Douglas Adams was a British comic writer best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which began as a radio series and developed into novels, television, games, and film. His work is associated with science fiction, satire, absurdist comedy, and a distinctive comic treatment of modern life and technology.
Douglas Adams
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
1988. Reprinted in The Dirk Gently Omnibus. William Heinemann, 2001.
She hailed a taxi and sat in the back with her eyes closed most of the way back to her home in Primrose Hill...On one occasion she had gone to this corner of the park and walked around the invisible perimeter that marked out the limits of what she could see, and had come very close to feeling that this was her own domain. She had even patted the plane trees in a proprietorial sort of way, and had then sat beneath them watching the sun going down over London – over its badly spoiled skyline and its non-delivering pizza restaurants – and had come away with a profound sense of something or other, though she wasn't quite certain what.
Kate has just discharged herself from hospital after an act of god at Terminal Two, Heathrow, sent the check-in desk shooting through the roof in a ball of orange flame. So much for her offer to help Thor get a ticket to Oslo. But the God of Thunder hasn't finished with her yet. He needs to get back to Valhalla, and Primrose Hill is the ideal spot to launch his second attempt.
The park was closed for the night, but Thor leapt quickly over the spiked railings and then lifted her over in turn as lightly as if she had been a bunch of flowers. The grass was damp and mushy, but still worked its magic on city feet. Kate did what she always did when entering the park, which was to bob down and put the flats of her hands down on the ground for a moment. She had never quite worked out why she did this, and often she would adjust a shoe or pick up a piece of litter as a pretext for the movement, but all she really wanted was to feel the grass and the wet earth on her palms.