The Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash

It's Just Never the Right Things

It wasn't long before, being able to actually think about what irked him, he thought he would have a solution. He stormed off to the local café, a man with a purpose, looking for Ford. He found him at a table, drinking from a tall wax cup, leafing lazily through a book called "The Encyclopedia Galactica: Why It Still Matters", occasionally making a soft chuckle.

"Ford!" Arthur called, as he spooted him. Ford glimpsed over, and waved to Arthur.

"Hey! Arthur!" he called back. "Take a seat."

Arthur sat down across from Ford. As he did, Ford took a long, deep sip of his coffee.

"Ah... can you believe this costs six quid?" Ford asked. "It's zarking hilarious. Can I get you one, Arthur?"

"Do they have tea?" he asked.

"Four pounds fifty," Ford commented, "you need to learn to be more ambitious. Hang on, I'll get you one."

"I take it with cream," Arthur said, as Ford was getting up. He went up to the counter, encountering a young, raven-haired girl in an apron and visor, tattooed where she wasn't pierced and vice-versa, mulling around behind it. Some things never change, Arthur thought to himself.

It's just never the right things...

Ford was soon back with the tea, piping hot in its little wax cup.

"They didn't have any cream," he admitted, "the Ameglian Major cows around here won't agree to be milked. They take it as a personal insult that anyone would rather milk them than eat them. Non-dairy creamer all right?"

Arthur took the cup. "Tea is tea," he grumbled, "it's fine."

"You look troubled," remarked Ford, "and this looks like a new one. Got some new bug in your shorts, Arthur?"

"I'm just frustrated," he answered.

"No kidding!" Ford exclaimed, his eyes wide. "You're moving up in the world, Arthur!"

"Ehh," he groaned, not sharing Ford's enthusiasm.

"What did the trick?" Ford asked eagerly, "was it that hyperspace jump that threw you onto that little beach planet the Vogons picked for a random audit?"

"No..." Arthur said.

"Was it that the Vogons made you do all the paperwork for the entire planet since you were the only creature there with opposable thumbs, even though you had insisted that you ended up there from a hyperspatial accident, and they made you fill out more paperwork because of that?"

"No..." Arthur said again.

"Ooh, I know!" Ford cried, "it was when you had to hitchhike on a Jatravartid junk freighter, and you kept passing out from all the aerosol fumes from the spent deodorant cans."

"No..." Arthur said again, becoming annoyed.

"Ohhh, I know what it is," Ford said, with a greasy sort of confidence, "it was when the freighter was passing by Nano and you had to use a teleporter to get off, but you didn't know it was one of those Sirius Cybernetic models that had that big recall, and it ended up sending you all the way back to the planet you started on!"

Arthur was rubbing his forehead.

"Why did I tell you all this?"

"You get pretty loose-lipped after a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster or two, mate," answered Ford.

"Right," Arthur agreed, "well, that's not it either."

"Was it when-"

"NO!" he shouted. "It was before all that."

"...What, when you saw that girl you liked for a second during the jump?" Ford guessed, sounding a little disappointed.

"Yes, that." Arthur said.

"Why was that what did it?" wondered Ford. "She was just a figment. She's like that little streak that appears in your eye when you look at a bright light and blink. She didn't make you fill out paperwork, she didn't make you have to sleep next to ten thousand spent deodorants, she wasn't even actually there. Why would that push you over the brink?"

Arthur gave Ford the stink-eye. He just shrugged.

"Well okay, fine, it was frustrating," Ford said, "what of it?"

Arthur looked up from his tea.

"What do you know about parallel universes?" he asked.

"The Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash, you mean?" Ford asked back. Arthur stared blankly at him.

"There's not much to know," Ford said, "it's all probability. Something happens or doesn't happen. The Mish-Mash is where everything that didn't happen, well... happens."

Arthur's expression somehow became even more blank.

"What?"

"Just look it up in the Guide," Ford dismissed, "it can explain it better than I can."

"Must I?" Arthur asked, "that smarmy voice it uses just drives me batty."

Ford responded by reacing into his bag and pulling out his stout black Guide terminal, and passing it to Arthur. Reluctantly, Arthur took it and opened it.