Ford gave up the attempt to sleep. In the corner of his cabin was a small computer screen and keyboard. He sat at it for a while and tried to compose a new entry for the Guide on the subject of Vogons but couldn't think of anything vitriolic enough so he gave that up too, wrapped a robe round himself and went for a walk to the bridge.
As he entered he was surprised to see two figures hunched excitedly over the instruments.
"See? The ship's about to move into orbit," Trillium was saying. "There's a planet out there. It's at the exact coordinates you predicted."
Zaphod heard a noise and looked up.
"Ford!" he hissed. "Hey, come and take a look at this."
Ford went and had a look at it. It was a series of figures flickering over a screen.
"You recognize those Galactic coordinates?" said Zaphod.
"No."
"I'll give you a clue. Computer!"
"Hi, gang!" enthused the computer. "This is getting real sociable, isn't it?"
"Shut up," said Zaphod, "and show up the screens."
Light on the bridge sank. Pinpoints of light played across the consoles and reflected in four pairs of eyes that stared up at the external monitor screens.
There was absolutely nothing on them.
"Recognize that?" whispered Zaphod.
Ford frowned.
"Er, no," he said.
"What do you see?"
"Nothing."
"Recognize it?"
"What are you talking about?"
"We're in the Horsehead Nebula. One whole vast dark cloud."
"And I was meant to recognize that from a blank screen."
"Inside a dark nebula is the only place in the Galaxy you'd see a dark screen."
"Very good."
Zaphod laughed. He was clearly very excited about something, almost childishly so.
"Hey, this is really terrific, this is just far too much!"
"What's so great about being stuck in a dust cloud?" said Ford.
"What would you reckon to find here?" urged Zaphod.
"Nothing."
"No stars? No planets?"
"No."
"Computer!" shouted Zaphod, "rotate angle of vision through one-eighty degrees and don't talk about it!"
For a moment it seemed that nothing was happening, then a brightness glowed at the edge of the huge screen. A red star the size of a small plate crept across it followed quickly by another one--a binary system. Then a vast crescent sliced into the corner of the picture--a red glare shading away into deep black, the night side of the planet.
"I've found it!" cried Zaphod, thumping the console. "I've found it!"
Ford stared at it in astonishment.
"What is it?" he said.
"That . . ." said Zaphod, "is the most improbable planet that ever existed."
When you're looking for something improbable, you don't have to look too hard, especially if you're travelling in a spaceship powered by an Improbability Drive. Zaphod, for some reason, has been looking for a very improbable planet. He found it.
Me? I don't look for improbable things very often. Every day, I pretty much deal with the probable. I value predictability. It makes my life much simpler and easier. At the moment, I'm establishing a new predictable, sliding into my summer work schedule, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. For the past week or so, I've been falling asleep as soon as I get home, at least for an hour or so. I guess my new probable is being pretty much exhausted in the early evening.
Of course, I've been struggling with depression, as well. Being able to function during the day means pushing away all kinds of negative thoughts and feelings. I would call it compartmentalizing. Today, I had less of a problem doing this. In fact, I would say that I enjoyed myself. Was able to laugh a lot with people I care about, and it didn't feel forced to me.
As I said last week, happiness is difficult to maintain. It runs away from you. That's pretty normal, I think. Nobody can be happy 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In a day, I think shooting for a couple hours of true happiness is the best you can expect. The remaining 22 hours are divided into eating, sleeping, driving, and working. Today, I would say that I was average in the happiness scale.
Of course, this is all contingent about how you define happiness. My definition involves being around people whom I love and who love me back. Who make me feel good about myself. Today, I had lunch with two of my best friends from my old job at the surgery center where I used to work. That made me happy for about a half hour. I was able to listen to Doris Day songs with one of my best friends at my new job, and I made her laugh until she wheezed. That made me happy for another 40 minutes. That's 70 minutes. When I got home, I took a nap, woke up feeling rested. Had some leftovers from the fridge for dinner. Another 20 minutes of feeling content. That's 90 minutes.
Then my son came home from my mother's house and got pissed at me for eating the chicken strips he brought home from a restaurant on Sunday. So, that pretty much killed my happiness streak for the day. He's been slamming in and out of the house ever since, and I have been lectured by a ten-year-old about "maybe you shouldn't eat other people's food."
My son has a way of sucking the joy right out of a room sometimes. It's one of his talents. He knows how to make me feel like a failure as a father with the simplest of statements. In my defense in regards to the leftover chicken strips, my son NEVER eats leftovers. Ever. So it was a pretty good supposition on my part that those chicken tenders were up for grabs.
Any way, I had 90 minutes of real happiness today. An average amount, in my book.
Saint Marty counts that as a win.
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