The Last Continent

sarong.”
    “Looks right enough to me, haha,” said the Dean.
    “Certainly makes a man wish he was fifty years younger,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
    “Five minutes younger would do for me,” said the Dean. “Incidentally, did any of you notice that rather clever inadvertent joke just then? Stibbons said it was ‘a sarong’ and I—”
    “What’s that she’s carrying?” said Ridcully.
    “—no, listen, you see, I misheard him, in fact, and I—”
    “Looks like…coconuts…” said Ponder, shading his eyes.
    “This is a bit more like it,” said the Senior Wrangler.
    “—because actually I thought he said, ‘It’s wrong,’ you see—”
    “Certainly a coconut,” said Ridcully. “I’m not complaining, of course, but aren’t these sultry maids generally black-haired? Red doesn’t seem very typical.”
    “—so I said—”
    “I suppose you’d get coconuts here?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “They float, don’t they?”
    “—and, listen, when Stibbons said ‘sarong,’ I thought he—”
    “Something familiar about her,” Ridcully mused.
    “Did you see that nut in the Museum of Quite Unusual Things?” said the Senior Wrangler. “Called the coco-de-mer and…” he permitted himself “…ha, very curious shape, you know, you’ll never guess who it used to put me in mind of…”
    “It can’t be Mrs. Whitlow, can it?” said Ponder.
    “As a matter of fact, I must admit that it—”
    “Well, I thought it was mildly amusing, anyway,” said the Dean.
    “It is Mrs. Whitlow,” said Ridcully.
    “More of a nut, really, but—”
    It dawned on the Senior Wrangler that the sky was a different color on his personal planet. He turned around, looked, said, “Mwaaa…” and fell gently to the sand.
    “Ai don’t quate know what’s happened to Mister Librarian,” said Mrs. Whitlow, in a voice that made the Senior Wrangler twitch even in his swoon.
    The coconut opened its eyes. It looked as if it had just seen something truly horrific, but this is a normal expression for baby orangutans and in any case it was looking at the Dean.
    “Eek!” it said.
    Ridcully coughed. “Well, at least he’s the right shape,” he said. “And, er, you, Mrs. Whitlow? How do you feel?”
    “Mwaa…” said the Senior Wrangler.
    “Very well indeed, thank you,” said Mrs. Whitlow. “This country agrees with me. I don’t know whether it was the swim, but Ai haven’t felt quate so buoyant in years. But Ai looked around and there was this dear little ape just sitting there.”
    “Ponder, would you mind just throwing the Senior Wrangler in the sea for a moment?” said Ridcully. “Nowhere too deep. Don’t worry if it steams.” He took Mrs. Whitlow’s spare hand.
    “I don’t want to worry you, dear Mrs. Whitlow,” he said, “but I think something is shortly going to come as a big shock to you. First of all, and please don’t misunderstand me, it might be a good idea to loosen your clothing.” He swallowed. “Slightly.”

    The Bursar had experienced some changes of age as he wandered through the wet but barren land, but to a man capable of being a vase of flowers for an entire afternoon this was barely a mild distraction.
    What had caught his eye was a fire. It was burning bits of driftwood, and the flames were edged with blue from the salt.
    Close to it was a sack made of some sort of animal skins.
    The damp earth beside the Bursar stirred and a tree erupted, growing so fast that the rain steamed off the unfolding leaves. This did not surprise him. Few things did. Besides, he’d never seen a tree growing before, so he did not know how fast it was supposed to go.
    Then several more trees exploded around him. One grew so fast that it went all the way from sapling to half-rotten trunk in a few seconds.
    And it seemed to the Bursar that there were other people here. He couldn’t see them or hear them, but something in his bones sensed them. However, the Bursar was also quite accustomed to the presence of people who couldn’t be seen or heard by anyone else, and had spent many a pleasant hour in conversation with historical figures and, sometimes, the wall.
    All in all the Bursar was, depending on your outlook, the most or least suitable person to encounter deity on a first-hand basis.
    An old man walked around a rock and was halfway to the fire before he noticed the wizard.
    Like Rincewind, the Bursar had no room in his head for racism. As a skin color black came