I\u2019ve been so busy with my own personal Thanksgiving plans that I lost track of what the town of Dunwich was planning for the holiday.\u00a0 Last year the COVID lockdown put a damper on this but this year First Selectman Cthulhu and the rest of the Board were determined to get things back to normal.\u00a0 So, to get the ball rolling Cthulhu invited fifty of the wealthiest and most influential Dunwichians to his house on Monday for a sumptuous dinner.<\/p>\n
Of course, there was a misunderstanding.\u00a0 The guests assumed they were going to eat instead of being eaten but you can hardly fault the First Selectman for that.\u00a0 He was specific that the menu would come directly from his favorite cookbook, \u201cTo Serve Man.\u201d\u00a0 When I spoke to him, he was still recovering from overindulging but after a couple of barrels of Alka Seltzer he was feeling much better.\u00a0 He told me his favorite moment was when the guests walked through a doorway and after failing to find any light switches on the walls used their phone lights to determine that they were inside their host\u2019s mouth.\u00a0 Their screams of terror made the meal all that much more enjoyable.\u00a0 Oh, that First Selectman, he\u2019s incorrigible!<\/p>\n
I read an advertisement in the Dunwich Complainer that a town fair was going to take place on Wednesday.\u00a0 There would be the usual pie contests and a silent auction for the various crafts that the townspeople would donate.\u00a0 There were also supposed to be games.\u00a0 The one that interested me the most was the sack race.\u00a0 In most towns this is a pretty straight forward affair but the twist that is employed in Dunwich is that Cthulhu alters the geometry of space in the playing field.\u00a0 This makes moving in a straight line rather tricky.\u00a0 Three years ago, Josiah Bishop ended up falling through a portal and landed inside of Azathoth\u2019s gallbladder.\u00a0 He reappeared three weeks later in pretty horrendous condition.\u00a0 His ears had pretty much melted off and his hair was orange.\u00a0 When asked what happened he said, \u201cOutside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity\u2014the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.\u201d\u00a0 A lot of people just assumed Josiah had just stomped off because he\u2019s a sore loser and because Jenkin Brown took the prize and they\u2019ve never gotten along.<\/p>\n
But by far the oddest story I\u2019ve heard this week was from Arthur Birdsong.\u00a0 He was walking through some of the more overgrown areas of the northern hills of Dunwich when he was caught in one of the frequent thunderstorms.\u00a0 Searching for cover he saw a very dilapidated house and ran to it.\u00a0 The door wasn\u2019t locked so he let himself in.\u00a0 Finding a fire in the living room he warmed himself and then looked around at his surroundings.\u00a0 There was a very old book open on a table and he saw that the book was describing cannibalism among certain tribes in Africa and an illustration showed a butcher\u2019s shop with human body parts for sale.\u00a0 Arms, legs and organs were grouped on tables.\u00a0 Suddenly he heard a door open above and a white-haired man in 17th<\/sup> century garb walked down the staircase.\u00a0 The man saw that Arthur had been interested in the book and he began a long meandering tale, the gist of which was that he had come to the notion that feeding on human flesh would enormously extend the human lifespan.\u00a0 Just then a drop of blood from the ceiling splashed down in between the two men and Arthur looked up and saw an enormous spot of blood on the ceiling and realized that the horrid old man was a cannibal and had just been butchering of one of his victims upstairs.<\/p>\n At first Arthur was hoping that a bolt of lightning would burn the house and the cannibal in the righteous fire of heaven.\u00a0 But when that failed to happen, he asked the old man what time was dinner.<\/p>\n Arthur had to admit that human pot pie wasn\u2019t bad.\u00a0 A little gamey and fatty but no worse than mutton.\u00a0 And the old fellow even threw in some pretty decent hard cider.\u00a0 So, they became pretty chummy and after dinner they stayed up late chatting and Arthur discovered that they had both gone to the same prep school.\u00a0 So, they sang school songs and Arthur invited his new friend over for Thanksgiving dinner.\u00a0 He had been planning to serve a turkey dinner but in light of his new perspective on health food he decided to invite his least favorite blue-haired feminist wine-auntie over and serve her up instead.\u00a0 I told Arthur that was splendid and I hoped it became a family tradition.\u00a0 He sadly informed me that he only had three wine-aunties so it would be a short-lived tradition.\u00a0 I told him to cheer up.\u00a0 I have dozens of relatives that need eating.\u00a0 I told him I\u2019d donate one of mine every Thanksgiving for the foreseeable future.\u00a0 Well, this brought tears to Arthur\u2019s eyes and he declared it a \u201cThanksgiving Miracle.\u201d\u00a0 I said, \u201cNonsense, it is always better to give than to receive.\u201d<\/p>\n So, you can see we here in Dunwich have a lot to be thankful for; friends, family and meat tenderizer.\u00a0 Here\u2019s hoping your Thanksgiving allows you to enjoy your family as much as we intend to enjoy (parts of) ours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been so busy with my own personal Thanksgiving plans that I lost track of what the town of Dunwich was planning for the holiday.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,288,3366,1263,237,4,242],"tags":[363,3341,3367,255,354,70,1290,1267],"class_list":["post-16728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-humor","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-cthulhu-mythos","tag-dunwich","tag-dunwich-complainer","tag-h-p-lovecraft","tag-horror","tag-lovecraft","tag-my-fiction","tag-photogs-corner"],"yoast_head":"\n