經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第10章1

The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.
Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do.
For instance, in one corner of the Eastern Galactic Arm lies the large forest planet Oglaroon, the entire “intelligent” population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a few extremely minor wars, and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches.
In fact the only Oglaroonians who ever leave their tree are those who are hurled out of it for the heinous crime of wondering whether any of the other trees might be capable of supporting life at all, or indeed whether the other trees are anything other than illusions brought on by eating too many Oglanuts.
Exotic though this behaviour may seem, there is no life form in the Galaxy which is not in some way guilty of the same thing, which is why the Total Perspective Vortex is as horrific as it is.
For when you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says “You are here.”
The grey plain stretched before Zaphod, a ruined, shattered plain. The wind whipped wildly over it.
Visible in the middle was the steel pimple of the dome. This, gathered Zaphod, was where he was going. This was the Total Perspective Vortex.
As he stood and gazed bleakly at it, a sudden inhuman wail of terror emanated from it as of a man having his soul burnt from his body. It screamed above the wind and died away.
Zaphod started with fear and his blood seemed to turn to liquid helium.
“Hey, what was that?” he muttered voicelessly.

宇宙，就像此前所觀測到的那樣，大得令人不安。大多數人更趨向於忽略這個事實，以便過上平靜的小日子。
如果可能的話，許多人會歡天喜地地遷離宇宙，搬到一個他們自己創造出來的小得多的地方去。大多數生物實際上正是這麼做的。
比如說，在銀河系東臂的一個角落裏，有一顆叫做奧格拉文的巨大的森林行星，但行星上所有的“智慧”生物卻都永久性地居住在一棵又小又擠的堅果樹上。在這棵樹上，他們出生、成長、戀愛，在樹皮上刻下關於生命的意義、死亡的無意義、控制生育的重要性等內容的思考文章，以及經所規模相當小的不多的幾場戰爭後，晟終死去，屍體被捆在遠離樹幹的一些不太容易到達的抖技下面的情況。

實際上，離犯下了不可饒恕的滔天罪行的，原因是他能夠支持生命的樹，或者，其他樹木真的是由於吃多了奧格拉果而產生的幻覺嗎？
奧格拉文人的行爲看似有些異乎尋常，但實際上，銀河系內找不出哪種生命形式沒有曾經以這樣或那樣的方式犯過性質相同的錯誤，這也正是絕對透視旋渦之所以如此恐怖的原因。
因爲，一旦你被投進這個旋渦，你將會獲得瞬間的一瞥，看到完全難以想像的天地萬物的無限，以及在其中某個地方的一處細微的標記，一個極其微小的點上的一個撅其微小的點，寫着“你在這裏”
灰暗的平原展現在贊福德面前，這是一片被遺棄的，毀滅了的平原。風狂野地鞭打着地面。
目力所及的一半之處，是那個鋼鐵拱頂所形成的圓丘，那兒，根據贊福德的推測，就是他要去的地方了：那就是絕對透視旋渦。
他停住腳步，陰鬱地看着那個地方。突然問，裏面傳出一聲非人的恐怖哀號，彷彿是一個人的靈魂在烈焰灼燒下脫離了肉體；這聲音穿透了風，漸漸消失了。
贊福德懷着恐懼繼續朝前走，他的血液冰涼，彷彿已經快變成液氮了。
“嘿，那是什麼？”他用幾乎聽不見的聲音喃喃地說。