Douglas Adams and Me!

Have been remiss and not blogging so today I will briefly ignore the third act of my script and make an effort.  A story!  A good one!

Ah ha! Got one!

Recently a woman said to me "What an extraordinary co-incidence!  You have seen the exhibition from the wreck of the Pandora and I used to work at a nightclub called Pandora's Box!"

Tragic, isn't it!  Some people must live lives of such extraordinary ordinariness to make such a loose connection and see it as anyway meaningful.  I live a life that seems to be, gosh, I don't know? An illustration of Chaos Theory in action maybe, with patterns lining themselves up willynilly among the most random events? Thus I expect my co-incidences to work a lot harder than that before they get my attention. And for something to be called 'an extraordinary co-incidence'? Truly, I'd need to see the hand of god in it.

My Douglas Adam's story is indeed the most extraordinary co-incidence!

What happened?

Well, 11th May, 2001, I was on holiday in Sydney with several friends and their kids when we all went to Taronga Park Zoo for the day.  On the way, Ella, an 8 year old space-cadet, asked me what I was reading.

I showed her: Douglas Adam's book on endangered species "Last Chance to See".  She asked me what it was about so I showed her the photos, hoping to get rid of her fast so I could go back to the hilarious stories about the New Zealand kakopo.  But then she saw the picture of the Komodo Dragon and was instantly thrilled and agog.  "What is that?"

Sighing, I turned back to the first chapter and, skipping all the stories about Douglas and Lizard Guy, the hilarious Australian conservationist who turned him on to the struggles to save the Komodo Dragons in the first place, dragging him off to Komodo Island to see them in the wild, and went straight into the descriptions of this extraordinary creature.

Douglas Adams is a most hilarious and entertaining writer and he knew to tell all the best and most gruesome stories and Ella was thrilled and shuddering and going "Ewww!" and wanting me to read more and more and more, so I did.

Then, much later in the day, when we're all wandering around the Zoo (where I had the most amazing encounter with a chimpanzee - but that's another story.),  Ella sees a sign that reads "Komodo Dragon" and shrieks with delight, grabs the other kids and shouting "You must see this.  You must see this." races them up the hill in the direction the sign indicated.

We adults sauntered up the hill more slowly and reached the Komodo Dragon pen when Ella was in full flight, leaning over the side of the pen, pointing at the Dragons and talking non-stop, repeating what I'd been reading to her almost word-for-word!  I was shocked because Space Cadet lives entirely in the present and never ever remembers anything five minutes after it happens.

Just along from the huddle of our kids, all excited and going "Wow!" at Ella's account, there was a young man standing at the pen also looking over at the Komodo Dragon. When we arrived he was very still and pensive, in what seemed like a strange little pool of sadness, but I noticed him register Ella's chatter and then, with a start, RECOGNISE Ella's chatter!  His eyes widened in astonishment.

Then he looked from the kids to we adults and looked at all our faces in turn, came to mine and I saw him think "It's her!".

I was very taken aback "What's wrong?" I asked him.

"Do you know he died today?"  the man said.

"Who died today?" I reply.

"Douglas Adams!"

"No. No. No.  He can't have! He was a young man! What happened?"

"Heart attack, apparently."

"That's awful."

"Yes it is!" the man said.

Suddenly I got it!  Everything made sense.  "You're Lizard Guy!" I said.

"Yeah, I'm Lizard Guy!"

So we talked for a while about Douglas Adams and their adventures on Komodo Island, and their adventures with Indonesian authorities, until the kids were ready to move on.

"I'm very sorry for your loss." I said to him in parting.

"No. No. Don't be."  he replied, tears in the corners of his eyes.  "What you have given me here was the most beautiful gift I could ever imagine.  I was standing here thinking that it was all a stupid waste of time, that everything Douglas and I did back then trying to save the Dragon from extinction was meaningless and mattered nothing in the wider scheme of things.  But then that beautiful child came along and she knew everything Douglas had written ... and it was just right. Exactly what I need right now to make it OK within myself!"

And then, as I walked away, he shouted after me "You know, I think this all was Douglas's parting gift to me."

"Yeah, I do too. Wonder if he's still an atheist now?" I shouted back. And we both laughed, waved to each other and that was it.

Now THAT'S what I call an extraordinary co-incidence! Ella is probably the world's most unlikely angelic messenger, and Douglas Adam's the most unlikely post-passing sender of messages, but you too can see the Hand of God in this, yes?