DISCLAIMER
I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.
Arthur awoke, and instantly regretted it. For one thing, the sun was out, and was shining much too brightly. For another, his left leg had fallen asleep, and there was something wrong with his right leg. He felt a slight sharp pain that repeated itself over and over again. He looked down and saw a vulture pecking at him. With a very colorful stream of oaths in about three dozen languages, Arthur heaved himself to his feet and shooed the vulture, and a dozen or so of its friends, away.
One might wonder at this point where Arthur, who has seemed to us to be such a dim-witted fellow, has learned to speak three dozen languages. And the fact is, he hasn't. That stream of profanity is the extent of Arthur's foreign linguistic skills. And these were picked up in spaceports on countless worlds. Truth be told, Arthur knew several more oaths, in several more languages, but the human vocal cords are simply incapable of pronouncing them.
So despite his will to the contrary, Arthur was awake. After stamping around to get the blood flowing through his left leg, and after applying his trusty towel as a compress to stop the blood from flowing in his right leg, Arthur decided that now would be a good time to be hungry. As if on cue, his stomach let loose with a loud growl, scaring away the few remaining vultures who were waiting for Arthur to drop dead.
Arthur pawed through his travel bag, looking for something to eat. Since it was quite dark in the bag, Arthur decided to use his nose. He stuck his face in the opening of the bag and took a hearty whiff. This proved a mistake, since it almost knocked him dead. Which would have been good for the vultures.
Arthur hastily pulled his face back, and took a few breaths of fresh air. He then continued searching his bag until he found the source of the odor. He pulled it out and stared at it. It was a barf bag from a Krikit Airline plane, still half full. Arthur tried to remember when was the last time he was on an airplane, by his best calculations, at least seven months ago. That means this barf bag was quite a senior citizen. Arthur carefully put it on the ground and buried it with respect.
He was just finishing up the eulogy when his stomach reminded him who was boss. Arthur reached into his bag and pulled out the first thing he touched, luckily, it was a slice of jerky with some patches on it that still weren't green yet. He ate these ravenously. He then stared at a nearby tree with some withered fruit lying on the ground and tried to decide just how hungry he was. Evidently not hungry enough.
He turned away in revulsion, and saw a grove of fruit trees with fruit still on the trees. Arthur ran towards these as fast as was possible at the time. Which wasn't to fast, considering how one leg went to sleep again and the other was turning a dark shade of purple under its compress. So Arthur was forced to stop and remove the compress before he could continue his mad dash for the fruit trees. But by then he'd forgotten where they were, so he sat down heavily and stared into middle distance.
It was then that he noticed that the sun wasn't shining too brightly anymore. Arthur looked up and saw that he was under a tree. And the tree had dark things hanging from the branches.
Arthur jumped to his feet, and started eating the dark things as fast as he could grab them. The fruit had a dark blue peel, and a bright pink inside. While he was munching these, he tried to figure out what they tasted like. He decided it was a cross between chocolate flavored custard and a dirty sock.
Finally sated, Arthur sat back against a tree trunk to relax. He dozed a little and had a very strange dream.
He dreamed that a giant monkey, no bigger than a pea was chasing him across a barren and lush landscape, while waving a four foot long thimble. Arthur ran franticly through arid jungles and lush deserts.
Finally, exhausted, Arthur reached a dead end. He was at the bottom of a long cliff. He cautiously approached the edge and looked down. It was very deep. There would be no escape that way.
Arthur franticly searched around him for a weapon of some kind. At last his eyes fell upon an old tree branch, it would be perfect. But first, he had to recover his eyes and put them back in his head.
With his eyes back where they belong, Arthur picked up the branch and started waving around in a threatening way. The monkey, seeing this hesitated. That branch Arthur was holding looked dangerous.
That instant of hesitation gave Arthur enough time. Giving the branch a few more swishes through the air, he then whacked it very hard on a nearby stone. The branch cracked in half.
When nothing happened at first, Arthur started to panic. But then, in an immense black wave, millions of termites swarmed out of the broken tree branch. Arthur heaved a tremendous sigh of relief.
The monkey saw the termites, his eyes grew wide, and he froze there. Then, the monkey threw away his thimble, crouched down and began to eat the termites.
With a victorious grin, Arthur started walking away when he suddenly stopped. He turned around, and walked back to the monkey. He crouched down next to him and began to eat termites. And thus, two enemies looked past their differences on the field of battle and shared a termite nest.
With a cry Arthur awoke. This time he felt more refreshed but confused about the dream. He got up, stretched, gathered his belongings, and set of in search of a sub-etha fax machine.
You have just finished reading Chapter 2. If you liked it, please Review, and then recommend this story to all of your friends. If you didn't like it, I don't want to hear about it. Actually, if you didn't like it… nah, never mind. No wait! If you didn't like it tell me what was wrong, but NICELY!