WELCOME TO URTH
or
In Which the Lost Adventures and Escapades of Arthur Dent, Bipedal Primate-descended Earthling Extraordinaire, are Related to the Reader.
Arthur was miserable.
He hated SlumpJets. That much he was sure of. He was also quite sure that he hated himself. That reminded him slightly of Marvin, and because of that, he hated Marvin.
Looking on the broader scope of things, he realized he hated Vogons. They'd started the whole damn mess. Then again, Zaphod Beeblebrox hadn't helped much, so Arthur decided, what the hell, why not hate him too? He hated Magrathea, the interstellar planet-producer, who had also started the whole mess. He hated the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He hated Ford Prefect. He hated the lump of semi-sentient matter that just went drifting by his cockpit window. No, no, he didn't hate it…he despised it.
To make a long story considerably shorter, he hated Life, the Universe and Everything. Especially Everything.
Just out of spite, he opened all frequencies on the ship's transmitter and screamed, "DAMN YOU!!!" Suddenly, a great many ships appeared and began to shoot at his ship. Improbably, he was able to escape almost entirely without harm by doing nothing. Every time the ship was jarred with a weapon's impact, his limbs flailed around and hit just the right button(s) to repair the damage, and finally escape.
Out of peril, Arthur began to think. Fenchurch was gone. Whisked away in some alternate universe, or perhaps the real one for all he knew; he certainly wasn't in the real one. He'd done enough exploring to figure that out.
No, no…in that case, Fenchurch wasn't gone, it was him who was gone, in one of those space-time paradox flukes that only the likes of Stephen Hawking could pretend to comprehend.
Perhaps they were both gone.
There, that was a motivating thought. Perhaps not the most motivating, but it certainly motivated him enough to bring his head up off of the throttle controls in his cheaply purchased personal shuttle. The computer gave a mechanical sigh of relief as the ship slowed, thankful that the hull would stay in pieces for the next few minutes. Hopefully.
In his rage, anger, and general depression, Arthur had foolishly collapsed onto the throttle controls in the middle of an asteroid field. Improbably, the tiny ship had never been struck, which was pretty good for not operating with an Infinite Improbability Drive. Whether or not Arthur's luck would hold was anyone's guess.
He glanced up into a mirror above the window and gasped at the sight. He could hardly recognize himself. His hair cascaded wildly around his face, his eyes were red and large, and improbably (that word was popping up much too often for his liking), a bone was tied in his stubble.
Where the hell did that come from?
Arthur wondered absently as he untied the bone and threw it off into the corner, and consequently, the latrine. Not giving it another thought, Arthur addressed the computer. "Computer," he said."Please state the nature of the command," it chirped.
Arthur winced. While he had thankfully not been stuck with one of those personality-driven computers, he had to admit this one was much too damningly polite for his tastes. "Get us out of this asteroid field."
"Acknowledged," the computer replied.
Arthur twiddled his thumbs. While he was far from jubilant, removing the bone from his stubble had mysteriously lifted the attitude of contempt for the Universe from his mind. However, he was still mad enough to spit. Whatever that meant.
He fell asleep.
"ATTENTION, ALIEN VESSEL!" a loud voice woke him from dreams of airplane wings and the times he had spent on a few of them. It took him quite a few minutes to realize that the voice was not of his own imaginings, but instead being transmitted from the planet he was orbiting.
"ATTENTION, ALIEN VESSEL!!" Someone was becoming impatient.
Arthur slowly rubbed his eyes in disbelief. It couldn't be. No. Not at all. It had been destroyed…but there it was, plain as…as…as some noun Arthur couldn't think of at the moment. "It" was Earth. (Albeit, a bit more green looking than he had remembered it.)
"ATTENTION, ALIEN VESSEL!!! PLEASE RESPOND!"
Arthur glanced at the transmitter. The thought of answering it briefly flitted across his mind before he was scrambling to figure out which button turned it on.
"Hot…hot…hotter…oh, now you're cold. Cold…freezing…warm…there you go…no, now you're cold again…" Arthur finally realized that it was the computer speaking.
"Will you shut up and tell me which button to press!?" Arthur screamed in a fit of hysterics.
"Mmmph…" the computer tried to speak while shutting up, and that failing, made the correct button flash thrice.
"Thank you," Arthur muttered offhandedly. Then, to whoever was on the surface, he said, "Er, hello?"
"There we go. That's much better. Glad you could join us. Mind telling me exactly what in the Great Filgerwokkle you're doing orbiting our planet for the past hour?"
"Um…"
"Didn't think so. Why don't you land? I'd really recommend it, otherwise you might be late."
"Late for what?" Arthur asked, feeling the distinct brand of déjà vu that is felt when one forgets the punch line to an old joke.
"Never mind. Just land."
The combination of several events led to Arthur's speedy compliance to that order, the most influential three of which were the large battleships that appeared to escort him to the surface.
***
"Welcome to Urth," the oddly neon-glowing human greeting Arthur said after all the legal issues were settled. The lawyers were still trying to kill each other in the room Arthur had just exited, but it was understood that lawyers had to get that sort of thing out of their systems whenever they got within five feet of each other.
"You mean this is really, truly Earth?" Arthur Dent asked, not at all convinced. It would have been a lot easier to believe if everyone he saw did not glow neon green. Some less than others, but still.
"No, that is not at all what I mean," the being said. "And by the way, you can call me Seeb, Arthur."
"Wait," Arthur said, a result of his brain not quite leaping the last hurdle put before it. (Actually, it was more like climbing stairs than leaping hurdles, but his brain had troubles following it in any case.) "So this is not Earth."
"Correct." Seeb sighed the sort of sigh that conveyed the message How many times will I have to explain it to this lifeform?
"But you just said---"
"Welcome to Urth. U-r-t-h. Urth."
"But it sounds the same! How could you tell?"
"Try it out." Seeb rolled his eyes.
Arthur's face turned thoughtful, then he said, "Oh, I see." He didn't, but it was for the best. Spending twenty minutes arguing about how to spell Earth was not something Arthur wished to spend his time on. They continued walking.
"We get this a lot, you see. We're sort of like your Earth, and many interversal travelers---"
"Interversal?"
"Between universes. Now stop interrupting! Many interversal travelers are shocked at the resemblance. I understand your Earth was destroyed somehow?"
"Yes. No. Yes and no." Arthur still wasn't quite sure on that point.
"I see." This time it was Seeb's turn to not see, but likewise, he didn't want to spend twenty minutes arguing a point with Arthur. Damn it, why did my family have to be in the welcoming business? he thought to himself. "Do you plan on staying on Urth for long?"
"I think so. Since you've confirmed my guess that this is a slightly alternate universe, there's someone I would like to find."
"All right, then. I'll provide you with a list of hotels, ahem, motels in the area. Unless you have more money than I think…"
"Um…I have thirty Altarian dollars…"
"You'll have to get it exchanged for Libs, then. Libs are the planet-wide currency. I must warn you, Arthur, that if you meet your double, you should not touch him. According to one of our most famous metaspace analysts, you would both vanish in a burst of logic and cease to exist."
"Oh. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you."
"Enjoy your stay, Arthur Dent."
***
As Arthur spent more time on Urth, he realized it was very much the same as his Earth. Despite the local's slightly unnerving ability to glow neon green when excited, they stayed his color most of the time. (Actually, he was wrong, they also glowed when they were tired, mad, happy, lustful, curious, bored, homicidal, inspired and who knows what else…but most of it was in ultragreen and therefor only visible to the naked Urthling's eye.) There was still McDonald's, jerks (quite a lot of these, moreover proving the intense similarity), and people who didn't clean up after their dogs. There was still America, Belgium, and even Norway. The only thing missing was his house; it had been demolished to build a bypass, which had in turn been demolished to build a mall, which had been demolished by government order so they could dump toxic material, and it was now being used as a public park. Of himself, or at least the Urth version of himself, he saw no sign.
On second thought, he could think up one minor difference. Many people on the street seemed to be stuck in the past, preaching peace and love (actually, it was Luv, but that's a completely different story). However, most of these people were soon taken away in odd trucks, so he paid them no heed.
Gradually, his Libs began to run out, and he took up the job of "waste removal engineer," more commonly known as garbage truck driver. It paid well, well enough for him to buy his own house soon instead of renting an apartment with other alien hitchhikers (although by now he'd begun to give up on hitchhiking…Urth was home. For now.) He also shaved, which was a good thing. All the while, he never noticed how he was constantly shadowed by strange men dressed in plaid. (Not while he was shaving, just in general.) But that's a completely different story.
He made a few friends, most of them at the pub. Visiting the pub made him sad, however. It reminded him of the last time he'd been in a pub before the Vogons destroyed (or perhaps they didn't destroy) Earth. It reminded him of Ford Prefect. It at first cheered him greatly that Ford was nowhere around. Whenever Ford was around, the universe probably needed saving, or at least needed someone to get its cat out of a tree. However, that line of thought brought him to thinking about Fenchurch, who was also blatantly absent.
The despair and sorrow began to get to him, and once again Arthur Dent began to get at Arthur Dent, for being way too much like Marvin. So, being the man of action, or at least not being the man of no action, he decided to do something about it.
He would find Fenchurch.
THE END? PROBABLY NOT.