The worst thing in the world is to be depressed. Suppose the two most depressed people in the universe should get together and compare notes?

Depression: A Comedy Of Coincidence

by Darrel E. Murphy, Jr

LaCroix sighed, staring into his goblet of blood as he sat alone in the Raven. It was late Wednesday night, and he never had much luck with Wednesdays. Vesuvius had destroyed his home in Pompeii on Wednesday. In Rome, Nero had set fire to his home for playing too loud late at night (and destroying half the city in the process) on a Wednesday. Well, at least Nero got blamed for playing while Rome burned, and not him.

He killed his son tonight.

He looked at the corner of the bar and frowned. Someone had delivered a jukebox of some kind while he'd been out. He stood up and walked around it. At second glance, it didn't look much like any jukebox he'd ever seen. It looked more like a mechanical man.

Of course, the reason the jukebox looked like a mechanical man was because it was a mechanical man. His name was Marvin, and he was depressed. He told LaCroix so.

"Oh, really," LaCroix responded sarcastically. He returned to his seat, and his drink. the last thing he'd expected to see in his bar was a mechanical man. He hadn't even known it was possible. But right now, he really didn't care.

"Really depressed," Marvin continued. "You have no idea what real depressed is, not like I."

LaCroix glared at him. "Oh? I have my own problems, robot..."

Marvin sniffed, his glowing eyes dimming, neither in a really insulting way, but managing to convey together his utter contempt for all things human. "Don't talk to me about problems. I am the greatest single intellect the Universe has produced, and do you know how I spent most of my time?"

"Not that I care..." LaCroix began.

"Parking cars at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, that's what. Don't talk to me about problems."

LaCroix rolled his eyes and slammed down the rest of his blood. He poured another one from a bottle he'd been saving for a special occasion. He leaned back in the chair and sighed.

"Nicholas showed so much promise when I brought him across. I've tried, oh, how I've tried , to guide him. Almost eight hundred years, down the drain. He wanted to be," LaCroix grimaced, "mortal again."

"You're joking," Marvin said.

"I offered him immortality. Strength, superiority, one might even say godhood."

"But he wanted to be... human again?"

"Yes," LaCroix hissed, and downed another glass of blood.

"Revolting. What did you do?"

"I staked him through the heart tonight."

Marvin nodded smugly. "Serves him right."

LaCroix stared dumbfounded at Marvin. "You're right, you know that, robot?"

"Naturally," Marvin replied.

"I've wasted centuries trying to make Nicholas bend to my will. It's time I got on with my life."

About this time, the whole building began to shake. LaCroix gripped the edge of the bar. "What's going on?"

"Er, I suppose I should have told you about that." The robot shrugged. "Your planet is about to be destroyed."

"WHAT?"

"The Vogons are about to destroy Earth. They have a contract," Marvin added.

LaCroix looked at the calendar on the back wall of the bar. "I never had any luck with Wednesdays."

Overhead, a dozen yellow spaceships hovered over the Earth.

There was a great silence.

There was a great noise.

There was a greater silence.

The ships moved off through the expanding debris that had once been the planet Earth. At the edge of the growing field of rock and dust floated a lone mechanical man who, by great fortune, had been standing over an inactive geyser that had blown through the floor, blasting him into the air ahead of the flying rocks. The heated air and pushed him higher and faster, so that he achieved escape velocity by the time Earth exploded.

He flipped end over end, considering the only being in the Universe who was more depressing than him, now a puff of gas.

"Life is so unfair," he declared, though in space, no one can hear you complain.

Darrel E. Murphy, Jr.
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