Nightmares From a Lovecraftian Mind Read online

  Paper cuts spread across my hands like rivers on maps. My knuckles are broken apart like five-and-dime toys. I pinch the skin between my thumb and index finger.

  It doesn’t take me long to fall asleep to the sound of gloomy spheres and soft babbling of unread books.

  XNOYBIS ITSELF

  I. Here, a swifter glimpse of the horns as they transform into heralds of my obliteration, my visions of annihilation, my mind’s gradual disintegration into the infinite ocean. My grey matter becomes blue-green, submerged in seaweed and shells, and sparks appear on the surface and we all hear the voice announcing it, announcing its arrival. I listen.

  II. The horns fade into the mouths of desert predators, the heat forcing my brow to melt into my eyes, my nose into my mouth, my chin draining onto my chest, and I am food for scorpions. The cacti pulse and they throb the name of my extinction in their secret codes of nature. Sand becomes brain matter and galaxy sperm, some dark mold spores and puzzled faces writing in books, writing in blood-stained languages. Only the father-scholars can decipher the messages.

  III. In unison the cats preach, filling me with dread. They tell me I am being held in a psychic prison, a complete negation of the womb, a blackened abyss that occasionally flickers with red faces, all disappointed. The cats shed their teeth which fall into the shadows in the ocean, the shadows that have gone too far as my memory strangles itself. I do not remember the name I was told to remember. I do not remember the meaning. I do not remember the order of things. I do not remember the name I was told to remember.

  IV. You give flowers to the man. You barely have time to say your prayers, your incantations, your homemade spells. You turn and walk back through the narrow hallway until you reach the door, that door. You do not knock. You cannot knock. I whisper in your ear, “You want to knock.” You shake your head and I laugh for I know you better than you know yourself. I whisper into your other ear, “The horns have sounded. Now is the time to knock.” You knock. You give flowers to the man.

  V. Oh, he knows very well what he did. He knows his transgressions, his unholy exploration into the holographic structures of my baragouin. No mirrors can withstand my agonized visage; no gong can sound my rage. Oh, he knows very well the points of my dissection. He uses a map to find me. He uses diagrams, ancient and stained with wine, to explore my depths. I hear his name in the sounding of the wind, in the slamming of doors, in the meows of those dooming cats, in the flicker of that candle. I hear his name in the voices of the galaxies and it forms a sphere in me. I hear his name in the passing of the keys. The mirrors are behind you, whispering passages from the book.

  VI. It forms a ribcage enclosing my soft stuffing, worthless pieces of paper, scribbles in extinct languages, art forms that haven’t been used in aeons. I am the caller of nothing, the musician who sits in silence, and paints walls with empty hands. I am the builder with no tools, the listener with no ears. It is something that I will reach. You are something I will reach. Massive machines on the hills becoming extinct with celestial fungi. Several songs and several spells attempt to recapture the name. Nothing can recapture the name.

  VII. He awakens from his dream with careless abandon, runs to the window, looks out into the yard and sees no grass but only asphalt and bubbling tar in the spring beyond the garden spheres. He puts his face to the glass and inhales the sharp reflection, sunlight on the ocean’s death door, morning blooms black and hungry. He calls to his other. He hears the name of his other. He smells the scent of galaxy dust. He traces the name in his breath that blooms in black and hungry bursts…

  VIII. There are no horns calling us into some metaphysical battle. There are no gongs calling us into a meditative state of coiled raptus. There are no visions awaiting us in the whirlpools of the ocean, no sparks on the backs of those nameless creatures who birthed my fears. There are no faces in the mirrors of this ethereal wasteland, no fluorescent lights flickering codes that seep into my brain and flushes out my primeval urges. There are no curses, no blessings, no boons, no names other than his. There are no bodies in the amber, no souls in the ice. There are no horns calling us….

  IX. Fiery horses spit galaxies of chaos and document all my despair in thick tomes hidden in walls of my insignificance. We stack the books on shelves made of dark matter. I am forced to eat putrid horseflesh. They force me to stare through their eyes and settle in their dead yet infinite wombs. They force me to write. To write! Pitiful scrawling on some wooden stalls. Sharp letters in perverse languages. Symbols of equestrian apocalypse. Those fiery things jump over the water, they jump and they damn us. I am to fill the remainder of the books, infinite pages and infinite endings, farther and farther into the ocean…

  X. The horns of Xnoybis have sounded. The gongs hum us into our archroous nightmares. I hear no voices but the voice of Xnoybis. I cannot even hear my own in this old useless skull. Oh, but I can hear the din of dying galaxies. The horns of Xnoybis have sounded and I am content. I reach beyond the dead tree of life and find myself alone and I am content.

  XI. Quiet mind reenacts subtle chaos as I write the words and symbols I have been taught. At the peak of my importance, I have conquered the slaughterers of horses and the tormenters of men. I have kneeled at the altars and thrones of vecordious kings and their deformed queens. I meditated on the qualities of filth and light, opened books that had no pages and stared into mirrors that had no reflection. Xnoybis knows me well. I awake in the depths of an oceanic mind.

  XII. Here, a greater glimpse of the horns as they transform into heralds of my complete and utter obliteration, my visions of galactic and molecular annihilation, my mind’s sudden disintegration in the ocean. My grey matter has become blue-green, submerged in intestinal seaweed and sharpened shells, and the hellish sparks appear on the surface and we all hear the voice announcing it, announcing its arrival, announcing the coming of Xnoybis in the depths of the oceanic mirrors, in the midst of the horrors of infinity. And I am content.

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  Jordan Krall is an author of horror, bizarro, crime, and apocalyptic literature. He lives in New Jersey with his family. When he is not writing, he teaches Special Education.

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