it waits … Dreaming

Mad. Mad! “This author is mad!” you’ll say. Don’t deny it!

Those shrill words are cutting into my ears, clear as a bell struck hard with a hammer on a winter morning. And you’re right, dear reader. I am mad.

Though there was a time (seems decades ago) when I was lucid. But sanity has turned to ash, coating my tongue with a bitter embrace.

It started when I began my research for an article on the history of Halloween. Seemed a harmless, amusing assignment. A few hours in the library nestled comfortably among the printed pages of so many minds, followed by an interview with a respected professor of humanities.

I would sit quietly in his stuffy office next to leaning stacks of books, the professor’s tweed jacket threadbare at the elbows. He would rub his forehead as he spoke, scratching the deep lines carved into his gruff face from grading too many poorly written student essays. His breath would smell of whiskey.

But I never got to his office. No. No, my dear reader. I knew something was wrong when I sat down in that library between two towering bookshelves that seemed to loom over me, watching me with silent contempt.

And the entire library was unusually quiet. No. Loud with silence! Foreboding. Cold.

But I shook away my unease and read how Halloween — All Hallows’ Eve — has deep, pagan roots with celebrations that pre-date Christianity. One such Celtic festival, called Samhain, signified the night where the veil between the living and the dead was lifted.

Then I came across a most curious tome, bound with a most unusual leather. It appeared to be flesh colored. Perhaps from a cow? Perhaps not.

There was a single word cut into the leather cover: Necronomicon.

I read it out loud. Then … then I heard heavy footfalls.

I glanced upward. He stood in his threadbare tweed jacket at the far end of the bookshelves. He was rubbing his forehead, scratching away the skin while his unblinking eyes stared at me. The professor!   

I stumbled as I stood, the professor now scraping harder at this face. I watched in horror as red ribbons of curled flesh fell next to his polished shoes in sloppy splashes of blood.

He then spoke with words coughed out of a mouth as black as space: “Cthulhu waits dreaming.”

I ran as fast my feet would carry me. But the professor was outside the library entrance! “Cthulhu waits dreaming,” he said calmly.    

I drove home in a panic, only to find him standing in my doorway, picking away at the last few remaining strips of loose flesh from his forehead. “Cthulhu waits dreaming,” he whispered.

Frantic, I tried to call my boyfriend. But I only heard the professor’s acrid voice: “Cthulhu waits dreaming.”

I now write this in my basement, a full moon peeking through a small window above my head. The professor stands nearby, reciting those three accursed words. I can see his skull, polished bare and glowing white in the moonlight.

And his eyes! Now dry and wrinkled, like black raisins.

The Necronomicon lays open in my lap. The answer must be in here, but the book contains only a single phrase repeated on every papyrus page: “Ph-nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

It’s written in crimson. Perhaps with red ink. Perhaps not.

What does it mean? If only the professor could speak!

I am mad, indeed. Mad with fear that I’ll be trapped here forever! I can only hope that someone can translate the phrase. Please hurry, dear reader. Hurry before I’m consumed by the mouth of madness!