And Another Thing... (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #6)

by Eoin Colfer

The cheapest way to escape despair is to take refuge in one’s imagination.

Of course billions of people have no imaginations, and for these people there are Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters. After two of those babies, the dullest, most by-the-book Vogon will be up on the bar in stilettos, yodeling mountain shanties and swearing he’s the king of the Gray Binding Fiefdoms of Saxaquine.

The white spaceship shuddered and a door opened smoothly, telescoping to the ground. Zaphod Beeblebrox, Galactic President, interplanetary fugitive, and committed self-serving entrepreneur, appeared in the doorway, planet-sized ego shining through his bright eyes, golden hair bouncing in shoulder-length curls. Very outer-ring, but he carried it off well.

Suffice it to say, without cataloguing every single one of the various deaths misadventure or adventure, accidental (or on purpose), Occidental, dental, mental, rental, retail, fetal, fecal, decal (smothered by Saran Wrap), to name but a few, that only one Arthur Dent survived in any dimension after the final, once and for all, no-tricky-loophole destruction of Earth.

All Arthur could have verbalized was that he missed his towel and would have paid a large sum of money to have somebody with soft bosoms hug him and tell him that things were going to be all right.

Guide Note: Zaphod Beeblebrox’s two heads and three arms have become as much a part of Galaxy lore as the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast’s cranial spigot, or Eccentrica Gallumbits’s third breast. And though Zaphod claims to have had his third arm fitted to improve his chances at ski-boxing, many media pundits believe that the arm was actually fitted so that the President could simultaneously fondle all of Eccentrica’s mammaries. This attention to erotic detail resulted in Miss Gallumbits referring to Zaphod in Street Walkie-Talkie Weekly as the “best bang since the Big One.” A quote which was worth at least half a billion votes in the presidential election and twice as many daily hits on the private members section of the Zaphod Confidential Sub-Etha site.

The familiar noises came from below and to the left of his bed. Exactly as they should. The pootle-tink birds were beginning their morning show-off antics, clapping broad wings and singing their slightly risqué songs, hoping to attract the attention of a rainbow-plumed female.

Heimdall was indeed a big fellow, especially seen from directly below. Gazing up at a god’s crotch can do wonders for a person’s lack of low self-esteem. Especially when the crotch contours are tightly bound by the leggings of a red-striped neon blue ski jumpsuit.

As a child, Zaphod had been diagnosed with ADHDDAAADHD (ntm) ABT which stood for Always Dreaming His Dopey Days Away, Also Attention Deficit Hyperflatulence Disorder (not to mention) A Bit Thick. Even as an adult Zaphod could not manage the condition, because he could never remember what he suffered from.

“We are back, baby. Religion is the new atheism.

Most craft give a nod, however brief and unfriendly, toward beauty. Vogon ships did not nod toward beauty. They pulled on ski masks and mugged beauty in a dark alley. They spat in the eye of beauty and bludgeoned their way through the notions of aesthetics and aerodynamics. Vogon cruisers did not so much travel through space as defile it and toss it aside.

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide is a hundred percent accurate. Reality, however, is not as reliable.”

There is no such thing as a happy ending. Every culture has a maxim that makes this point, while nowhere in the Universe is there a single gravestone that reads, He Loved Everything About His Life, Especially the Dying Bit at the End.