cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aping Lovecraft Last year, someone on Facebook created a profile for Professor P@bodie from the HP Lovecraft novella, 'At the Mountains of Madness.' For some reason, he friended me. When I friended him back it prompted me to type in how I know Professor Pabodie. So right there in the Facebook text window, I typed up a very short story a la Lovecraft. It's only amusing if you've read Lovecraft. I am rather pleased with it and so it occurred to me that if dude changes his settings or something, my little story could disappear into the ether. In order to preserve it somewhere else, I'm posting it here. Bear in mind that this was written up in the course of 25 minutes or so, on the fly with no edits for purposes of explaining how I know someone on Facebook. The writing style is deliberately wordy and flamboyant. The real shame is that it was first about 3 times as long as this, but I'd gone over the maximum characters allowed and had to cut a bunch of scenes out. Gone forever. Enjoy. Long ago, seduced by both ignorance and a keen desire to advance the cause of science, I prevailed upon Professor Pabodie to allow me to accompany him on that ill-famed expedition to the decadent wastes of the Southern Pole. In what he thought was an act of kindness, the good professor allowed me to join the expedition in the capacity of mechanic and research assistant. Had I known what terror was waiting for us - and had indeed been waiting for hoary aeons so long as to almost transcend age it's self - I would have shunned Professor Pabodie and his entire expedition, his good nature and sound reputation not withstanding. Alas! My better judgment never overcame my simple, simian curiosity until it was too late. It was those ancient, plant-like, elder things that we had recovered from the cavern through the use of Pabodie's brilliant drill. I should have climbed into one of the planes and flown straight for the base camp when the first wretched, tentacled horror was dragged up and laid out on the wind-swept ice for the dogs to howl at. Yet even when the things began to thaw out and their blood-curdling odor wafted across the camp, still my foolish desire to make a name for myself in the world of science overcame the primal instinct of fear which shot through my nervous system. It was not a sophisticated fear. I never knew exactly what it was that I so dreaded until it was actually upon us. This was a fear like the fear of heights. An ancient instinct dormant in our blood since reptilian times if not earlier. Finally triggered again by this evil scent after millions of years of waiting. The actual slaughter seemed to happen very, very slowly; although in retrospect the whole thing was probably over in less than 2 minutes. For the most part, I remember the sound of it. The screaming the barking and the strange whistling noises. The wind carried the sound to my ears even as I ran across the frozen Antarctic plain in what would prove to be an almost futile attempt to escape. The last thing that I remember was the sudden, whip-like grip of a tentacle grabbing my ankle and tossing me through the air. Then nothing until I awoke nearly frozen to death, tied to that sledge deep within those wretched underground chambers with their strange, decadent carvings. But of course the world has already heard enough of my long, nightmarish odyssey through that evil, damned Antarctic city and my desperate struggle to repair one of the wind-damaged planes left behind by the would-be rescue party that had come and gone by the time I'd escaped from those ill-famed Mountains of Madness. Would that I could muster kinder words to say about Professor Pabodie. Surely it was never his intention to lead me into the gaping maw of the second greatest evil on the face of the Earth. Yet I cannot bring myself to forgive him. Damn you, Professor Pabodie. Damn you to hell. 11:26 - 2008-03-21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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