The Great Phone Directory of the Earth and Neighbouring Planets (Jupiter Not Included)

By Gianluca Neri

You don't receive every day a phone call from the future, in which you can talk to the next tenants of the Earth and discover that you're alive by mistake. Because on the "Great Phone Directory of the Earth and neighbouring planets (Jupiter not included)" is written that at the time of the fateful phone call you would have been dead. Meanwhile, in the year 2054, the "three billion one hundred sixty-eight million four hundred eleven thousand seven hundred twenty-nine" new inhabitants of Earth are waiting patiently outside a phone booth, to receive instructions on their resettlement. All your race is bound to die, quickly. Or maybe not, if you can prevent it ... Hilarious and visionary tribute to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams, "The Great Phone Directory of the Earth" is the first published book in progress on Facebook, with a worldwide following of more than ten thousand fans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781105299964

Book preview

Hobbes

1

- Hello?

- Hello, good morning. May I kindly ask you for two minutes of your time to answer a couple of questions?

- No, listen, if it’s the telephone company again… as I was telling you this morning, I already…

- This is not the telephone company.

- Oh. Herbalife?

- No.

- The book club? The free Kirby in-home demonstration?

- No. We are calling you from the future.

- Nice one, really. Not bad. Whatever it is, I don’t need it.

- Perhaps I did not make myself clear: I am literally calling you from the future.

- What do you mean? What day is it there?

- Friday.

- No: what month, what year.

- Today it is exactly the 11th of September 2054.

- Come on!

- Almost the 12th.

- Where did you get my number?

- Well, about this… we found your number as soon as we got here on the Earth a few hours ago.

- You are bound to tell me how you got it, you know it, don’t you?

- I am telling you we found it here on the Earth, written on a huge billboard. We got here, had a walk around, tried to ask for information, but nobody was there.

- And so you dialled a number at random…

- No. We dialled the number indicated on the billboard: there was this big sign, and below: «For information».

- And my number was there?

- Is this 020-7843963?

- Yes, right. This is my number.

- And this was exactly the number written up there. We have even checked online: your telephone belongs to «MobiTel Call Centre - Inbound and outbound telephone services», at least since April 2032.

- …that is about twenty years from now.

- Are you telling me I got the wrong year? Excuse me, what date have you got?

- It’s not the date that «I» have got: it’s a convention between myself and about 6 billion other people.

- And according to such convention, what would be the date over there?

- Today’s date is 11th September 2010.

- And you all agree it is the 11th September 2010?

- Oh, well, let me think, yes: except maybe for the Muslims, the Jews and the whole of India, I suppose.

- So not all of you are so sure it is the right date.

- Let’s put it this way: the majority has decided that today’s date is 11th September 2010.

- You may be all wrong.

- Let’s also say that nobody thinks today is the 11th of April 2032 for sure.

- Are you sure?

- Quite.

- How bizarre: usually the Supreme Sidereal Controlling Authority for Personal Data is rather fussy when collecting such information. When you make a TimeCall™ using the Genesis option, you are entitled to an answer from the line provider at the time of activation.

- Right.

- …that, as far as I know, has occurred 22 years after what you have called «today».

- Yes… Now, listen, I really wouldn’t want to start arguing with you on the fact that there’s a lot of us who call it «today» … Anyway, I have no idea: try asking someone else, over there.

- Someone else? What do you mean?

- Well, a supervisor, or something like that…

- Forgive me, perhaps I did not make myself clear. When I said before that we arrived, had a walk around and nobody was there, I really meant nobody. In general. On the whole planet: empty. Deserted.

- Tell me again: exactly, who are you?

- The new tenants.

- Of the Earth?

- Of the Earth, exactly.

- So you got here and…

- …and did not find a soul. There was only the great mess you left and this huge billboard.

- I see. Listen, excuse me if I ask, but, what did the billboard say?

- «We’ll be right back.»

2

- May I ask you something?

- Of course.

- Let’s say that what you are telling me is true and that you are actually calling from the future…

- From 2054.

- Yes, from 2054… Well, I was wondering: if it’s really possible for you to travel back and forth in time… why we never see you around here? Why you never give interviews? Or better: why don’t you all go back in time and play the Super Lottery? I mean: why do you stay there, minding your own business, when you could find a minute to warn us, say, not to go into war with somebody; or that a tsunami is heading our way; or that we shouldn’t waste our time watching eight seasons of a sit-com if the channel that broadcasts is going to cancel it before the end?

- That’s a very good question.

- Thank you.

- I’ll try to explain: it is not true that time travelling is not possible. It is forbidden.

- Forbidden by whom?

- Well, I’ll tell you the whole story: for some years after the rumour spread that you needed a simple toaster and some sunscreen, time travelling was all the rage in the Universe as we know it. We consumed more sliced bread in that period that in all the rest of the galaxy’s history.

- Sliced bread.

- Yes. Not the wholemeal type.

- Oh.

- It’s important.

- I see.

- Well, you would see people disappear and then come back with vintage cars, antique coins, photos signed by dictators. And this was only the beginning: since every action committed in the past implied inevitable consequences in the future, it might happen that the Ministry of Education had to update school’s textbooks every couple of days, depending on who had changed the trajectory of a given bullet, or had warned a head of state he would choke on a pretzel. Not to mention that some multinational companies took advantage of the situation to speculate on the toaster market, and that for some time, before the government nationalised the production, it was almost impossible to find one. Still today, our inflation index is calculated on the weighted average of the prices of different brands of toasters.

- I see.

- And it doesn’t end here. For all these reasons, one day they decided to regulate time travelling: all you had to do was purchase a ticket, go to the Embassy or Consulate of the year you had the intention of visiting, answer a couple of questions, fill out a form in which you solemnly declared things like: «I have no intention whatsoever of depositing any kind of refuse in time, even if biodegradable», or «I am totally aware that spoilers are absolutely forbidden», and request a simple VISA - if you were travelling to the past - or an enVISAge, for the future.

- So, getting to the point, in theory you could make a little trip over here, right?

- No. If you have a little more patience I’ll tell you everything in detail.

- Please, go ahead.

- We cannot travel in time and reach you because, after a first period of experimentation with the new system, we realised that uncontrolled bureaucracy had not proved to be an effective deterrent against the foolish things people do when time travelling. Some would go back in time to do their high school finals over again; others, for instance, would even summon from the future their own self just to get a nice massage, or their back scratched.

- Uhm…

- You may have already guessed how we got to the total ban. Shy people and deep-rooted singles quickly realised that it was really easy to go from a massage given by our other self to experimenting other types of service. Loads of people fell in love with their other self travelling around the space-time dimension, and that really came unexpectedly; it is also true that during such trips, often two people at random from two different ages would meet, like each other, build a family around officially registered very young mothers and fathers who, according to their papers, had not even been born yet. A movement for the defence of inter-temporal de facto couples was even set up, but the Government stonewalled, especially when it did not want to recognise those I would call «non-matched couples», made up by two versions of the same individual, each coming from a different time.

- This is becoming tricky.

- And it will get trickier now: each component of the «non-matched couples» had a perfect clone of the other one at disposal. No time to study your lesson? You just had to send to school your other self from the following year, who had spent more time studying. Not to mention the fact that many wives found out only after a long time that the future versions of their husbands would stand in for their present ones, busy with their mistresses or with the «five-a-side» football match.

- A great mess.

- Exactly. For this reason, in the end, the Supreme Governor decided to deport all illegals to their year of origin, and to forbid, without exception, time travelling. To ensure the continuity of the relations that had been inevitably established, the Congress contracted out to the company that published the Great Phone Directory of the Earth and Neighbouring Planets (Jupiter not included) the management, under a monopoly, of TimeCalls™ like this one, that enables me to speak to you. The thing is, they cost a bomb.

- How much?

- I am not sure. On my planet, not including the connection charge, I would have needed six toasters.

3

- One more thing: Why «Jupiter not included»?

- What do you mean?

- Why you left out those from Jupiter from the directory?

- First of all, let’s make one thing clear: we did not leave out those from Jupiter; they were the ones who decided they wanted a separate directory. Or better, two: volume A to L, and volume M to Y.

- M to Z, you mean.

- No, M to Y: the Z does not exist on Jupiter. They abolished it by decree about twenty years ago and declared illegal all the things whose name contained a «zed».

- Like what?

- Do you know what zoos are?

- Of course.

- All closed from the 1st of January 2034. Jazz? All old recordings are banished: two zeds, no way. Topazes? Totally without value. Zebras? Too many stripes. Chimpanzees? Exterminated, one by one. Blazers? Declared unfashionable.

- That’s crazy.

- That’s the reason why it is absolutely not advisable to accept a dinner invitation on Jupiter, unless you are sure you’re not going to an Italian restaurant. «Let’s have a pizza» on Jupiter equals to your «You’re heading for trouble, man».

- I didn’t get that one: why don’t they just order spaghetti?

- According to the Jovials, spaghetti and macaroni are a myth that has never been verified.

- The Jovials?

- Yes.

- Shouldn’t they be called, like, the Jupiterians, or the Jovians?

- No, that’s a typical mistake: you see them, so quick-tempered and gloomy, and the last thing on your mind would be to call them Jovial. We even told them that their name is misleading, especially for tourists, but they won’t listen.

- Are they really quick-tempered?

- They are, even if I must admit they have all the reasons to be that way: Jupiter is not a nice place at all…

- How come?

- Well, first of all, it is forbidden to smoke. Everywhere. A nervous Jovial cannot light up a cigarette in any case. Not even, say, before an exam, a job interview, or after intercourse. They say it’s out of respect for tradition: once, to light a cigarette you needed a lighter, and the best-known lighters were those by Zippo.

- So what?

- Zippo, with a zed.

- Oh.

- Anyway, we think it’s all that gas that is to blame: the story goes that once the Sun was exactly like Jupiter, its spitting image, until the moment a guy decided to light up a Camel Mild.

- Well, okay, it may be annoying, but I don’t think it’s a good reason to denigrate a whole planet.

- I can give you, if you want, loads of other good reasons, and without having to make a big effort. First of all, there is always too much wind. Then, the problem of the 63 moons (even if they play it down and have officially recognised only 49): there are so many unpredictable tides that the most widespread means of transport on the planet is the life boat. Furthermore, I think you know already, Jupiter is very big: about eleven thousand times bigger than your Earth.

- And so?

- So, the surface to study is quite large and Jovial pupils are not happy at all with their geography books being much more cumbersome than those of any other planet of the solar system. Just think that when they go to their geography lesson their school-bags are so heavy that, one day, the Ministry for Education decided that alphabetization was not that necessary any more. They would have abolished it anyway with the moratorium on zeds.

- Okay, but…

- I haven’t finished yet: a good thing is that the planet, in general, is very clean, even if, according to some nasty rumours, it is only thanks to the ammonia layer. And then, there is the voice issue.

- What’s wrong with their voice?

- It’s the reason why this entire galaxy (but I know of others too) makes fun of them: it is shrill, piercing, unbearable.

- Shrill?

- Yes: you may tell someone is a Jovial just by hearing him speak. You know when you inhale from a baloon? For a few seconds, you speak in falsetto. Well, they talk that way.

- But, they do it on purpose?

- No, their atmosphere contains 12% of helium.

- I see. But this does not explain why they have a separate telephone directory.

- Oh, well, that’s because they are simply unpleasant.

4

- Listen, I could stay here talking with you for ages, I really mean it, but you have to believe me when I say I really must go now. Besides, you are spending a lot of money.

- A lot of what?

- Of money.

- That is to say?

- Money: I guess that this call is going to be very expensive for you.

- Forgive me, I understand you quite well in general, but I just cannot grasp some of the not so common words. I am not very fluent in your language.

- What’s the problem?

- I don’t know what «money» means.

- In what sense?

- I ignore the meaning of this word.

- You have never heard of money?

- No.

- What’s your job on the planet?

- I am an employee at the Ministry of the Linguistic Way-out.

- And what is that?

- My duty is to check and correct all the correspondence directed to Jupiter, to avoid any diplomatic incident.

- I don’t think I’ve understood.

- I cancel from the letters and the documents directed to Jupiter all the words including a zed, and replace them with synonyms. Priority is given to documents, then I go through private correspondence and finally I check all the postcards. When I find one saying: «Greetings from Zanzibar», I discard it right away.

- Oh.

- Not an easy job.

- I can imagine.

- Would you like to try?

- Try what?

- I know by heart the synonyms of all the words containing a zed: just say one at random.

- Zany.

- Zany: merry, cheerful, comical, burlesque, contented, funny, farcical, happy, festive, gay, jocose, pleasant, amusing, witty, humorous, lively.

- And you are telling me you don’t know what «money» means?

- I don’t see any zeds in that word.

- So, what is it that you do, actually?

- I open the letters, I make sure there are no words with a zed and, if I find one, I stick a paper strip over it with a synonym I like but that doesn’t alter the meaning of the sentence.

- Ok. Let’s go back to where we started: in return for your job, the Ministry gives you something, right?

- Right.

- Well: that something is money.

- Not in my case.

- What do you mean, not in your case?

- The Ministry, like all employers on my planet, appreciates my job and, in return for my kindness, takes care of my family and me.

- So you don’t get paid?

- I don’t know what it means, so I guess I don’t.

- You have no payslip, cheques, or credits to your current account?

- I really cannot follow you. I think it would be easier if you explained what this…money is.

- Money is… How can I put this just like that…is pieces of paper of different value we exchange to obtain something we need, or desire.

- If they are all pieces of paper, they must have the value of paper, am I right? Or some of them are made with a more valuable type of paper?

- No, the paper is all the same: we are the ones who decide the value of each piece of paper.

- So, tell me if I’m right: if I