as something more prosaic. She bought me a coffee. I liked her. So I sat with them for a bit, listening to Byron explaining how he had discovered the secret of alchemy (and trying to stay upwind of the enormous reefer with which he was distressing the bar staff), and then Artemis showed me a book of poetry written by another acquaintance of mine. This acquaintance has had to live with the epithet 'Captain Sheep's Head' for many years now, owing to an incident best left unspoken. I was pleased the guy had got himself together enough to publish a book, so Byron said he'd get hold of a copy for me.

"Where do you live?" He asked.

"I don't tell people where I live," I said. Gothly hates me bringing nutters home. They always do something unpredictable. (Which in my books makes them utterly predictable, but there you go.)

"Well, f'ck you!" shouted Byron. "F'CK YOU!"

I drank my coffee and waited for him to subside. Then I suggested we meet in his favourite cemetery. He was delighted by the idea. So this afternoon, I am going to meet a lunatic in a cemetery. This is what ennui does to a person.

Cemeteries are quite good places for thinking - generally being quiet because they are shunned by other people but having interesting places to sit and stare. They are not nearly as busy with vampires and zombies as film/TV might have you believe. I suppose there is the occasional lunatic around if you include the church/religious people - especially the ones suddenly pretending to like some recently deceased person and those who believe they are talking to the dead (or looking for the undead!).

Well, I went to the cemetery; Gothly didn't want to go, so I took along our Philosopher Friend for moral support, and in case Byron didn't turn up. This was probably a mistake, as Philosopher Friend is equally mad, wild-haired, sartorially eccentric, lascivious and verbose. Byron may have seen him as competition.

I sat with Philosopher Friend in the long grass and flowers beside a stone angel, and we gazed at the stunning view and the abundant wildlife. The sunshine was glorious. Philosopher Friend, who had drunk most of our cooking sherry before we left the house, got maudlin about his dead girlfriend. Beauty tends to do that to him.

Byron came striding down the footpath half an hour late, his knee boots polished to a high sheen, his peasant shirt Persil white against the greenery.

"Hallooo!" he called to me.

"Byron, we thought you weren't coming!" cried PF. "Where've you been, man?"

Byron spoke only to me: "it's *great* tae *see* ya! We've lost [Eros]! Artemis is looking for him, and [Kailash] has f'cked off to *God* knows where. Did ye notice those *huge* footprints on the way here, that looked like they'd been made by an *enormous* *hound*?"

I said, "I saw some duck prints."

"DUCK PRINTS! Do ye think I'm that stupid, that I can't tell the difference between a *duck* and a *werewolf*? *Anyway*, I'd better see where they've all *got* to."

And off he strode. That was the last we saw of him. But it was nice there in the sun, so we took our time getting back.

"They are not nearly as busy with vampires and zombies as film/TV might have you believe."

Round my way, they're pretty busy with people who at least *think* they are vampires, and with zombies suffering the effects of too many recreational pharmaceuticals. But it depends when you go; you meet them mainly on dates coinciding with Pagan festivals, especially Samhain.

There are some exceptionally beautiful cemeteries around here, so it's not really surprising. There's another one where I like to go and sit sometimes, though these days it's hard not to get maudlin there. I know too many dead people, and most of them are younger than me. That cemetery has an area for children's graves right by the gate, with Mickey Mouse headstones, and teddy bears between the pots of flowers. It's distressing--but more distressing are the children's graves which are never tended; little wooden crosses rotting in the grass. I never used to understand why people talk to gravestones, but I get it now.

I don't dare set foot in Graveyards or Cemetaries...

Distressing memories, or envy?

Well I think this bloke sounds annoying, is he worth the hassle?

Oh yes. My life would be very boring without characters such as him to colour my days. Besides, his girlfriend's very nice. I got a most apologetic phone call from her about our failure to meet up: her kid had fallen into a patch of nettles. She says she'd love to "hang out" with me. I'm not a "hanging out" sort of person--that would require reliability, after all--but I'll probably meet up with her again and talk about poetry.

I have learnt some reliability of late, but I do regret it sometimes!

Indeed. I've had a very nice life since I gave up on reliability.

'Distressing memories, or envy?'

Neither.
Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything.

I won't step inside a church or chapel because I so strongly feel it would be hypocritical, I will, however, step inside a gothic cathedral, because I always light a candle for all who have live and died.

There are some places that... there's a presence or power tha I can feel, I don't know if comes from them or it's somethin within me. But graveyards are places I won't walk, out of admiration or respect or fear or any combination of those... for that place, for the dead, for fear death herself.

You are entitled to an opinion, you know, Nyxkind.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'hypocritical'. D'you mind elaborating?

To me as an amateur naturalist, graveyards are places where life tends to be more than usually abundant. These days, though, the absence of the people commemorated on the stones gets to me. It's not the fact that their bodies are there in the ground: it's the fact that they, as people, are not there and what's left of them is nothing but ground.

I try not to read the stones, but one always catches my eye, and that leads to another one, and another.... I get interested in the stories encapsulated in their little verses and dates and, you know, quality of the memorials and freshness of the flowers and all sorts of little clues. And then I feel sad and angry.

But I'm with SEF in this: that graveyards are great places to sit and think in. (Except for you, obviously!)

Is that an invitation to a howl?

'I'm not sure what you mean by 'hypocritical'. D'you mind elaborating?'

I've no faith in Jesus, the church or any 'great maker'. So, I feel to go into such a place would be pretending to be something I'm not...

As an atheist, I find I am treated with respect in churches. I'm perfectly open about my lack of belief, but this doesn't prevent worshippers from being welcoming--even the non-evangelistic ones. Their Christian principles demand that churches are for everyone. Jesus forgiving the sinners, and the good Samaritan and all that, I suppose.

Even to a non-believer, they're good places in which to meditate and dream and feel at peace. But I sort of know what you mean: I do feel like I "don't belong" in 'em.

As a pagan who is quite anti-christianity I have been in some churches I love, they are built on ground which is above being consecrated or not. There is a presence in some just like there is a presence in some woods or other special places. I have no idea what it is, I just enjoy the feeling.

The ground was here long before Christians came and built churches on it, its ours first and foremost.

I used to ring the bells in a very old church that had been built on a site previously used for Pagan worship. A lovely place, that was. Peaceful and vibrant at the same time. Its graveyard was overgrown with ivy and flowers, and was full of birds and snails and things. I used to have visions there--but I *was* suffering from severe sleep deprivation at the time.... I have fond memories of my campanology days.

Have you heard the thing of, if you run 13 times anti-clockwise around a church as it's striking midnight, you end up in Faerie-land? I tried it once. It was on a Friday, which is supposed to be the day of the week when the borders between this world and that of Faerie are weakest. And it was Samhain. I wore a faerie-stone round my neck for protection.

I was fit in those days, but my goodness, I nearly passed out. Got lights in front of my eyes and everything. When that cleared, I found that the land of Faerie looks remarkably like Wales--which won't come as a surprise to anyone who has visited this beautiful country!

I like visiting cathedrals (old ones preferably) although I'm an atheist as they are often beautiful places, splendid architecture

Yes, there are some lovely cathedrals about. And some that are just plain bizarre. I visited that modern one in Liverpool some years ago--you know the one that looks like a ufo? It looks even more like a ufo on the inside. Or possibly, a Tardis.