The Earth – version 2
' Get off you stupid cat.' Mumbled Nicolas for the umpteenth time, she'd been doing this all day, on the keyboard, on the rug, on the table, in-front of the television the list was almost infinite. Nicolas was 21 years of age and had just left education behind, as well as his family who had emigrated over to Scandinavia, and was now looking for a job. They couldn't afford the money for a visit so the only way of contact was dreary old phones. All of the money had been sucked up by university bills half a year ago.
Although the present wasn't so good for him and his cat, Nicolas couldn't help but think something was in store for him. His cat, Dizzy, almost seemed to agree. It was odd, all of his family thought he was mad though he quite clearly wasn't: in every way he acted and thought, Nicolas was an average human being, but today something just happened that made him unsure about himself…
Dizzy in his usual kind of daze had stumbled across the keyboard and typed in the words forty two. F, o, r, t, y, t, w, o all in exact sequence. What are the chances of that? He thought in extreme puzzlement. Then he turned to the cat who had rested on his lap, such soft fur, such an innocent looking tabby cat, then he fell asleep with numbers rushing through his head.
Next morning Nicolas woke up with a pile of papers in front of him, as usual, what was strange was that there were six piles of seven papers. Forty two. This was becoming more than just déja vu, this was very strange, and it was only him it was happening to. Hmmm… he had read a book about something like this once but he couldn't recall it… plenty of time for that later - according to his digital alarm clock, it was only 11:17.
At 11:59 Nicolas went out for some supplies, and a drop in at the local library. So the research started.
'Excuse me?' a member of staff turned around, 'Could you point me in the direction of a computer please, I… I won't go on line.' Nicolas stuttered this out to his own surprise, he found he was growing desperate, but for what?
'Walk this way sir', said a fat-nosed assistant, 'they're just over here.'
First Nicolas tried looking for results on the number 42, then the word, then he ran out of options so he tried fiction books. Aha! He found something, The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy was the title and the format was… er… oh… HTML. Again Nicolas called upon the expertise of a receptionist, she turned around, she listened and the answer came: Yes! So he got to the net, downloaded and sent to his own laptop via e-mail. Results! But now the tricky bit: supermarket shopping.
'Now, here, I could do with a new water filter.' Nicolas mumbled to himself in boredom and tiredness. Then it came to him; this time it was absolutely fool-proof, and it wasn't anything to do with digital watches either. Nicolas knew it, he just had to get to that e-mail before it was too late for anything.
Back home, Nicolas examined his findings from the library, looking at Arthur Dent first and his electronic biography, then the Vogons, then Arthur's biography again.
Something was strange, but he couldn't for the life of him determine what it was. Then, he got his pen and notepad off of the desk out and started writing out equation after equation after equation, all of which seemed to come into his head from nowhere. Three pages later, he produced an answer: 24!
Now everything made sense, in a flipped-round kind of way - Nicolas Hint was the most wanted single collection of matter in the universe, he was the flaw, the same as Arthur, only this time it would work.
Bring bring, bring bring, rung Nicolas' mobile, bri-
'Hello? Oh hi Matt how yu' doing. Right, ok, how about my house in an hour? Sounds great, alright see you later.' Matt had been friends with Nicolas since they were both able to think for themselves; they had been through play-school together, primary school, high school, they had even fought each other for the same girl friend on two rare occasions, after that college and then uni, they had always been there for (or against) each other.
Around an hour later Matt appeared at the door of the flat, Nicolas didn't hear it at first but his forever loyal Dizzy made sure he knew by way of his metronomic meow. About a minute later Nicolas reached the door, having pulled on a plain grey t-shirt, his boxers and had only half accomplished the task of getting his trousers on.
'Hey Matt, come in, sorry about the state I'm in… Why don't you help yourself to a beer,' Nicolas invited.
'Why not, we haven't seen each other for ages,' said Matt, 'and I could tell by your tone of voice that you had a new joke or something.'
' I guess you could say that ol' buddy, ol' pal, ol' friend ol' Matt.'
' Dude, you've been watching too many cartoons'
'True,' the reply came, ' and later you'll say too many "fiction" books I guess.' Nicolas said with as much nonchalance as he could, so as not to sound suspicious.
'Why would I say that?' asked Matt – curiously, now.
'Well, Matt…' Nicolas paused, not knowing whether to reveal what he was about to say, 'I believe that I am the answer, or rather the question, to the reason of all existence!'
'Nick, I told you years ago to lay off Douglas Adams' books, you wouldn't even stop to eat, drink or sleep, Your parents were fretting about it 24:7!'
'You've got to believe me this time, look at this.' he got his notebook off the desk, 'Here, now, look. You remember the books, the people asking the super- computer for an answer to the meaning of life and they got 42. Then they didn't know what the question was so they had the computer make Earth to find out.'
'That's all very well but for all I know you could've downloaded this from a fan site or something. Where's the evidence that this came from your noggin? I don't care if you are crazy. I just hope that it doesn't change your real personality.'
'Matt come on, you can't just leave this at "You're a loony but I don't care" I mean, you can see this is no joke by the way I'm acting. Matt, come on, just at least don't mention it. Preferably I would like you on my side, us being friends, but I can see that you won't be entirely against me either. Please, just try to stay neutral." Nicolas felt exhausted after that speech, the words had flooded out too fast to be stopped and had drained him of energy and thought. So he just did what anyone else would do, collapsed to the haven of sofa, T.V, beer and an old, v. reliable friend sitting next to you.
Shwt, shwt, meow, meow Nicolas thought then he realized it was Dizzy, 'Meow!' he said again 'M-e-e-o-o-w-w!' Nicolas walked to the kitchen where the noise came from with Matt following. Then they both saw the fridge magnets had been arranged to the word forty two and the number 42. It was time for Matt to give in slightly. 'O.K maybe something a bit odd is going on here, but it isn't necessarily you, look it was your cat that just re-arranged the magnets.' This did make Nicolas think, but where did the equations come from? Time to make like a cat: eat, wash and then sleep over it. But first make the most of his visit with Matt.
'OW!' Nicolas exclaimed, 'My god! My head! Why did I just shout, urrrrrrrr.' 'What happened last night?' He thought, what movie did I watch, and why had my bed suddenly been higher than me? Wer-er-er! Nicolas got up faster than he believed was possible in his current state. Then he found it was the sofa. S! Then he realized that the first pint had got him too far and he had had more, the same with Matt, only he realized he had to go home so he stopped in time. Whoops! Nicolas, the sensible one. had gone too far.
Later, a book fell off the shelf and landed open on page 42, (oh God!); then later on his stapler stopped working, so he checked the staples inside: 42; then he checked on the internet for possible jobs, 24 search results; and then e-mails, 42 of them; and last (of which he knew) Nicolas checked his CD collection, 31, (which came as something of a relief) hmm, odd, this was getting strange. How 'bout a walk, he thought.
Nicolas popped by the local Spar first to get a snack, time to think and clear his head: how did the equations get into his head when Dizzy was the one to make the main 42's. So self absorbed he didn't realize where he was going, he was close to the road but still, all the same…
At the RSPCA centre Dizzy was sitting on a week-old newspaper thinking and reading, and looking at the picture. Ha! He thought, typical it was a 42 bus, but still, he didn't expect it to happen this early, this had thrown away a lot of time, as well as losing a nice soul in the universe. Nicolas had always been a good person, slightly paranoid but still good, in his experience. But now to the future, what would happen now without Nicolas? Dizzy needed a new human, it only worked through a partnership, like the one with white mice on the previous Earth. How could Dizzy get the question out before his death and then, if necessary, the next Earth? How?
Special thanks to my dad for all of his support through the making of the story, and to Douglas Adams (and my cat Coco) for my inspiration. In memory of Dizzy.
By Ilya Pitta Bird