Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams [40]
“That was me, too,” continued the voice in a low menacing rumble, “as if you didn’t know….”
“Know?” said Arthur with a start, “know?”
“The interesting thing about reincarnation,” rasped the voice, “is that most people, most spirits, are not aware that it is happening to them.”
He paused for effect. As far as Arthur was concerned there was already quite enough effect going on.
“I was aware,” hissed the voice, “that is, I became aware. Slowly. Gradually.”
He, whoever he was, paused again and gathered breath.
“I could hardly help it, could I?” he bellowed, “when the same thing kept happening, over and over and over again! Every life I ever lived, I got killed by Arthur Dent. Any world, any body, any time, I’m just getting settled down, along comes Arthur Dent, pow, he kills me.
“Hard not to notice. Bit of a memory jogger. Bit of a pointer. Bit of a bloody giveaway!
“‘That’s funny,’ my spirit would say to itself as it winged its way back to the netherworld after another fruitless Dent-ended venture into the land of the living, ‘that man who just ran me over as I was hopping across the road to my favorite pond, looked a little familiar….’ And gradually I got to piece it together, Dent, you multiple-me murderer!”
The echoes of his voice roared up and down the corridors. Arthur stood silent and cold, his head shaking with disbelief.
“Here’s the moment, Dent,” shrieked the voice, now reaching a feverish pitch of hatred, “here’s the moment when at last I knew!”
It was indescribably hideous, the thing that suddenly opened up in front of Arthur, making him gasp and gargle with horror, but here’s an attempt at a description of how hideous it was. It was a huge palpitating wet cave with a vast slimy, rough, whale-like creature rolling around in it and sliding over monstrous white tombstones. High above the cave rose a vast promontory in which could be seen the dark recesses of two further fearful caves, which …
Arthur Dent suddenly realized that he was looking at his own mouth, when his attention was meant to be directed at the live oyster that was being tipped helplessly into it.
He staggered back with a cry and averted his eyes.
When he looked again the appalling apparition had gone. The corridor was dark and, briefly, silent. He was alone with his thoughts. They were extremely unpleasant thoughts and he would rather have had a chaperon.
The next noise, when it came, was the low heavy roll of a large section of wall trundling aside, revealing, for the moment, just dark blankness behind it. Arthur looked into it in much the same way that a mouse looks into a dark dog kennel.
And the voice spoke to him again.
“Tell me it was a coincidence, Dent,” it said. “I dare you to tell me it was a coincidence!”
“It was a coincidence,” said Arthur quickly.
“It was not!” came the answering bellow.
“It was,” said Arthur, “it was …”
“If it was a coincidence, then my name,” roared the voice, “is not Agrajag!!!”
“And presumably,” said Arthur, “you would claim that that was your name.”
“Yes!” hissed Agrajag, as if he had just completed a rather deft syllogism.
“Well, I’m afraid it was still a coincidence,” said Arthur.
“Come in here and say that!” howled the voice, in sudden apoplexy again.
Arthur walked in and said that it was a coincidence, or at least, he nearly said it was a coincidence. His tongue rather lost its footing toward the end of the last word because the lights came up and revealed what it was he had walked into.
It was a Cathedral of Hate.
It was the product of a mind that was not merely twisted, but actually sprained.
It was huge. It was horrific.
It had a statue in it.
We will come to the statue in a moment.
The vast, incomprehensibly vast chamber looked as if it had been carved out of the inside of a mountain, and the reason for this was that that was precisely what it had been carved out of. It seemed to Arthur to spin sickeningly round his head as he stood and gaped at it.
It was black.
Where it wasn’t black you were inclined to wish that it was, because the colors with which some of the