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.
A/N: Sorry about how long this took, but like I said, I wasn't home for a week. I'm sure you were all eagerly waiting for this post, and would like me to stop blabbering and get on with the story, so I will.
After some persuasion, Eddy started the Heart of Gold hiccuping across the galaxy. On board, Trillian sat strapped into a seat and gritting her teeth against the rough ride. She was glad that they were finally going somewhere, and hoped that they would get there soon. She no longer cared where they were going.
Zaphod sat next to her, and based on the stupid grin on his face, he was either enjoying the ride, or he was stoned, she decided it was probably the latter. She just wished that Eddy would stop singing, 5th century Mongolian opera was not exactly her speed.
On a planet not too far away, sat a lone figure in a dirty spaceport. The figure sat slouched over and appeared to be holding something in his hand. He was wearing a strange assortment of clothes, that looked as if he had picked them out of garbage bins on seven different worlds, and in fact, he had.
The hand, with the thing in it, slowly rose towards where the mouth would be. The hand rose above the mouth and stopped in front of the nose. With a click, a slender curved apparatus emerged from the object. With a contented sigh, Ford stuck the Pick-O-Matic in his right nostril and picked.
While he was in the middle of doing his left nostril, a staticy PA announcement came over the PA announcement device. It was in a foreign language, but the Babbel fish took care of that.
"To all passengers. Flight number KS*crackle*5^26 for *hiss* is leaving from gate 462. Please bring your…" the rest was lost in incomprehensible static. But that didn't bother Ford, he didn't care where he went, so long as it was interesting, and fortunately, most places were.
So Ford got up and approached gate 462.
The flight was boring, so Ford slept. As he landed at his unknown destination, by some freaky coincidence, a space ship resembling a running shoe slipped into a shaky orbit of that same planet.
On board that ship, a shaky Trillian got out of her chair, staggered over to one of Eddy's consoles, and gave it a serious whap. Eddy straightened their orbit immediately.
Trillian walked over to a video screen, turned it on and trained it on a random spot on the planet below them. It turns out that this spot wasn't so random after all. She increased the magnification, looked at it, rubbed her eyes and looked again. Her jaw dropped, and she tried to speak, but could only make gurgling noises due to the fact that her lower jaw had fallen off.
Zaphod looked at her scrambling across the floor picking up her teeth, and didn't comment. He wanted to savor this rare moment of silence from her. And so consequentially, he didn't see what surprised her so.
On the face of Lightogrus, which was the planet that Ford was on, and the planet that Trillian, Eddy and Zaphod were orbiting, Ford exited the spaceport, and looked off into the distance. Having looked at the same spot that Trillian had, he had pretty much the same reaction, but he was able to keep his jaw where it belonged.
The reason for their reactions was halfway up the slope of a very tall mountain.
Halfway up a very tall mountain, Marvin groaned his squeaky gears up the cliff face.
With over exaggerated slowness, Marvin lifted his left leg, and with the sound of tortured gears, placed it a little higher up the cliff face. He then moved his groaning right arm over to a better handhold.
While he was accomplishing this easy task with surprising difficulty, he kept complaining about what he was doing here.
"Here I am, on a miserable storm swept planet in one of the unattractive areas of the galaxy, climbing a stupid mountain. You don't send the most intelligent being in the universe to climb a cliff. Brain the size of the planet I'm on and here I am, climbing a g-d forsaken mountain…"
And here his ramblings stopped. Because it was at this point that he remembered why he was climbing the mountain. He was trying to commit suicide. All in all a great accomplishment for a robot, to want to terminate it's own existence.
This was his last chance. He had tried everything. From throwing himself in front of a speeding space ship, to trying to drown himself in the acidic seas of Megakillerzone IV.
'Now,' he thought, 'here on the tallest mountain of Lightogrus, my steel body would surely absorb enough lightning bolts to put an end to my very physical being.' And that thought gave him the most joy he had ever known for as long as he could remember. And he could remember a long time, being several times older that the Universe itself.
As he reached the top, he was somewhat chagrined to discover that a lot of people were there, and indeed watching him. This soon turned to despair when they started cheering. 'But,' he thought, 'the more people to see me go the better. This way at least I'll have a good eulogy.'
He lifted his hands to the sky, and the spectators hushed instantly. Marvin puzzled over this.
He lowered his hands, and they made noise, this time booing.
He raised his hands, silence.
He lowered his hands, noise.
He got tired of the game. He raised his hands, silence.
He left his hands there.
He waited.
Then, a storm started brewing off to the left. He watched it as it gained strength, and came closer. The storm was right overhead.
Then the first of many lightening bolts stuck Marvin's steel body. As twelve million (12,000,000) volts of electricity sent themselves on a whirlwind tour of Marvin, his built in circuit breaker tripped, and shut him down. A smile was frozen on his face. He thought that he had died.
Another bolt of lightning hit, and then another and another.
By the time the storm had worn itself out, two thousand seven hundred and eighty three (2,783) lightning bolts had hit him.
Marvin's first conscious moment after being struck was of someone pinning a medal to his chest. (The physical contact had automatically reset his breaker.)
Evidently, he had won the Strightling Olympics, and set a new record to boot. His complete and utter despair was total. He never had felt more miserable, and thought he would never feel more miserable ever again.
In the very next instant he was proven wrong. His emotional state hit such a low that it triggered previously stable seismic areas and started an earthquake.
The source of such misery had just crested the top of the mountain. It was wearing a stupid grin on its face, a very disheveled dressing gown on its body, and carried a very well worn travel bag under one arm. In the other hand, it was proudly waving what looked like some kind of doctor's certificate.
THE END
A/N: You have just finished reading the sixth (and final) chapter of 'Enlightening'. I hope that you all enjoyed it.
I would like to thank myself for writing this, it has been such a pleasure
I would also like to thank my wonderful computer that let me type all this up, without crashing once!
Lastly I would like to thank all of my faithful readers who have remained with me this far, and even sent in reviews.
Right now I have an idea for another Guide story, but it might take a while for the idea to become a story.
Hope to hear from you soon! (in the form of reviews.)
TTFN!