Life, the Universe and Everything

– You turned my skin into a bag for keeping interesting stones in. I happen to know that because in my next life I came back as a fly again and you swatted me. Again. Only this time you swatted me with the bag you’d made of my previous skin.

– Arthur Dent, you are not merely a cruel and heartless man, you are also staggeringly tactless.

The voice paused whilst Arthur gawped.

– I see you have lost the bag, - said the voice. - Probably got bored with it, did you?

Arthur shook his head helplessly. He wanted to explain that he had been in fact very fond of the bag and had looked after it very well and had taken it with him wherever he went, but that somehow every time he travelled anywhere he seemed inexplicably to end up with the wrong bag and that, curiously enough, even as they stood there he was just noticing for the first time that the bag he had with him at the moment appeared to be made out of rather nasty fake leopard skin, and wasn’t the one he’d had a few moments ago before he arrived in this whatever place it was, and wasn’t one he would have chosen himself and heaven knew what would be in it as it wasn’t his, and he would much rather have his original bag back, except that he was of course terribly sorry for having so peremptorily removed it, or rather its component parts, i.e. the rabbit skin, from its previous owner, viz. the rabbit whom he currently had the honour of attempting vainly to address.

All he actually managed to say was “Erp”.

– Meet the newt you trod on, - said the voice.

And there was, standing in the corridor with Arthur, a giant green scaly newt. Arthur turned, yelped, leapt backwards, and found himself standing in the middle of the rabbit. He yelped again, but could find nowhere to leap to.

– 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 over me as I was hopping across the road to my favourite 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 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 would rather have had a chaperone.

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 blackness 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.