After a day of rain, some wonderful late fall weather has broken out in Western Dunwich. Up here in the hill country there have been only sporadic sightings of shoggoths and the odd micro-eruption from the parallel dimension where the lobster fungi of Yuggoth hang out. Out in the west field I noticed some strange and indescribable colors to the foliage on an elderberry shrub which I immediately attributed to a meteoric landing of the Color Out of Space. But then I remembered I’m color blind so I dialed that back to perfectly normal green. When I drove out to our grocery store, the one that’s housed in a ruinous, desanctified, former church the proprietor, a man named Jedediah Spoonhandle, eyed me suspiciously when I entered his building. When I asked to buy some soap, he accused me of being in league with the devil. But when I told him I wanted to purchase a dozen frogging gigs he became enraged and attacked me bodily. Apparently, he has some relatives from Innsmouth who have a slightly batrachian look to them. I finally subdued him by clubbing him senseless with a leg of lamb that was at hand. I took the gigs and left the price in paper and coinage on his stunned carcass.
Travelling back to the Compound I reflected on the wonderful world we live in and the strange occurrences that seem to follow me wherever I go. But then I remembered that it’s Saturday and Saturday is a strange day around here so that put things in perspective. When I arrived home, I asked Camera Girl if anything had happened while I was gone. She said no but looking out the kitchen window I noticed that something had flattened two sheds and about a dozen cattle on the neighboring field belonging to Josiah Whateley. When I brought this to her attention she stopped to reflect then said, “Yes, but it is Saturday.” So, I shrugged and said, “Yeah, that’s true.”
I hadn’t spoken to old Whateley in a while so I ambled over to his field where he was collecting cow carcasses for salvage and I greeted him cheerily. But for whatever reason he seemed sort of quiet. So, I asked him what was the matter and he said, “T’ain’t right that unspeakable, blasphemous, eldritch abominations from beyond space and time keep flattening my outbuildings and livestock whenever they get a notion.” So, I said, “Well Josiah, why don’t you ask for help at the next Town Council?” But he backed up with a look of revulsion and said, “And be branded a complainer like you? No thankee.”
I should have known that even in the heart of a quagmire of unspeakable horror that good old Yankee independence would recoil against asking for help from his neighbors. I agreed with Josiah and mentioned that one of his flattened sheds looked like it could be used as a patch for one of his other sheds that had only been half flattened and that his smashed cattle would make a very good mulch for his alfalfa field. I like to think that my talk cheered him up some.
As I walked back to my house, I noticed that a tentacle about as thick as a telephone pole and about a hundred feet long was dragging a full-grown black bear into the swamp. The panicked roaring of the animal as it was pulled under the surface reminded me that life in Dunwich was full of unexpected problems that could ruin your peace of mind if you didn’t make sure to look on the bright side of things and whistle a happy tune. I thought, “That poor bear, he probably forgot to look on the bright side of things and he certainly wasn’t whistling a happy tune, and now look at him.”
And by golly now I was right back in step with the world. I dashed for the side door just as a squadron of eagle sized dragonflies made a bee line for me. I beat them to the door just in time to hear them slam into the outside of the door after I had drawn the deadbolt. Suckers!
After a wonderful dinner I sat down in the living room to write up this little post when the motion detector on the west side of the house activated the flood light. In the dazzling light half a dozen ghouls were staggering back toward the tree line. I thought about running for my rifle and trying to pick off a few of them but I remembered that ghoul hunting season didn’t start until December so I smiled sheepishly and went back to finishing this report.
Well it was a quiet day in Dunwich today but enjoying nature and the simple pleasures of interacting with neighbors shows you what’s really important in life; timing, muscle memory and pure dumb luck.
If the phone rings will YOU answer the Collect Call of Cthulhu?
I will and if I can’t hear him I’ll say “What are you, the Whisperer in the Dark?”