So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams [35]
“It was fine up to the bit about the teacup.”
She shook her head, and shook it again, as if trying to clear it, which is what she was trying to do.
“Well, that’s it,” she said, “fine up to the bit about the teacup. That was the point at which it seemed to me quite literally as if the world exploded.”
“What…?”
“I know it sounds crazy, and everybody says it was hallucinations, but if that was hallucinations then I have hallucinations in big screen 3D with 16-track Dolby stereo and should probably hire myself out to people who are bored with shark movies. It was as if the ground was literally ripped from under my feet, and … and …”
She patted the grass lightly, as if for reassurance, and then seemed to change her mind about what she was going to say.
“And I woke up in hospital. I suppose I’ve been in and out ever since. And that’s why I have an instinctive nervousness,” she said, “of sudden startling revelations that everything’s going to be all right.” She looked up at him.
Arthur had simply ceased to worry himself about the strange anomalies surrounding his return to his home world, or rather had consigned them to that part of his mind marked “Things To Think About—Urgent.” “Here is the world,” he had told himself, “here, for whatever reason, is the world, and here it stays. With me on it.” But now it seemed to go swimmy around him, as it had that night in the car when Fenchurch’s brother had told him the silly story of the CIA agent in the reservoir. The French Embassy went swimmy. The Sheraton Tower Hotel and the Bank of Abu Dhabi went swimmy. The trees went swimmy. The lake went swimmy, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be alarmed at because a gray goose had just landed on it. The geese were having a great relaxed time and had no major answers they wished to know the questions to.
“Anyway,” said Fenchurch, suddenly and brightly and with a wide-eyed smile, “there is something wrong with part of me, and you’ve got to find out what it is. We’ll go home.”
Arthur shook his head.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
Arthur had shaken his head, not to disagree with her suggestion which he thought was a truly excellent one, one of the world’s great suggestions, but because he was just for a moment trying to free himself of the recurring impression he had that just when he was least expecting it the Universe would suddenly leap out from behind a door and go boo at him.
“I’m just trying to get this entirely clear in my mind,” said Arthur. “You say you felt as if the Earth actually … exploded….”
“Yes. More than felt.”
“Which is what everybody else says,” he said hesitantly, “is hallucinations?”
“Yes but, Arthur, that’s ridiculous. People think that if you just say ‘hallucinations’ it explains anything you want it to explain and eventually whatever it is you can’t understand will just go away. It’s just a word, it doesn’t explain anything. It doesn’t explain why the dolphins disappeared.”
“No,” said Arthur, “no,” he added thoughtfully. “No,” he added again, even more thoughtfully. “What?” he said at last.
“Doesn’t explain the dolphins disappearing.”
“No,” said Arthur, “I see that. Which dolphins do you mean?”
“What do you mean which dolphins? I’m talking about when all the dolphins disappeared.”
She put her hand on his knee, which made him realize that the tingling going up and down his spine was not her gently stroking his back, and must instead be one of those nasty creepy feelings he so often got when people were trying to explain things to him.
“Disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“The dolphins?”
“Yes.”
“All the dolphins,” said Arthur, “disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“The dolphins? You’re saying the dolphins all disappeared?