Archive for the ‘Mythos’ Category
The Pets of Tindalos
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
* Chalmers made sure that his rooms were free of pentagons, because only thus could he keep out the hamsters of Tindalos;
* Chalmers made sure that his rooms contained no parabolas, because he feared the Vietnamese pot bellied pigs of Tindalos;
* Chalmers used a putty knife and some plaster to eradicate all trapezoids from his rooms. He did this to keep out the garter snakes of Tindalos;
* Chalmers eliminated all polygons of n sides, where n is any integer greater than 5, in order to bar entry to the ducklings of Tindalos;
* Chalmers checked his rooms for hyperbolas (there weren’t any) because he feared the anoles of Tindalos;
* Chalmers would have destroyed all traces of ellipses in his rooms, to protect himself from the baby chicks of Tindalos, but he forgot.
The end
* With apologies to the late Frank Belknap Long.
Bah, bah black goat
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
I scream
the musical breath of trees
their limb-rending dance
That dang thousand-legged monster, squatting in the woods out past Coaling. Been there since the tornado went through, or maybe the storm released it from some Paleolithic prison. Started small, at any rate, and the first I saw of it was a peculiar letter to the newspaper from some feller lived out that way. Not really a letter, it was a haiku. Kind of disturbing. I remember thinking he must have been on some kind of hallucinogen. I had a professional interest; trained as a forester at Auburn, though I work as a real estate appraiser now. So I drove out there on my next day off, those winding roads, overhung with trees, they make Midwesterners claustrophobic. Not me, but something about the woods that day did make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I parked out by Lake Lurleen and walked the trail that goes all the way around. It’s been closed since the tornado; part of it got blown away, they claim. The trees tossed in a stiff breeze that didn’t penetrate to ground level. I didn’t see any washouts, the path was clear, but I did hear distant shouting, or singing; maybe chanting, carried on that unfelt wind. I struck off uphill into the woods, but never did find where the sound was coming from. Started to get dark and I began to hear things shuffling in the leaves. Sounded too big to be coons or possums. I got spooked, headed back home.
oak-leaf crown
on her belly the ebon
hoof and snout of God
It all fell apart after that. The freakish weather, people cleared out or disappeared, something happening in the woods west of the lake, two deputies gone out to investigate but they never come back. Sheriff wouldn’t do nothin’ after that. I went out there again myself. Looking for something, the heart of this thing, its root cause. Oh yeah, I found it. Found the little clearing, the black hoofprints burned into the dirt, and all the time the trees moving in a wind I couldn’t feel. Found the Mother too, poor thing; think I was supposed to. I’ll do for her as I can, and what I must, when it’s her time. I have seen the future, and I know what side my bread is buttered on. My advice? Go to ground. Stay out of the woods.
the Young come
and they will hunger
Iä, Shub-niggurath, baby
The end