經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第33章3

“Yes, in two million years’ time. Why don’t you tell them that? Go and say to them, ‘Excuse me, I’d just like to point out that in two million years’ time I will be born just a few miles from here.’ See what they say. They’ll chase you up a tree and set fire to it.”
Arthur absorbed this unhappily.
“Face it,” said Ford, “those zeebs over there are your ancestors, not these poor creatures here.”
He went over to where the apemen creatures were rummaging listlessly with the stone letters. He shook his head.
“Put the Scrabble away, Arthur,” he said, “it won’t save the human race, because this lot aren’t going to be the human race. The human race is currently sitting round a rock on the other side of this hill making documentaries about themselves.”
Arthur winced.
“There must be something we can do,” he said. A terrible sense of desolation thrilled through his body that he should be here, on the Earth, the Earth which had lost its future in a horrifying arbitrary catastrophe and which now seemed set to lose its past as well.
“No,” said Ford, “there’s nothing we can do. This doesn’t change the history of the Earth, you see, this is the history of the Earth. Like it or leave it, the Golgafrinchans are the people you are descended from. in two million years they get destroyed by the Vogons. History is never altered you see, it just fits together like a jigsaw. Funny old thing, life, isn’t it?”
He picked up the letter Q and hurled it into a distant privet bush where it hit a young rabbit. The rabbit hurtled off in terror and didn’t stop till it was set upon and eaten by a fox which choked on one of its bones and died on the bank of a stream which subsequently washed it away.
During the following weeks Ford Prefect swallowed his pride and struck up a relationship with a girl who had been a personnel officer on Golgafrincham, and he was terribly upset when she suddenly passed away as a result of drinking water from a pool that had been polluted by the body of a dead fox. The only moral it is possible to draw from this story is that one should never throw the letter Q into a privet bush, but unfortunately there are times when it is unavoidable.
Like most of the really crucial things in life, this chain of events was completely invisible to Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent. They were looking sadly at one of the natives morosely pushing the other letters around.
“Poor bloody caveman,” said Arthur.
“They’re not…”
“What?”
“Oh never mind.”
The wretched creature let out a pathetic howling noise and banged on the rock.
“It’s all been a bit of waste of time for them, hasn’t it?” said Arthur.
“Uh uh urghhhhh,” muttered the native and banged on the rock again. “They’ve been outevolved by telephone sanitizers.”
“Urgh, gr gr, gruh!” insisted the native, continuing to bang on the rock.
“Why does he keep banging on the rock?” said Arthur.

“是的，二百萬年之後。你爲什麼不告訴他們這個呢？走過去對他們說，‘請原諒，我只是想指出，二百萬年之後，我將出生在距離這裏僅僅幾英里的地方。看看他們會說些什麼。他們會把你綁在一棵樹上，然後放把火。”
阿瑟悶悶不樂地聽着。
“正視現實吧，”福特說，“那邊那些傢伙纔是你的祖奇$%^書*（網！&*$收集整理先，而不是這裏這些可憐的生物。”
他朝無精打采地擺弄石塊字母的猿人們那邊走過去，一邊搖着手。
“別管什麼拼字遊戲了，阿瑟，”他說，“它拯救不了人類，因爲這個種羣根本成不了人類。人類這個種族現在正在山耶邊嘲着一塊岩石坐着，拍關於他們自己的記錄片。”
阿瑟不禁有點畏縮。
“我們肯定還是能做些事情的。”他說。一種可怕的孤獨，淒涼之感淹沒了他。他在這兒，在地球上，但地球已經在一場隨意的可怕災難中失去了未來，現在似乎叉要喪失它的過去：
“不，”福特說，”我們什麼也不能做。這不是改變了地球的歷史，你瞧，這本身就是地球的歷史。不管你接不接受，但事實如此：高爾伽弗林壹姆人是你們的祖先。二百萬年之後，他們被沃貢人毀滅了。歷史從來不會改變，它只不過像拼板玩具一樣，是一塊塊拼起來的。生活真奇妙，不是嗎，”
他撿起字母Q，用力扔進遠處的一片女貞樹叢中，擊中了那兒的一隻小兔子。這隻兔子受了驚，跑個不停，直到被一隻孤狸襲擊、吃掉，而這隻孤狸則被一根骨頭卡住，在一條小溪岸窒息而死，隨後被小溪沖走了。
接下來的幾星期，福特長官拋開自己的驕傲，開始和一個女孩建立起某種關係。在高爾伽弗林查姆上時，她是一個人事官員。後來，她卻因爲喝了被一具死狐狸的屍體污染的池塘裏的水死掉了，讓福特感到極度傷感。從這個故事裏只可能得出一個教訓，那就是，一個人永遠不應該把字母Q扔進一片女貞樹叢，但不幸的是，有些時候，這種行爲是不可避免的。
生活中大多數真正至關重要的事情往往被人忽視，這一系列前因後果也一樣，完全被福特長官和阿瑟·鄧特所忽略了。此刻，他們正傷心地看着一個土著人愁眉苦臉地擺弄着另外一些字母。
“可憐的穴居人。”阿瑟說。
“他們不是”
“什麼？”
“噢，沒什麼。”幅特說。
這個可憐的生物發出一聲悲慘的嚎叫，重重地一拳砸在岩石上。
“對他們來說，這有點兒像是浪費時間，不是嗎？”阿瑟說，
“嗚，嗚，嗚哇。”土著人咕噥道，又是一拳砸在岩石上：“在進化過程中，他們必將敗在電話消毒員們的手下。”
“鳴哇，咕，咕，”土著人同執地叫道，一邊繼續用拳頭砸岩石。
“爲什麼他要一直砸岩石呢？”阿瑟說。