Read Online The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams - Free Book Online
Authors: Douglas Adams
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in the room it seemed to Dirk, a kind of difficult, hissing quality to the whole air of the place which he did not know how to respond to. It rose in intensity and then suddenly ended with an abrupt click which made Dirk start.
The boy unwound himself like a slow, fat snake, leaned sideways over the far side of the armchair and made some elaborate unseen preparations which clearly involved, as Dirk now realised, an electric kettle. When he resumed his earlier splayed posture it was with the addition of a plastic pot clutched in his right hand, from which he forked rubbery strands of steaming gunk into his mouth.
The rabbit brought his affairs to a conclusion and gave way to a jeering comedian who wished the viewers to buy a certain brand of lager on the basis of nothing better than his own hardly disinterested say-so.
Dirk felt that it was time to make a slightly greater impression on the proceedings than he had so far managed to do. He stepped forward dinectly into the boy's line of sight.
"Kid," Dirk said in a tone that he hoped would sound firm but gentle and not in any way at all patronising or affected or gauche, "I need to know who - "
He was distracted at that moment by the sight which met him from the new position in which he was standing. On the other side of the armchair there was a large, half full catering-size box of Pot Noodles, a large, half full catering-size box of Mars Bars, a half demolished pyramid of cans of soft drink, and the end of the hosepipe. The hosepipe ended in a plastic tap nozzle, and was obviously used for refilling the kettle.
Dirk had simply been going to ask the boy who he was, but seen from this angle the family resemblance was unmistakable. He was clearly the son of the lately decapitated Geoffrey Anstey. Perhaps this behaviour was just his way of dealing with shock. Or perhaps he really didn't know what had happened. Or perhaps he...
Dirk hardly liked to think.
In fact he was finding it hard to think clearly while the television beside him was, on behalf of a toothpaste manufacturing company, trying to worry him deeply about some of the things which might be going on in his mouth.
"OK," he said, "I don't like to disturb you at what I know must be a difficult and distressing time for you, but I need to know first of all if you actually realise that this is a difficult and distressing time for you."
Nothing.
All right, thought Dirk, time for a little judicious toughness. He leant back against the wall, stuck his hands in his pockets in an OK-if-that's-the-way-you-want-to-play-it manner, stared moodily at the floor for a few seconds, then swung his head up and let the boy have a hard look right between the eyes.
"I have to tell you, kid," he said tersely, "your father's dead."
This might have worked if it hadn't been for a very popular and long-running commercial which started at that moment. It seemed to Dirk to be a particularly astounding example of the genre.
The opening sequence showed the angel Lucifer being hurled from heaven into the pit of hell where he then lay on a buming lake until a passing demon amved and gave him a can of a fizzy soft drink called sHades. Lucifer took it and tried it. He greedily guzzled the whole contents of the can and then tumed to camera, slipped on some Porsche design sunglasses, said, "Now we're really cookin'!" and lay back basking in the glow of the burning coals being heaped around him.
At that point an impossibly deep and growly American voice, which sounded as if it had itself crawled from the pit of hel1, or at least from a Soho basement drinking club to which it was keen to return as soon as possible to marinade itself into shape for the next voice-over, said, "sHad es. The Drink from Hell... " and the can revolved a little to obscure the initial "s", and thus spell "Hades".
The theology of this seemed a little confused, reflected Dirk, but what was one tiny extra droplet of misinformation in such a raging torrent?
Lucifer then
The boy unwound himself like a slow, fat snake, leaned sideways over the far side of the armchair and made some elaborate unseen preparations which clearly involved, as Dirk now realised, an electric kettle. When he resumed his earlier splayed posture it was with the addition of a plastic pot clutched in his right hand, from which he forked rubbery strands of steaming gunk into his mouth.
The rabbit brought his affairs to a conclusion and gave way to a jeering comedian who wished the viewers to buy a certain brand of lager on the basis of nothing better than his own hardly disinterested say-so.
Dirk felt that it was time to make a slightly greater impression on the proceedings than he had so far managed to do. He stepped forward dinectly into the boy's line of sight.
"Kid," Dirk said in a tone that he hoped would sound firm but gentle and not in any way at all patronising or affected or gauche, "I need to know who - "
He was distracted at that moment by the sight which met him from the new position in which he was standing. On the other side of the armchair there was a large, half full catering-size box of Pot Noodles, a large, half full catering-size box of Mars Bars, a half demolished pyramid of cans of soft drink, and the end of the hosepipe. The hosepipe ended in a plastic tap nozzle, and was obviously used for refilling the kettle.
Dirk had simply been going to ask the boy who he was, but seen from this angle the family resemblance was unmistakable. He was clearly the son of the lately decapitated Geoffrey Anstey. Perhaps this behaviour was just his way of dealing with shock. Or perhaps he really didn't know what had happened. Or perhaps he...
Dirk hardly liked to think.
In fact he was finding it hard to think clearly while the television beside him was, on behalf of a toothpaste manufacturing company, trying to worry him deeply about some of the things which might be going on in his mouth.
"OK," he said, "I don't like to disturb you at what I know must be a difficult and distressing time for you, but I need to know first of all if you actually realise that this is a difficult and distressing time for you."
Nothing.
All right, thought Dirk, time for a little judicious toughness. He leant back against the wall, stuck his hands in his pockets in an OK-if-that's-the-way-you-want-to-play-it manner, stared moodily at the floor for a few seconds, then swung his head up and let the boy have a hard look right between the eyes.
"I have to tell you, kid," he said tersely, "your father's dead."
This might have worked if it hadn't been for a very popular and long-running commercial which started at that moment. It seemed to Dirk to be a particularly astounding example of the genre.
The opening sequence showed the angel Lucifer being hurled from heaven into the pit of hell where he then lay on a buming lake until a passing demon amved and gave him a can of a fizzy soft drink called sHades. Lucifer took it and tried it. He greedily guzzled the whole contents of the can and then tumed to camera, slipped on some Porsche design sunglasses, said, "Now we're really cookin'!" and lay back basking in the glow of the burning coals being heaped around him.
At that point an impossibly deep and growly American voice, which sounded as if it had itself crawled from the pit of hel1, or at least from a Soho basement drinking club to which it was keen to return as soon as possible to marinade itself into shape for the next voice-over, said, "sHad es. The Drink from Hell... " and the can revolved a little to obscure the initial "s", and thus spell "Hades".
The theology of this seemed a little confused, reflected Dirk, but what was one tiny extra droplet of misinformation in such a raging torrent?
Lucifer then
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