Tag: H. P. Lovecraft

Debate in Dunwich – Part 4

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BISHOP – Welcome to the third and final 2024 Debate between the candidates running for the office of Dunwich First Selectman.  I’m head moderator Uriah Bishop and tonight we’re here with Great Old One Hastur and unfortunately none of his opponents was willing to show up for this last debate.  Probably this is because he cooked and ate his last opponent, Azathoth at the conclusion of the debate.

HASTUR – Oh boo-hoo.  The big mean monster ate one of the other big mean monsters.  Grow up little pastry.  That is my world.  And that is your world too.  Look around you and observe how things really work.  The big fish eats the little fish.  Or bird or cat or man or monster.  Everything else is just make believe.  The strong survive and the weak go to the wall.

BISHOP – Then what is the point of the weak even trying?

HASTUR – The point is you want to breath that sweet air and feel your blood pulse through your veins for the next minute and the minute after that.  You’ll do whatever you can to keep alive.  And because the strong aren’t all that strong.  If you want something bad enough and work hard enough you can survive.  But just remember not to believe the hype.  Remember who you are dealing with.  Me.

BISHOP – And how are you going to run the show?

HASTUR – I intend to simplify things.  I’m gonna get rid of all the make believe.  I’m strong enough not to need the divide and conquer stuff.  I’ll deal with all of you insects at once.  You’ll all get the same deal from me.  You do what I say and the game goes on.  You get to keep your little lives and hoard your crumbs.  But rock the boat and you’ll get my undivided attention.  Now that’s pretty fair.  You might almost call me a humanitarian.  I love all the little people.  Especially with tabasco sauce.  So don’t rock the boat.

BISHOP – Well folks you heard it here first.  Great Old One Hastur has laid out his agenda for his term as First Selectman of Dunwich.  And in retrospect it is surprisingly close to the policy that dearly departed First Selectman Cthulhu followed.  He tended to eat anyone who forced him to break his routine or questioned his orders.  I’m sure we all will adapt easily to this new management.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

HASTUR – Sure.  When you think about it, it’s a better deal than you’re getting from Washington.  At least I don’t insist that you pretend to like being eaten alive.  Honest tyranny is preferable to fake democracy.  You don’t have to love Big Brother just stay out of Caesar’s way and live to pull a galley slave’s oar another day.  Besides you can dream about a revolt and how you’ll slit the throats of all the masters one day.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?

BISHOP – Yes, your excellency.  What could be better than that.

HASTUR – That’s the spirit Bishop.  You know I’m starting to like you.  How would you like to be my emissary to the humans.  It doesn’t pay much but if you follow orders, I’ll probably eat you last!

BISHOP – That’s an offer no one could refuse.

HASTUR – Literally.

Debate in Dunwich – Part 3

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BISHOP – Welcome to the second 2024 Debate between the candidates running for the office of Dunwich First Selectman.  I’m head moderator Uriah Bishop and I would introduce my four fellow moderators but they were eaten by candidate Hastur during the first debate.  Well, one wasn’t eaten but he started running as soon as the debate ended and by now, he must be somewhere over the Canadian border.  I will be running the debate but we have suspended all rules associated with the candidates’ actions out of naked fear of being ingested.  So, we expect a lively but chaotic night.

Tonight, our candidates are Hastur and Azathoth also known as the “Blind Idiot God,” but in a positive and non-judgmental way.  Seeing as Hastur scares me worst I will open up the debate by turning over the microphone to him.

HASTUR – Very good human, you managed to avoid immediate death.  Keep up the good work.  Well, Azathoth I see you’ve managed to scrape the cosmic barnacles off your face and show up for this debate.  What do you have to say for yourself?

AZATHOTH – Hey, watch that kind of talk.  Why in my day young whippersnappers knew enough to only speak when they were spoken to.  If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head, I’ll take you out behind the Crab Nebula and teach you some manners, by gum.

HASTUR – Calm down sleepy Joe.  They don’t call you the Blind Idiot God for nothing.  If we squared off, you’d be lucky not to poke your own eye out with one of your claws.  Now let’s cut to the chase and tell the audience of puny humans what we each hope to achieve as “First Selectman.”  For instance, I hope to ban humans from adding artificial sweeteners to their foods and drinks.  All of these additives build up in human cells and always give me a headache if I have more than two or three humans at a meal.  Especially the female humans with their attempts to lose weight to attract a man.

AZATHOTH – Hey, what do you mean by stereotyping women that way?  That’s obviously sexist and it’s fat-shaming too.  What are you?  Some kind of agent of the patriarchy.  Why I oughta haul off and belt you one, you dog-faced pony soldier, you!  And why do you assume a woman is trying to attract a man.  Are you trying to deny the existence of the LGBTQ?

HASTUR – Okay that’s enough.

(Hastur closes with Azathoth and proceeds to dismember him.  First, he snaps off his lobster-like claws and then all of his remaining limbs.)

AZATHOTH – Ahhhhh!  Ahhhh!  You can’t do that to me.  I’m the supreme deity of the Cthulhu Mythos.

HASTUR – Yeah, yeah, yeah.  But you also taste really good baked with some dipping butter on the side.  So, everyone is invited to join me on the beach tonight for a good old seafood bake.  Bring your own bibs and I’ll provide the sides and beer.

BISHOP – Well, there you have it folks.  Hastur has taken to our New England customs and cuisine surprisingly quickly for an invading intergalactic demigod from another dimension.  And I for one applaud his generosity in hosting this party.  But I will not be attending.  There was no talk of what the side dishes would be and I don’t wish to tempt fate by ending up as one of them.  So, until the next debate this is Uriah Bishop wishing you a good night and nightmare free dreams.

Debate in Dunwich – Part 2

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BISHOP – Welcome to the first 2024 Debate between the candidates running for the office of Dunwich First Selectman.  I’m head moderator Uriah Bishop and along with my four fellow moderators I will be running the debate and handling the time clock and microphones.  We randomly selected the two contestants for tonight’s debate.  They are two of the former First Selectman’s closest relatives; his daughter Cthylla and his half-brother Hastur.

Before we get started I will just explain the rules of the debate.  Each candidate will be given two minutes to answer a question.  If the candidate exceeds that time he will have his microphone shut off and will be penalized a minute for the first offense and two minutes for his second offense.  On the third offense he will lose all right to answer questions.

(At this point Hastur moved toward the moderators’ dais and ate one of the officials.)

HASTUR – Now I will explain my rules.  Every time you say something annoying, I will eat some of you.  First offense I will eat one of you, as I just did.  Second offense two of you.  On the third offense I’ll eat all the rest of the moderators and probably most of the spectators.

BISHOP – Those are very convincing rules.  Can I start the questioning?

HASTUR – Certainly, my little dumpling.

BISHOP – Thank you your titanic excellency.  Cthylla, if you are elected First Selectman, what will be your first official act?

CTHYLLA – That’s easy.  I will change the job title to First Select Person!  We’re in the twentieth century here and this patriarchal sexism will be laid to rest!  And after that I intend to change the pronunciation of Dunwich so that you can hear the w.  I will enact a law that anyone pronouncing it “Dunitch” will be fined a hundred dollars.  Oh, and I intend to make rooftop solar panels and electric cars mandatory.  And …

HASTUR – Alright, that’s enough.  Listen you empty-headed boob.  Why should a Great Old One care what humans name their bureaucrats?  Or how they pronounce their absurd place names.  Basically, they’re cattle for us to herd and then devour.  And as for this stupid “election,” I’m doing this for fun.  If these insignificant maggots vote for anyone but me, I’ll flatten half of Dunwich as an object lesson and start eating a dozen of them daily until they come to me, en masse, and beg me to be their “First Selectman.”

CTHYLLA – Hastur, you can’t talk to me that way.  In the words of my favorite philosopher, my future as the leader of Dunwich is unburdened by what has been.

BOTH FEMALE MODERATOR – You go girl!

(Hastur, once again, ambles over to the Moderators’ dais and eats both female moderators.)

HASTUR – That’s two strikes.

BISHOP – Well, I think this concludes the question period of this debate.  I think we’ll proceed to closing arguments and I will ask Hastur to go first.

HASTUR – Cthylla you are a brainless nincompoop.  How my brother ever spawned anything as vacuous as you is inexplicable.  I recommend you spend your time trying to memorize which are your right and left legs and leave running the known universe to beings with the ruthlessness and intelligence needed to succeed.  If you are any indication of what the next generation of Great Old Ones is like then I shudder to think how we will conquer the giant Martian Beetle Men a billion years from now after I retire to R’lyeh.

BISHOP – Well, I think we should end here.  Although both candidates have spoken passionately, I think it’s fair to say that Hastur has driven home his argument, uh, viscerally.  And for that reason he will advance to the next debate when his opponent will be the Azathoth or as he is sometimes known the “Blind Idiot God.”

HASTUR – I like to call him “Sleepy Joe.”

BISHOP – Well said, well said.  Unfortunately, I will not be moderating at that debate due to a schedule conflict that is unavoidable.

HASTUR – You better avoid it or you’ll have an appointment with my alimentary canal.

BISHOP – I’ve just remembered a cancellation.  I’ll be there of course.

Debate in Dunwich – Part 1

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With the death of First Selectman Cthulhu a power vacuum has formed.  But not a metaphorical one.  The disappearance of Cthulhu has caused an actual rip in the fabric of space-time and various Great Old Ones and their allies and servants have been sucked into our space-time and hurled down to Dunwich.

Sighted so far are:

  • Hastur; the polypous, ravenous floating mass endowed with tentacles, drills, and suckers, or more frequently, as the King in Yellow, a humanoid being wearing tattered, yellow clothes and a mask hiding the face. He is said to be Cthulhu’s (half-)brother.
  • Idh-yaa; A gigantic, pale, worm-like horror dwelling beneath the crust of the star Xoth. She has been Cthulhu’s first bride, and with him spawned three sons—Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha, and Zoth-Ommog—and a younger daughter, Cthylla.
  • Yog-Sothoth; The “All-in-One and One-in-All”, co-rules with Azathoth and exists as the incarnation of time in the cosmos, yet is somehow locked outside the mundane universe.
  • Shub-Niggurath; The “Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young”
  • Nyarlathotep; The “Crawling Chaos”, is the avatar of the Outer Gods, existing as the incarnation of space and functions as an intermediary between the deities of the pantheon and their cults.
  • Azathoth; Sometimes referred to as the “Blind Idiot God”, is a dreaming monster who rules the Outer Gods, created them (along with many other worlds) and thus effectively serves as the supreme deity of the Cthulhu Mythos.

With these Great Old Ones wishing to succeed Cthulhu as the leader of storied Dunwich, these demonic beings have each filled out the necessary paperwork and paid the fees to be placed on the November ballot for the office of First Selectman of Dunwich.  The Town Clerk has posted the ballot in the Dunwich Complainer and a series of debates will take place.  But not in the Town Hall as is typical but rather in an open field on Sentinel Hill where the larger Great Old Ones can more easily fit.

Due to the short window for campaigning there was not sufficient time for any of the candidates to obtain the endorsement of either of the two major parties but since the Democrats are rightly considered the sowers of chaos, any monstrous entity would more or less qualify as a Democrat candidate.

When contacted by the Complainer, only Hastur made himself available for comment.  The polypous, ravenous floating mass endowed with tentacles morphed into his King in Yellow, humanoid wearing tattered, yellow clothes and mask hiding his face form.  But before speaking he morphed into a very Trump-like monster.  He was quoted as saying, “These debates will be the greatest debates and all these other Great Old Ones will be shown to be not very great.  In fact, except for me they will all be terrible.  They will all be like Sleepy Joe Biden; very confused and very stupid.  Especially Azathoth who really is the “Blind Idiot God.”  But he’s not really blind.  He’s just pretending to be blind for the sympathy.  Very sad.  By the end of the debate all of them will drop out and I will be first Selectman.  This I guarantee.”

We at the Dunwich Complainer will follow this race diligently and will shamelessly favor whichever candidate pays us the most advertising revenue.  Stay tuned for this titanic struggle.  Winner take Dunwich.

Talk the Talk

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Regular readers of this site know I tend to make fun of H P Lovecraft’s prose style.  In his better written stories, it has a quasi-nineteenth century sound to it.  But in some of his less ably written material it instead just sounds kind of overblown.  But recently I’ve been listening to a YouTube channel called Horror Babble by some guy called Ian Gordon who sounds a little like the actor who played Jay Peterman on Seinfeld.  He provides an accent that, I guess, is supposed to sound like something between 1920’s Oxbridge English and possibly early twentieth century Boston Brahmin.

After listening to a few of these recordings I’ve realized that this presentation makes these stories incalculably more entertaining.  Let me qualify this statement.  It doesn’t make the stories better horror stories.  But the presentation is just more fun.  I think the accent makes the ridiculousness of the stories seem intentional.  It’s camp.

And maybe it works because that’s more or less the “voice” that Lovecraft was hearing in his own head.  It’s always seemed to me that Lovecraft’s work was sort of an homage to Edgar Allan Poe.  And because Lovecraft lived far removed from the era when Poe’s prose was contemporary and because Poe was a consummately better writer Lovecraft’s language always seems stilted.   But with a spoken word interpreter somewhat bridging the gap with his theatrical reading it somehow works pretty well.

Now most of you probably already listen to audio-books.  The only ones I’ve ever listened to were Larry Correia’s Adventures of Tom Stranger with Adam Baldwin providing the voice talent.  And come to think of it the specific voice really does make a big difference in the enjoyment of that story too.

Well, anyway, this little epiphany has got me thinking about the voice that you hear when you write something.  I mean, unless you’re writing a character that’s more or less you, how do you hear that character or characters speaking.  What do they sound like?  Is it a regional accent?  And that’s kind of a big deal.  If all my characters sound exactly like me that might make it hard for my readers to see these characters as real people.  Going back and reading some of my dialog I would say that there are definitely differences in speech for the different characters.  And this is most noticeable for characters that differ in sex, age and generation.  So, I’m not worried that I have to reinvent all of my dialog.

But it does occur to me that maybe I’d like to add some characters that have very flamboyant speech patterns just to give the story some extra zing.  After all, even Shakespeare added dialect characters to make some of the scenes comical or memorable.  His dialect characters were usually Irish or Welsh or Scottish.  I guess I could throw in a Southie from Boston or a South Asian character for good measure.  But if I really want to get exotic, I’ll throw in a Millennial Social Justice Warrior.  Now that’s a foreign language that’ll take some practice.

Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 04APR2024 – The Witch’s Curse

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I grew up not too far from Dunwich; Danvers, MA, better known among the arcana-read as the real site of the Salem Witch trials. Back then it was known as Salem Village, while modern Salem was Salem Towne. Growing up I noticed that when a storm was forecast to bring, say nine inches of snow, we got 12. Or a Foot was forecast and we got 18 inches.

I finally had a chance to put this question to no less than Don Kent, meteorologist at WBZ-TV. He looked me in the eye and said “You’re from Danvers aren’t you?” I said yes, and just why is the weather so weird? He answered honestly “We don’t know…BUT…” and then he told me about how, during the Trials, one of the accused witches, on the way to the gallows, laid a curse on the town, that it should always suffer a harder winter than the rest of the county. And this curse WORKED! Even changing the town’s name didn’t help (That’s why the town seal says “Without the King’s Consent”. They did it without the approval of the Colonial Office.)
Best regards to the First Select-Entity. The Eldrich Powers are hard at work in other regions as well.

[Editor’s Note – The First Selectman sends his greetings to his cousins on the shore and hopes they are enjoying the weather they ordered a while back from his cousin.  Gurgle, glug, gurgle, gurgle glug glug glug.]

 

Reply from Tregonsee 314

I live just down the road from Danvers, Close enough that when the leaves are off the trees I can see the remaining building of the Danvers State Hospital (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_State_Hospital )

the alleged inspiration for Lovecraft’s Arkham Asylum (amazingly there are now expensive Condos there, with only the historic main tower remaining as a shared space). Our little town was part of Salem Village but split in the early 18th century from Danvers. We also seem to share in that curse 🙂 . It has to be true Mr. Kent was one of New England’s top meteorologists for most of my life and if that was the explanation he had that is good enough for me, certainly nothing else makes sense,

Reply from photog

Tregonsee. there used to be a similar mental hospital in Worcester.

Likewise it was recently demolished leaving only a replica clocktower to mark its former presence. But when it stood it was an eerie reminder of a different world.

Voigtlander 10mm e-mount Clock Tower vertical angle

 

 

03FEB2023 – The Dunwich Complainer – Polar Vortex Blues

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As predicted the bottom fell out of the thermometer today.  The surrounding areas of southern New England will be experiencing temperatures as low as -15 degrees Fahrenheit and fifty mph winds that will be blamed on the polar vortex.  Of course, here in Dunwich we have a slightly different climatic event.  The pole that our vortex is generated by is the galactic pole of the Milky Way.  The Supermassive Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* causes a worm hole to open up from time to time in the center of the Dunwich town dump.  Out of that cosmic orifice flows an irresistible plasma of pure neutronium moving at 99.99999% of light speed.  Today the beam punched a perfectly round eight-foot hole through Josiah Whatley’s barn and astronomers believe that it sliced Pluto in half on its exit from the solar system.

But much more importantly, it knocked out the electric power and cable access to First Selectman Cthulhu’s abode.  Now the First Selectman is a big fan of Vanna and Pat.  He watches Wheel of Fortune religiously.  Well, that is if the word religiously can be used at all to describe a blasphemous eldritch creature.  But suffice it to say he was not happy.  I could hear him stomping up the hill toward my house.  You see he doesn’t use a cell phone, he’s got a land line that runs over the same cable so he had to visit me personally instead of calling.

Since he’s a hundred feet tall I could see him coming from several miles away.  Wanting to avoid the possible blowback from Camera Girl sassing this squid-headed town official I went to meet him.  When I got within shouting distance, I greeted him politely and he began to ooze slime from his mouth.  It was quite nauseating and frightening.  “Alright you insignificant morsel of bland monkey meat, I want you to restore the cable before 7:30 pm.  It’s LX week and that means there’s the potential for an extra forty thousand in the bonus round and I hear Vanna’s going to be wearing a sparkly dress tonight and she always looks completely delicious in one of those.  So, make it happen.  Right?”  I said I would get right on it and he let out a deafening bellow that whipped slime into the air.  Then he turned around and plodded back down the hill toward his lair.

I drove down to the dump and sized up the neutronium beam.  I could see that after exiting Whatley’s barn it had taken out a telephone pole that fed the street that ended near the First Selectman’s cave.  It seemed simple enough to have the cable company temporarily bypass around the beam and restore the service.  And the cable company truck was right down the road.  But I could see that the license plate on the truck was from out of state.  Apparently, he wasn’t local so perhaps he had never seen a tear in the fabric of space time up close and personal.  Also he probably had never seen Cthulhu before.

When I reached the truck, I saw a man in his thirties holding the steering wheel in a death grip and staring popeyed at the neutronium beam.  I had seen this kind of reaction by out of towners quite often.  I tried to be casual.  “Howdy friend, how’s it going?  Hey I’m glad you’re here to get the cable working again so soon.  Looks like an easy fix.  What do you think?”

He was hyperventilating and I could tell that he hadn’t heard a word I’d said.  It occurred to me that he probably had seen the First Selectman saunter by.  I reached into the window and pulled his key out of the ignition and opened the passenger side door and got in.  He saw me and his head turned sideways toward me and he made some gurgling kind of sounds.  “Now look here, there’s nothing to get excited about.  You’re a professional and you can’t let a little thing like a hundred-foot squid-headed dragon stop you from providing an essential service to the community.  I’m sure that your company has provided you with the standard sensitivity and diversity trainings.  Well, here’s your chance to put that training into practice.  Cthulhu is a proud American just as are you.  He’s been an inhabitant of this locale for over 450 million years and he is a pillar of the community.  He cheers on our local high school teams and attends the harvest carnival fair without fail.  Sure, he may eat the prize-winning bull from time to time but who doesn’t get a little carried away with all that carnival junk food.  As you very well know diversity is our strength.  Whether it’s transgender women excelling in athletics or undocumented Americans voting in their first election or a Great Old One enjoying a classic American game show while snacking on a really large portion of road salt.   So come on man, buck up and let’s get that cable back up pronto or he’s going to come pounding down that road and eat you and your truck in one mouthful.

The look of horror on his face didn’t disappear.  It sort of twisted sideways a little bit.  It’s hard to describe.  His left eye mostly closed and his upper and lower jaws were a little offset sideways.  But his right eye seemed to focus on me and he made some slightly less incoherent noises and he tried to climb out of his truck.  He fell out and ended up on his back.  But this seemed to have a revitalizing effect on him and he sat up and looked almost sentient.  I said, “That’s the spirit.  Let me help you up fella.  You’ve got this, don’t you?”

Well, by five thirty he had managed to get the cables spliced together and although they were laying on the ground they restored cable service to the draco-cephalopodic occupant of 407 Dagon Avenue.  I told him the polar vortex would shut down in a few hours and a proper repair could be done by the local service crew that was currently repairing other more mundane problems in the area.  At this point most of his hair had turned white and he had a tic in his left eye.  I slipped him a ten spot and told him to have a nice evening.  He drove off very slowly and he may have veered over the divider a few times.  I hope he made it.  Seemed like a nice guy.

I returned home and had dinner and later on while Camera Girl was watching Wheel of Fortune I remarked to her, “You know that sparkly dress really does make Vanna look completely delicious.”  She scowled at me and said, “You need help.”

Women.

20OCT2022 – The Dunwich Complainer

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Very interesting week here at the epicenter of the Great Old Ones’ Realm in New England.  I put out my Re-Elect First Selectman Cthulhu sign up on my lawn next to a slaughtered goat carcass ritually adorned with wheat germ.  I watched the latest feed from my trail cam and noticed that the werewolves have all begun to wear skinny jeans and carry BPA-free water bottles on their belts.  None of them look like they could take down a girl scout in a fair fight.  Without a doubt, these are times that try men’s souls.

This week at the official induction ceremony I was named Deputy Election Reanimator.    Now this a misnomer.  The Reanimator doesn’t really have a deputy since only the primogeniture descendant of Herbert West has the moxy required to bring back the dead, especially during a rush-rush mass ceremony on election night.  My job would probably be more accurately described as Deputy Election De-Reanimator.  You see the reanimation procedure takes place at the graveyard and apparently is not selective by party affiliation.  So, my part is to stand at the gate with the old voting records and stop the Democrat voters from leaving the graveyard.  Or at least to make sure their heads don’t leave the graveyard.  So, in addition to the lists, a sharpie and a flashlight I’ve got a reasonably sharp machete.  This year they modernized my gear by getting me one of those headlights that you can strap to your forehead.  That helps quit a bit.  I don’t have to ask the deceased to hold my lists while I’m fumbling to cut his head off.  Much more dignified and much more ergonomic.

I really hope I’m not asked to help clean up the grave yard on Wednesday morning.  I think the volunteers should handle that.  I mean, I’ve paid my dues and now I’d like to let the system do its thing, if you know what I mean.  Of course, the volunteers do a pretty bad job.  Every election night I see mismatched heads on the reanimated voters.  It’s kind of an embarrassment.  But still, I can’t be expected to do everything around here.  At some point the kids just have to be allowed to sink or swim.  ‘Nuff said.

In the real world I attended the latest meeting of our local Republican Town Committee and was surprised to hear that even in the cobalt blue New England state that Dunwich is embedded in the Stupid Party candidates have a fighting chance of winning for once!  I could tell the rest of the folks there were almost shocked by the situation.  I was quite amused.  Maybe I’ve underestimated the people in this country.  Could there be a limit to their willingness to endure progressive insanity?  Even here?  Well, we’ll see.

I will be working on Election Day in an official capacity which is interesting and annoying at the same time.  I’ll have to figure out if I can bring my laptop and go on-line when I’m on my breaks.  Not being able to follow this election on OCF would be unfortunate.

It should be fairly interesting to be involved in the election.  I’ll finally see how the sausage is made.  I suspect my town is one of the more boring and honest operations.  And maybe the rough stuff happens higher up the ladder in the crooked states that we saw on tv in 2020.  I remember those films in Philadelphia where they threw everyone out around midnight and all the skullduggery occurred behind closed doors and blacked out windows.  It’s kind of sad to know that after all that went on in plain sight that nothing has been done in some of those states to prevent a replay this year.  Well, as I’ve said this is the Day of Reckoning coming up.  We’ll find out where we stand and that is valuable in and of itself.  So, bring it on, bring it on, bring it on.  And where did I put that sharpening stone?

The History of Dunwich – Part 1 – It’s Annoying Origins

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The origins of the site on which Dunwich sits are shrouded in mystery.  A mystery based on profound indifference and shoddy scholarship.  Legend claims that in the earliest epoch it was the Latrine of Yog Sothoth.  It is believed that the current stratum of bedrock is completely composed of metamorphized coprolite.  Professor Obadiah Bishop of Miskatonic University spent forty years of his academic career studying this coprolite formation and determined that it was almost entirely composed of triceratopsian dung formed from an exclusive diet of poison sumac.  This is thought to explain the funk that emanates from the ground, groundwater, crops and inhabitants of the present day site.  It is also believed to explain the almost constant, frenzied scratching that all Dunwichians indulge in.

The original human inhabitants of the area were members of the Pocnipnarrawampamuckutucs (sometimes shortened to the Muckutucs) tribe.  The Muckutucs were despised by the other tribes because they smelled awful, had thirteen fingers and two rows of teeth.

When the first European settlers arrived, they interbred with the Muckutucs and their descendants had twelve fingers.  Which was an improvement.  But no teeth.  Which was not.  Over time these anatomical oddities became the hallmark of the Dunwichian ancestry and somewhat explained their status as loathed outcasts and pariahs.  Suffice it to say that the rest of New England chose to avoid Dunwich like the plague.

But the American Revolution saw a change.  The patriotic fervor that swept through the rest of New England did not neglect Dunwich.  A company of stout Dunwichians headed up by “Captain” Nehemiah Hoadley marched east to reinforce the colonial army at Lexington.  But when the Boston regiment got a look at the Dunwich contingent approaching from the west, they abandoned their ambush of the British and blasted away at these toothless mutants, mowing them down to the last polydactylous humanoid soul.  After this Dunwich refused taxation by the US government until almost the time of the Civil War.

It was during the nineteenth century that the first truly disturbing events began to occur in and around Dunwich.  In 1824 on the site of Phineas Goodgroates’ orchard, a thousand ton, three-hundred-foot-long caste-iron cylinder fell out of the sky and flattened Phineas’s apple trees and because he was apple picking that day, flattened Phineas too.  This metallic meteor came to be known as the Codpiece of Cthulhu because of the inscription on its side identifying it as such.  The arrival of this piece of sartorial ironmongery was taken as an event of ill-omen.  Opinions varied, although with respect to Phineas all agreed it was definitely a bit of tough luck for him.

But by 1830 the populace had calmed down and normalcy reasserted itself until in the fall of that year when Caleb Sillwright’s turnip patch was similarly bombarded by the aptly named Moustache Comb of Azathoth.  At this point there were calls to abandon Dunwich altogether or at least to install some kind of gargantuan clothes rack above the town in the hope that the Elder Gods would take the hint and stop dropping their effects on Dunwich.  Luckily, cooler heads prevailed.

To be continued.

Another Annoying Dunwichian Disturbs My Day

photog Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner, Science Fiction / Fantasy , , ,

Last week I was accosted by Albert Wilmarth, a nut who teaches some kind of intersectional studies nonsense at Miskatonic University.  I was heading back from a walk in Dunwich Forest when this wild-eyed kook rushes up to me and warns me that the Mi-go have removed Henry Akeley’s brain and were going to take it into outer space.  Well, this story seemed ridiculous on its face because anyone who has met Akeley knows he has no brain.

So, I tried to calm Wilmarth down by slapping him repeatedly in the face.  After about thirty slaps my hand got tired so I stopped.  I asked him to give me the details of these Mi-go.  He said that Akeley had described them as large, pink, fungoid, crustacean-like entities the size of a man, that have a “convoluted ellipsoid” composed of pyramidal, fleshy rings and covered in antennae in the place that where a head should be. So, I started slapping him with my left hand.  This time I got up to up to forty slaps.  At that point Wilmarth seemed less eager to continue the conversation and asked me to promise to stop slapping him.

Well, how could I refuse?  He’d been such a good sport up until this point.  I told him to relate Akeley’s story but keep it reasonable.  Wilmarth related a tale of how Akeley had corresponded by letter with him.  The letters related Akeley’s discovery of a drowned Mi-go at the fords of the Miskatonic river and how the living Mi-go then lay siege to Akeley’s farmhouse whispering in their buzzing voices about how they would remove his brain and take it along on their journeys to Pluto and beyond.  He further related how only his rifle and his dozen or so ferocious German shepherds had been responsible for keeping these mushroom lobsters from capturing him.  But he told me that the Mi-go were taking a terrible toll and every day he had to replace four or five of his dogs that were killed in the war.

I asked him, if Akeley was besieged how it was possible for him to procure more dogs and in fact how was he able to post these letters.  Wilmarth supposed that during the day the Mi-go went back home to their underground lair under the domed hills that they inhabit.  So I asked him why Akeley didn’t call in the police to witness this nightly battle.  Wilmarth seemed a little confused by this line of questioning and implored me not to start slapping him again.

So, I let that problem go for the time being and asked him to continue with his tale.  Then Wilmarth related how suddenly last week Akeley’s letters changed their tone.  And handwriting style too.  Akeley said that he had come to terms with the Mi-go and they were actually really nice guys and some were even Shriners.  And he told Wilmarth to come visit him at his farmhouse and Akeley would tell him amazing secrets of the interstellar travels of the Mi-go.  Wilmarth related how he visited Akeley who sat in a chair in a dark room covered in a blanket and how his face was unmoving and his speech was a muffled buzzing which somewhat resembled the noises that lobsters make when they’re thrown in a pot of boiling water.  And that the sandwiches and coffee he provided were awful but he ate them anyway.  And after retiring to Akeley’s guest bedroom for the night Wilmarth heard strange buzzing noises downstairs and when he got back to the dark room, he found Akeley missing but among the blankets on his chair he found a mask-like face and human hand-like shapes that looked like Akeley’s hands and face.  So, he ran out of the house screaming like a little girl.

Then Wilmarth started screaming like a little girl.  I had promised not to slap him so I kneed him in the groin.  That stopped the screaming.  After he was able to get up off the ground, he convinced me to go to Akeley’s farmhouse.  When we got there Wilmarth refused to go in so, armed with a fallen tree limb that was on the lawn I walked into Akeley’s house of horrors.  I found the darkened room that smelled pretty bad and the chair with the blankets but instead of the severed hands and face of Henry Akeley, I found one of those Michael Myers masks and those latex monster hands that they used to sell around Halloween.  Suddenly someone behind me shouted so I swung my makeshift club and laid my opponent low.  After finding the light switch, I realized that I had done the impossible.  I had brained a man without a brain.  There was Henry Akeley, with hands and face intact except for a large bump on his forehead where I had clonked him.

After he started to come to, I caught him up on why I was there.  He sheepishly admitted that he owed Wilmarth a bunch of money and had hoped that if he believed the whole story about being shanghaied to Pluto by lobster fungus, he could string him along forever and never pay him.  I felt bad for playing baseball with his skull so I told him that I wouldn’t rat him out to Wilmarth.  He offered me some sandwiches and coffee but I told him I’d pass.  That house smelled really funky.

When I rejoined Wilmarth out front I informed him that Wilmarth had been replaced by a Mi-go that had been surgically altered to exactly resemble Akeley.  I told him I escaped by using advanced martial arts that I had learned while studying in a Tibetan monastery.  I advised him never to go near Akeley’s house again and if he ever saw him walking around town to avoid him for fear of having his brain removed and sent to Pluto.

I really need a better class of neighbors.