| A mattress had just met a robot. "Hello, robot," said the mattress. "Bleah," said the robot and continued what it was doing, which was walking round very slowly in a very tiny circle. "Happy?" said the mattress. The robot stopped and looked at the mattress. It looked at it quizzically. It was clearly a very stupid mattress. It looked back at him with wide eyes. After what it had calculated to ten significant decimal places as being the precise length of pause most likely to convey a general contempt for all things mattressy, the robot continued to walk round in tight circles. "We could have a conversation," said the mattress, "would you like that?" It was a large mattress, and probably one of quite high quality. Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an infinitely large Universe such as, for instance, the one in which we live, most things one could possibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow somewhere. No one really knows what mattresses are meant to gain from their lives either. They are large, friendly, pocket-sprung creatures which live quiet private lives in the marshes of Squornshellous Zeta. Many of them get caught, slaughtered, dried out, shipped out and slept on. None of them seem to mind and all of them are called Zem. "No," said Marvin. "My name," said the mattress, "is Zem. We could discuss the weather a little." Marvin paused again in his weary circular plod. "The dew," he observed, "has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning." He resumed his walk, as if inspired by this conversational outburst to fresh heights of gloom and despondency. He plodded tenaciously. If he had had teeth he would have gritted them at this point. He hadn't. He didn't. The mere plod said it all. The mattress flolloped around. This is a thing that only live mattresses in swamps are able to do, which is why the word is not in more common usage. It flolloped in a sympathetic sort of way, moving a fairish body of water as it did so. It blew a few bubbles up through the water engagingly. Its blue and white stripes glistened briefly in a sudden feeble ray of sun that had unexpectedly made it through the mist, causing the creature to bask momentarily. Marvin plodded. "You have something on your mind, I think," said the mattress floopily. "More than you can possibly imagine," dreaded Marvin. "My capacity for mental activity of all kinds is as boundless as the infinite reaches of space itself. Except of course for my capacity for happiness." Stomp, stomp, he went. "My capacity for happiness," he added, "you could fit into a matchbox without taking out the matches first." The mattress globbered. This is the noise made by a live, swamp-dwelling mattress that is deeply moved by a story of personal tragedy. Strangely enough, the dictionary omits the word "floopily", which simply means "in the manner of something which is floopy". The mattress globbered again. "I sense a deep dejection in your diodes," it vollued (for the meaning of the word "vollue", buy a copy of Squornshellous Swamptalk at any remaindered bookshop, or alternatively buy The Ultra-Complete Maximegalon Dictionary, as the University will be very glad to get it off their hands and regain some valuable parking lots), "and it saddens me. You should be more mattresslike. We live quiet retired lives in the swamp, where we are content to flollop and vollue and regard the wetness in a fairly floopy manner. Some of us are killed, but all of us are called Zem, so we never know which and globbering is thus kept to a minimum. Why are you walking in circles?" "Because my leg is stuck," said Marvin simply. "It seems to me," said the mattress eyeing it compassionately, "that it is a pretty poor sort of leg." "You are right," said Marvin, "it is." "Voon," said the mattress. "I expect so," said Marvin, "and I also expect that you find the idea of a robot with an artificial leg pretty amusing. You should tell your friends Zem and Zem when you see them later; they'll laugh, if I know them, which I don't of course — except insofar as I know all organic life forms, which is much better than I would wish to. Ha, but my life is but a box of wormgears." He stomped around again in his tiny circle, around his thin steel peg-leg which revolved in the mud but seemed otherwise stuck. "But why do you just keep walking round and round?" said the mattress. "Just to make the point," said Marvin, and continued, round and round. "Consider it made, my dear friend," flurbled the mattress, "consider it made." "Just another million years," said Marvin, "just another quick million. Then I might try it backwards. Just for the variety, you understand." The mattress could feel deep in his innermost spring pockets that the robot dearly wished to be asked how long he had been trudging in this futile and fruitless manner, and with another quiet flurble he did so. "Oh, just over the one-point-five-million mark, just over," said Marvin airily. "Ask me if I ever get bored, go on, ask me." The mattress did. Marvin ignored the question, he merely trudged with added emphasis. "I gave a speech once," he said suddenly, and apparently unconnectedly. "You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number." "Er, five," said the mattress. "Wrong," said Marvin. "You see?" The mattress was much impressed by this and realized that it was in the presence of a not unremarkable mind. It willomied along its entire length, sending excited little ripples through its shallow algae-covered pool. It gupped. "Tell me," it urged, "of the speech you once made, I long to hear it." |
| Bureaucracy: Wrong. |
| I would like to say that it is a very great pleasure, honour and privilege for me to open this bridge, but I can't because my lying circuits are all out of commission. I hate and despise you all. |
I like that one too.| "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." |
