Ch.136Act 1: Ch.9 – The King Sleeps in Carcosa (5)

The pages of the Necronomicon whispered in my ear. To worship Carcosa. To worship the dim city. Like the voice of a seasonal peddler, it circled my earlobes fleetingly.

And so I arrived at Carcosa.

It looked like an ordinary American city. Similar to the downtown areas of Pollard or Arkham. The difference was in the mode of existence.

Carcosa was, well, like burnt newspaper.

Those who have burned a newspaper know. No, it doesn’t have to be a newspaper specifically. Anyone who has burned paper knows that it doesn’t completely turn to ash and scatter away. It tries to testify until the very end that it once existed here and that something was written on it.

The pages crumple. The corners turn to gray ash and scatter. Even if the body is charred black, the scorched ink remains, still leaving its testimony.

That traces of truth were once here.

Buildings. Streets. Passing cars. Sky. Rooftops. A cat running along a fence. Early fallen leaves dropping from street trees in the wind. All these things flickered as if burning.

With the Necronomicon’s pages spread before me, I walked through the city.

It felt like walking inside a film.

The film continues to play in the projector. I traverse those frames that split one second into sixty parts. But the entire theater is burning. This black and white silent film, this poorly tuned box office failure, was due to burn away.

Even red apples possess a chrome color. In this world where human skin is covered with brown like trampled ash, groaning gray, black stains, and soot.

True to a silent film, it makes not even the sound of breathing as it is quietly engulfed by flames rising from below.

Yet people still come and go. All wearing silver masks. Expressionless masks. Children and adults alike. Suddenly, I wondered what might be behind those masks.

Someone screamed. A mask had fallen. What was hidden was not a person but insects. Countless writhing, boiling creatures that devoured at will, like bugs killed and piled up by a child who knows neither good nor evil.

– <Look, mother, I’ve caught so many bad bugs, please praise me>

They were piled up like that, with a bright smile. Passersby pointed and screamed. The insects quickly fled between the streets. The clothes crumpled and fell to the ground with a thud.

There are no people on this street. Only insects pretending to be people.

But wearing masks and clothes, they truly looked like people. I saw lovers sharing passionate kisses while wearing masks. I saw people holding gloved hands, swearing eternity. I saw a mother fixing her child’s clothes and a father encouraging his son in a little league baseball uniform.

A bird flew.

A pigeon.

Its eyes were red.

The only color in this black and white world.

The pigeon fluttered and perched on the shoulder of a staggering man. “Get lost,” shouted the masked man, but the pigeon paid no attention and pecked at his neck. Soon, a thin, long centipede wriggled in the pigeon’s mouth.

As if that were a signal. Red-eyed pigeons simultaneously dove down from the rooftops. The masked man flailed, but no one helped him.

Mothers shielded their daughters, fathers their sons. Lovers embraced each other. The pigeons continued to peck at the man, and with each peck, he shrank like sugar dissolving in water.

Abashina.

I thought of the blinded clan leader. I felt that the world she sees might not be much different from this.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable on my face, I raised my hand and found a mask in my grip. When I removed it, I held a death mask molded after Abashina’s face.

With an ominous feeling, I threw it onto the street. A beggar, already with its lower body melted away, an insect collective of indeterminate gender, pleaded with me.

– <May I have it? It’s a beautiful face.>

I stomped on the mask. The beggar spat on my shoe and disappeared into the darkness. Pigeons fluttered around me.

– <How theatrical. Movements even a fool could recognize, but the finishing touch is always precise>

– <The way to make precise movements is to suddenly increase speed at the finishing stage>

– <Try slowly making a fist, then opening it, then slowly making a fist again, then suddenly clenching tight. The impact will be different.>

I stopped walking. The Necronomicon’s pages fluttered as if urging me to continue. I refused.

“I need to find Professor Armitage.”

A snickering sound came from the pages. They became damp as if soaked in water, and then… they burned in water. They burned upon contact with water. Not fire, but water.

After all, papers are so fragile that whether they burn in fire or water, they become unrecognizable all the same.

They gathered before me like clay. It was like hundreds of thousands of worms raising their collective. It also looked like smoke rising from the ground.

Soon it became a figure wearing a yellow robe and a silver mask. Its mask changed constantly, making it difficult to know which was its true face. Every time I blinked, it was a different face. Some were familiar, others I had never seen before.

– <You didn’t understand what I said. Or should I say, my gestures>

It raised its hand. In the palm made of dead beetle shells, fingers formed from mantis bodies, leeches, and dragonflies with their wings plucked.

– <The end must always be precise. That’s the beginning. You are not an actor>

“I am a private detective.”

– <You are not surprised. Everything to you is just a fleeting dream. Well, I haven’t presented you with insects that would crumble at a breath, but>

– <Isn’t it interesting>

– <You already know the taste of steel as the dried, twisted corpse of a brown and silver moth rolls on your tongue>

“Where is Professor Henry Armitage? Do you know?”

– <Hey, are you listening to me? Why are you so stiff? Even a child who started acting today would be much more natural>

– <You are too rigid>

– <Acting is breathing and giving and taking. Even a monologue involves a certain vibration and frequency between your earlier self and your later self, but you>

“If there’s nothing more to hear, I’ll be going.”

I turned around.

– <There is a god who knows only destruction>

I stopped walking. No. The world stopped. It’s one of those illusions I used to have as a child. Not that I walk on top of the world, but that the entire world, the entire Earth, moves like a treadmill matching my steps. Even knowing it was an illusion, it felt good to think that way. Because it meant I was the center of the world.

– <Neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Utterly stupid>

– <But when he awakens from his dream, the world faces destruction. It’s not just like electricity suddenly cutting off or ink drying up in books. It simply perishes>

– <Whether it’s a he or she, I don’t know, but they can do so with a single decision. A moment’s flash, faster than the passage of time divided into 50,000 parts per second>

– <His name is called Azathoth>

– <His or her name is forbidden>

– <His name is called Azathoth>

– <But I know. The reason that name is forbidden and taboo is because it itself is a disguise. Like a trap dug by a child. Children try too hard to hide things, so it becomes obvious>

– <Its real name is not Azathoth. It is merely called Azathoth. But it exists. The author of the Necronomicon knew this>

“You mean Abdul-Alhazred?”

The world spun around me.

– <No. The one who wrote that book was Lovecraft. He knew. He knew such a god existed>

“How could he have known that? He was just…”

– <Not only did he know. It existed before him and will exist after him>

– <Remember the Thousand and One Nights. Remember Scheherazade who told stories for a thousand days to the Sultan who kept killing his wives>

– <Remember. God is not just one who sits on the supreme throne. Look at this>

He removed his mask

– <Alright, alright. You don’t need to be so disgusted>

Fortunately, he put his mask back on.

– <You act like someone who got someone else’s blood in their mouth>

– <I just wanted to say that God differs according to perspective. The metaphor of humans stepping on insects has been heard too many times, so there’s no need to repeat it. You too can be a god to someone>

“Who are you?”

Instead of answering, he opened his robe. Death masks of people I knew and loved hung inside. But there was one face missing. Namely

– <Terrible thing>

The robe closed. Confused, I looked around. And I saw the withered branch growing through my chest.

Fire-breath grew from my chest. My clothes tore open on their own, and my skin ripped at will. I screamed and clawed at my chest, but it was as meaningless as trying to tear off the skin of an old dead tree while standing.

– <There is no role for you here>

The crude imitation of a hand made of withered insects tore out my chest. The face of the fire-breath became a mask like tree bark.

– <I apologize>

He apologized politely. He clapped his hands a couple of times. Like a lie, the street stopped. Figures dressed in black walked out in a line and kicked the street.

Then the street stood still and fell backward. The insects passing by on the street sat down with thuds and crawled back to their dark, damp homes. The figure in the yellow robe picked up the clothes the insects had left behind, one by one.

– <This is what they call participatory theater. Natural, like 4’33”>

“It wasn’t fun.”

He apologized politely again.

– <It wasn’t the role you chose. You are an actor who doesn’t know you’re an actor. Actor without lines. Extra that the screenwriter omitted, left aside, and put away. Shadow of the world. Shadow. Why does everyone hate villains who talk too much?>

“You say I’m an actor?”

– <I said so. This was not your play. You were just a passing role in this abandoned film, just a cameo. Return to your world. Return to your role. Your place is there>

“The Necronomicon guided me here. I need to find Professor Armitage. That’s my role.”

A dead lizard oozed out of his mask’s eye socket like pus.

– <One who found the right role but came to the wrong play. The exit door is at the back>

At the back was an emergency exit leading out of the set. When I opened it, I saw a vast, swirling universe. I saw countless Crayfields walking in step into the dark galaxy. At some point, he approached me and whispered.

– <Look. Every time you close your eyes, a world also closes its eyes. When you open your eyes, it rises. There’s still a week before the play begins, so wait for the time, actor>

“Will you come then too?”

– <The director comes on stage only to give the closing remarks>

“What happened at Arkham Reservoir, the Blasted Heath?”

– <When the performance ends, props are put away>

“What did you take from them? What happened to Nahum’s family?”

– <A person’s role is not just one. There are many ways to direct daily life. As we age, we play more roles, but we simply return them one by one. Both people and props lose their colors, names, and light, leaving only fleeting names>

I finally remembered this figure’s name.

“Hastur.”

– <I told you, names are traps. My real name is not that. It’s just one of many names that remains>

Rats ran out from his body.

– <One name left to me>

Filth flowed from his body like blood.

– <When the performance begins, no one will escape>

The regurgitated filth burst forth.

I was pushed out to the other side of the universe.

Rats running across the universe twinkle their eyes those shining in the night sky were not stars they were merely rats happy with the thought of gnawing away at every bit of my soul flesh and fingernails

Only the morning sun will drive them back into the darkness but they will hold their breath and think only of gnawing away at the day!

See the sun dying see it dying in the river bleeding across the horizon see it dying staining everything with blood neither sunrise nor sunset is its true name

The truth is it’s blood coming out of the earth’s womb tearing itself open and the blood of a deceiver who arrogantly walks the sky only to be devoured by rats and fall!

I know that people swarm like rats and sink those who aren’t present! So what’s in the night sky is that many eyes of people people will shoot you down and make you fall

They will gnaw at your soul make holes in it and flee into darkness they are all demons!

Torture a PhD-holding foolish intellectual and distinguish humility.

Dew is the passionate tears of the earth so it’s important to always keep your room’s windows open for ventilation! Measure the rising blood pressure of the thermometer! Take a picture with a small American camera!

Touch its face like when a passerby’s hand caresses your chin! Foolish things like lilies and mustard and children and sparrows!

Endure

Bear

Hate

Pain is the only truth and my light for in suffering I shall exist

No.

A burning galaxy. A star that exploded in death. A nebula like a phoenix spreading its wings spoke to me. It’s the kind of light you’d only see in Aurora’s eyes.

You are not such darkness. The person I loved is not like that. Come back.

Aldebaran, the star in Taurus, writhed. Followers rose along the Pleiades nebula. Ah, that is Hastur’s star. When the theater company moves, do the audience members follow?

I’m not afraid. You saved me.

So I’ll save you.

Anything that can bleed can be killed

Aurora’s voice awakens me. I grabbed the Necronomicon’s page. It wriggled in defiance but soon folded neatly in my hand. I made it into a sharp paper knife and cut the back of my left hand.

Blood flowed.

The universe was greatly displeased by my action.

Like someone with blood in their mouth.

And so the universe spat me out.

I awaken…