A/N: This is quite possibly the silliest thing I have ever written, even surpassing that story written from the perspective of a comb. This was my response to a Christmas crossover challenge at another site I write at. I cold have posted it in the X-over section, but I felt it went better in the proper HHGttG section. It's certainly odd enough. :-p Don't take anything seriously at all.
Marvin's Christmas Eve
Marvin sat down on the snowy hill looking down at the miserable little town below. It was just his luck that they had mistaken Earth for some other place, though the Earth girl was trying desperately to convince him otherwise. But he was smarter than her – a million, trillion times more intelligent. He could tell with one glance that this wasn't Earth, despite the Christmas decorations in the town, but Trillian did not believe him for one second and instead tried to tell him to "cheer up." Cheer up? There was no such thing as cheering up… at least not when it was so cold outside that your gears and motors would probably freeze within a minute.
Trillian's response to that was to ignore him.
As usual.
Zaphod didn't care about what was happening around him as he was too involved in making several dozen Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters in order to celebrate the holiday correctly and spread around the Christmas cheer to the natives. The eccentric eagerness which the President took in roaming around this little washed-up ice ball was all very depressing.
So while Trillian and Zaphod prepared ghastly Christmas, Marvin made his way out of the ship because he couldn't stand Eddie singing Jingle Bell Rock one more time. He made his way through the deep snow, ignoring the tiny little village where all the nasty colourful Christmas decorations had been strewn across the buildings, and tried to escape.
He subsequently got lost in the blizzard that descended upon the town and its surroundings.
But sooner or later, and with more luck than he probably deserved – after all, the possibility of him falling off a cliff in those overly treacherous mountains was all very, very likely – he stumbled across a cave.
A cave that was furnished like a house.
Well, well. Did the universe have no surprises left it in at all?
Standing in the front of the cave was a very odd-looking creature or person that should have belonged in a children's story fantasy world. His name was the Grinch and when Marvin came up to him, he was glaring sullenly down at the wretchedly festive town below.
At last! Marvin thought. Someone who understands how utterly meaningless and ghastly all of these celebrations are.
The Grinch turned as Marvin stumbled through the snow towards him. One eyebrow was raised and he growled, "What kind of Who are you? Or do you not like Christmas, too?"
Marvin, whose gears were too cold to properly function, as luck would have it, wandered over to the mouth of the cave.
"No," he said. "I am not a Who. Those are the things down there, aren't they? Of course they are. You don't need to tell me. I am very smart, after all. I am smarter than all the people on this planet put together, and no one has any use for my intelligence at all."
"So you aren't a Who then?" the Grinch said. "That will save me the trouble of locking you in a pen," he added, musingly.
"You are trying too hard to rhyme your words," Marvin remarked nonchalantly.
"Am I? My, my," he answered. "But it does not really matter, because I have an idea that will stop all the chatter!"
"Does it involve throwing yourself off this cliff?" Marvin said.
"No, but I do know just what to do!" The Grinch stood up and declared, "And I think you will love my idea too! Because I can see that you don't like Christmas either, and guess what? Me neither! I hate Christmas and the whole Christmas season! And I can see that you do too and we both don't need a reason."
"Your rhyming really needs a holiday," Marvin grumbled.
"Tomorrow is Christmas, it's practically here!" The Grinch shouted. "And since I cannot stand all of this festive cheer—"
"Finally, someone with some sense," Marvin muttered.
"And with all the humming and drumming and NOISE NOISE NOISE," the Grinch continued fervently, "I MUST stop Christmas from coming!"
"Good luck with that," Marvin said dully.
The Grinch was no where near as interesting a person as he thought he would be.
"Do you know what the Whos do on Christmas day?" the Grinch said. "The little children wake up and they play, play, PLAY! And they rush for their boxes and parcels concealing their new toys, and they unwrap them and then the NOISE! Oh, you cannot imagine the NOISE that comes from those toys."
"Bet I can think of something much worse," Marvin commented dismally. "Actually, I can think of several hundred things that are much worse."
"But that's not the worst of it all," the Grinch continued, "at the end of it all they sit down and – oh, what a brawl! They feast and they feast! And they have rare Who-roast-beast and I can't stand it in the least!"
"Good for you," Marvin said wretchedly.
"And then they do something that is the most horrid of all! Every Who in Who-ville, from the tall to the small, stand close together, with the Christmas bells ringing, and then they'd start SINGING! And they just SING and SING and for that I reason I must stop the whole thing."
"But their singing can't be half as bad as Zaphod when he is drunk," Marvin said miserably. The snow was getting very cold now. He had a feeling that now he was sitting down, he probably wouldn't be able to move anymore and would be stuck here forever with this half-mad Grinch who spoke in rhymes, which was just a little bit worse than Vogon poetry.
Which made things pretty bad.
"But I know how to stop it all! I'll just make a Santy Claus hat and a coat! And I'll go down to Who-ville and interrupt their Christmas ball. And I'll leave a note, one that says that Santa isn't coming! Then I'll steal all of the gifts and on December Twenty-Fifth, there will be no Christmas coming! Dressed as their precious Claus, I'll make all of their festivities pause!"
"What a most brilliant idea," Marvin said blandly. "Can you steal all of Zaphod's Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, too?"
But the Grinch wasn't paying attention. It was if Marvin wasn't even there. He had disappeared back into his cave, quick as a flash, and drew out a bunch of red material in a flash. He began stitching together his Santa costume, because he meant to fully carry out his plan with a boom.
It was then that Marvin realized something absolutely horrible – so much so that it would never have a chance to be called adorable. Somehow, his programming had picked up the Grinch's rhymes, and now he would be stuck thinking like this till the end of time!
Marvin kicked his gears into working – he could not stand on the edge of this cliff, lurking. Not for one more second; he probably should jump off the cliff itself, he reckoned. How else would he be able to stop these endless rhymes from going till the end of time?
He could not stand to hear one more rhyme from the Grinch, let alone his own mind – and so he made his way away from the cave, the wind and the snow driving him nearly blind. Marvin was terribly disappointed with the way things had turned out, and it was probably the worst condition he could ever have developed – without a doubt.
His rhyming wasn't even good. In fact, it was quite bad as he understood! And so he thoughts these thoughts as he toddle his way back and he was very distraught.
When he made it to the Heart of Gold, he was quite cold. He wasn't sure what the Grinch would get up to next, but Marvin knew it would not be complex. Marvin stayed outside as he had nowhere to go, not wishing to confront Eddie's cheerful word flow.
He waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Presently, Trillian and Zaphod came back and through the wind and snow they did hack. Trillian looked rather displeased and through the snow Zaphod breezed, now quite drunk and his singing as eloquent as a skunks. He had obviously consumed all the Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, instead of leaving any for the little Who masters.
"Hi Marvin," said Trillian tentatively as they got back on the ship. "Where did you disappear to?"
"No where interesting," Marvin answered, his voice not very much like a whip. "In fact, it was all very uninteresting."
"Well," Trillian said, "I have something that will cheer you up. You were right! This isn't Earth, but they still celebrate Christmas! Imagine that."
"Of course I was right," Marvin said, walking past her dejectedly. "I am always right, can't you tell that tonight?"
"You're… rhyming..."
"Of course I'm rhyming?" Marvin answered. "Can't you tell? And I am not feeling very well."
On that last note, he trudged away, not wanting to tell that story that day.
Things soon turned out fairly well for poor old Marvin. He lost all of the rhyming within drinking a few bottles of gin. Though, of course, robots are not supposed to drink gin, so what a state he soon got in. Of course, eventually everything turned out well and forgotten was this rhyming spell.
And from then on, Marvin never attended a Christmas celebration. For even on places that are not on Earth, nearly at every location, Christmas-like celebrations bring on the rhymes. And rhymes are something Marvin cannot stand even at the best of times.