May The Force Be With Me!

*A tribute to the 'Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'*
I'm not done yet.. This is not the end..
There are more things to write about... And more planets to explore.. :)

************************************************************************************

~Star Log 21-20, Aboard ship 'Eternity'~

23rd October, 5499

Dear Diary,

I fled through hyperspace, challenging light and eons, at the speed of many light years raised to the power of ten...
Defying time, age, and the more important inter-galactic bathroom break, I sped aimlessly and endlessly, for of course, the universe is vast. And it doesn't stop there... When you realise it's vast, it becomes a little more vast. And when you realise that, it becomes seemingly larger than it were...
And when... Oh alright.. You got it..

Anyway, I stopped at many a planet, each lodged in it's own time capsule, ignorant and oblivious of the universe in all it's existence. Some of these planets were picturesque wih fountains of wine and doe eyed, beautiful women with hardly any clothes on... Yet again, some of the planets were gloomy and cast a deathly palour all around.

However, my quest for the ultimate answer to life and evolution, still remains elusive.

Right now, I hate to say this, but I'm nowhere near my goal and if at all, I have only made my quest a bit more complicated, now that I am being chased and hunted down by the dreaded peace corps, 'Shazaa'..

Note: The 'Shazaa' were once a ruthless gang of evil bandits who caught unsuspecting aliens and severed their limbs in such a way so that only two arms and two feet were left... This in turn, caused several suicides induced by depression and soon, the mutilated aliens became outcasts... They could no longer do 10 things at a time. And as a result of this, their highly evolved brains could not match the simplicity of having to coordinate only four limbs and it was not an uncommon sight to see a mutilated alien get frustrated, blow up internally, and 'go up in smoke' *...
Anyway, the diplomatic government of Zenobia Xii **, fearing an epidemic, decided to check the suicide rates and conjured a way to keep the Shazaa happy, for, the average government official could not afford to have his limbs amputated. The Shazaa, given a license to conduct legal dissection of body parts were more than satisfied and continued their reign of terror far beyond the galaxy...
(* - Citation is needed to prove the phrase 'going up in smoke' was derived from the planet Bn3 in Krakatzoan galaxy...)
(** - Xii does not mean 12... It is to be actually pronounced, 'xiiii'... A common misconception made by the average ignorant earthling)

I had but two arms and two legs, and although I was deathly curious to find out what the Shazaa could possibly do to me, I didn't waste any time to find out...
The control screen kept screaming, "Shazaa hot on tail... Shazaa hot on tail..." and warning lights I'd never known started to go off... Just as I looped across the Sun of the Mezciene Solar System and faked a crash landing on Planet 'Alpha Bee' to put off my pursuers for a while...

Planet 'Alpha Bee'... A world very similar to the Earth, full of human beings, only with heads twice as large... And where there were two moons and people had the option of choosing whether they wished to have daylight or moonlight... Votes were always ushered the previous night as to what the people preferred to wake up to the next morning.
It was known to be one of the last few worlds that had evolved to such an increased state of maturity, that people got along amiably with one another.. (Yes diary, I know how unbelievable that sounds...)
They were experts in all fields of study and non-study. They were the knowers-all of everything!
But they had one tiny flaw... The doom of Spelling...

It was known that a few centuries ago, a statistician, an analyst and a counsellor got together during an orgy, but little did they know what was to transpire from their discussions that fateful night...

Statistician: I just checked my sheet of 'important statistical figures', and I believe we waste an average of 2 hours every month writing/typing letters in words that are extra and unwanted. I wish we could calculate effecient data and devise a way to curb wastage of time.
Analyst: I have just completed my thesis on the topic actually. If we consider alternate ways of conserving this precious time, it's a close call between;
a) Simultaneously milking 5 cows in one go at a particular globally accepted time, to minimise vital seconds taken by the cow to lactate everyday.
b) Creating artificial stimulants to digest food inwards and make it biodegradably soluable within the body, and thereby, not create any waste. The essential time taken for early morning ablutions could be stopped. However, this is still in the experimental stage as a few volunteers died of liver damage and intestinal rupture.
Counsellor: After listening to the both of you, I think I've arrived at a solution that will help people conserve time. We should reinforce a world-wide edit of leading languages. Letters that are not necessary must be removed and words could thereby be shortened.

And while the three cheered to that universally simple solution, a very drunk member of the parliament overheard them and it struck him to be the easiest excuse to give the next day for coming hung-over and late. That, he had to write his report which contained a lot of unnecessary letters...
What he didn't predict, however, was the issue becoming a cause for a global emergency and people working round the clock to figure out an effective answer...
Finally, one man who decided to look through his wife's internet chat history, ignored the e-sex she had shared with 'hotstudd666', and instead, he discovered that a new language had been born...
For example; A word like 'bliss' would now be spelt 'blis'. And 'water' would be spelt 'watr'..

Diary, you might laugh at how seemingly stupid it looks and sounds, but in the long run, it has proved that more students had finished their assignments on time. and the government saved an annual 2% of revenue spending on paper.

If you may stop laughing, I will now continue my log...
Diary!! Stop!!
Aah! That's better..
I don't know how I manage to live with micro-chips all around me...
What? No! I didn't say a word! Not a peep!

Anyway, I met the chancellor of the planet and told him of my predicament... He assured to give me all the sanctuary I needed till the Shazaa threatened to destroy the planet, after which I would be unceremoniously thrown out...
I had a very difficult time living on that planet...
One fine day (actually I think it was night... But it was during the day...), on the streets, a young woman walked up to me, raised her hand and say 'Hy'...
I assumed she'd said 'hey' and was about to say 'Hy' back when someone carelessly unloaded bales of hay on my head... It was very depressing...
I took over an hour to read the first few lines in the newspaper the next day... It was a random article about a young girl winning the annual spelling bee and that she was selected to represent the planet in the 'Tazer Inter-Galactic Spelling Bee Competition'... I wish that little girl lots of luck...

Another day, I met a scientist/philosopher/lunatic... He was a part-time chief advisor to the President. I finally confessed to him that I didn't think much of the ways of their world and put forth my own challenges...
Questions that I'd kept within me burst out in the open all of a sudden...
"How do you spell 'a'? Or how about 'an'? Or 'if'? If you waste time writing them, why won't you remove them too?"
"Or atleast, how about a larger word like 'feed'? You can't remove an 'e', for it would just be 'fed'... You can't remove the 'd' either, for it would just be 'fee'... You can't remove the 'f' either.. What would you do?"

A couple of days later, I was unceremoniously thrown off the planet... But I was secrectly pleased to find out I had created an uproar among the nations of the globe. The president of 'country XII' * waged war on 'country Beta xXx', once they found out that abid was misread as 'abide' instead of 'a bid' and as a result lost all mining rights for schrezokian rock on their soil.
It was, but a beginning of a global catastrophe.. And I predicted they had less than a year for complete annihilation of their race..
(* - This time XII is to be pronounced 12... And not Xiiii... If you can't make out the difference, you must be something really stupid... & in all probability, an earthling!)

'So much for living amiably', I thought to myself and smiled a grim smile...
I raced across the galaxy with the Shazaa'n battle cruiser still hot on my tail...

And my adventures, or misadventures at various other planets spread across the universal diaspora, will be told to you another day...
Until then,
Goodbye dear diary...