Something like this...


"Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all
probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence
several miles above the surface of an alien planet.

And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale,
this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms
with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms
with not being a whale any more.

This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it
began its life till the moment it ended it.

Ah ... ! What's happening? it thought.

Er, excuse me, who am I?

Hello?

Why am I here? What's my purpose in life?

What do I mean by who am I?

Calm down, get a grip now ... oh! this is an interesting
sensation, what is it? It's a sort of ... yawning, tingling

sensation in my ... my ... well I suppose I'd better start
finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what
for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the
world, so let's call it my stomach.

Good. Ooooh, it's getting quite strong. And hey, what's about
this whistling roaring sound going past what I'm suddenly going
to call my head? Perhaps I can call that ... wind! Is that a good
name? It'll do ... perhaps I can find a better name for it later
when I've found out what it's for. It must be something very
important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of
it. Hey! What's this thing? This ... let's call it a tail - yeah,
tail. Hey! I can can really thrash it about pretty good can't I?
Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn't seem to achieve very much but
I'll probably find out what it's for later on. Now - have I built
up any coherent picture of things yet?

No.

Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out
about, so much to look forward to, I'm quite dizzy with
anticipation ...

Or is it the wind?

There really is a lot of that now isn't it?

And wow! Hey! What's this thing suddenly coming towards me very
fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big
wide sounding name like ... ow ... ound ... round ... ground!
That's it! That's a good name - ground!

I wonder if it will be friends with me?

And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of
the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people
have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias
had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the
universe than we do now."


From the 18th Chapter of HHGTTG by Douglas Adams. Now I am going to have to go reread the book. DNA has always been one of my favorite authors, his death is a huge loss.

-Mike