by Alan Ryker
WHEN CTHULHU MET ATLACH-NACHA
by
Alan Ryker
May 1, 2011
Copyright 2011 Jeffrey Rice
Published by Sucker Punch Press at Smashwords
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author, except where permitted by law.
Written permission is also required for live performance of any sort. This includes readings, cuttings, scenes, and excerpts. Contact Jeffrey Rice, [email protected].
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art and design by Wendy McBride, [email protected]
Characters
ASHTON: A young, artistic woman.
CUTHBERT: A young, academic man.
FORDHAM: An old man. The landlord.
Setting
Upstage is an apartment, though the art studio of the apartment doubles as the art studio of the university. One side is the entrance, the other a closet. There's a kitchen and a bathroom (or at least a tub). Downstage are two chairs, which ASHTON and CUTHBERT are sitting in when spotlights come up. The stage remains dark.
ASHTON: (To audience) You want us to tell you how we met?
CUTHBERT: (Even more incredulously) You want us to tell you how we met?
ASHTON: Really?
CUTHBERT: Really?
ASHTON: Really?
CUTHBERT: I think they do. (beat) Really?
ASHTON: Every couple has a story, and every one is a lie.
CUTHBERT: A total lie.
ASHTON: Because when you tell a story a hundred times, you start to embellish. You learn what works, what doesn't.
CUTHBERT: Like adding jokes to a stand up act?
ASHTON: What gets laughs. What gets big sappy Awwwws!
CUTHBERT: So it gets cute, is what you're saying.
ASHTON: Exactly.
CUTHBERT: That's not so bad. I'd rather hear a funny, heartwarming lie than the boring truth.
ASHTON: Meh.
CUTHBERT: Hey, our story's pretty heartwarming.
ASHTON: Remember when I knocked you unconscious with a can of tomatoes?
CUTHBERT: Okay, well that wasn't so/
ASHTON: And then chained you to the bed?
CUTHBERT: But that's not how we met. They asked about how we met.
ASHTON: I guess that was kind of cute. Cuthbert and I met in college.
CUTHBERT: Ol' Miskatonic U. We were/
ASHTON: I was telling it. You don't tell it right.
(CUTHBERT holds up his hands and leans back in his chair.)
ASHTON: You know you don't. You've got a terrible memory for this stuff.
CUTHBERT: Oh, and yours is perfect?
ASHTON: I've told this story a thousand thousand times. It's kind of all I have left.
(CUTHBERT leans over and puts his arm around ASHTON.)
CUTHBERT: Hey, it's okay. (beat) You go ahead and tell it.
ASHTON: Thanks. (pause while attempting to regain a happy tone and put on a happy face) Like he said, we met at Miskatonic University. He was an archeology grad student, and I was a fine arts student. Painting.
(Crossfade spotlights down, lights up. ASHTON stands at an easel painting. CUTHBERT stands just inside the studio as if he's just entered.)
CUTHBERT: Excuse me, is Professor Westworth here?
ASHTON: He's gone for the weekend. Has a show in Rhode Island. Is there something I can help you with?
CUTHBERT: Maybe. I was hoping to take a look at the work of an ex-student, Henry Anthony Wilcox. I understand the department still has a small collection.
ASHTON: Oh yes, the mad harbinger of Cthulhu. Why would you want to look at that ghastly stuff?
CUTHBERT: For purely scientific purposes, I assure you. I'd like to compare it to this.
(CUTHBERT opens leather case and withdraws a small wooden box. Opens the box and withdraws a carved stone figurine. ASHTON takes the figurine and examines it closely.)
I discovered it in Micronesia.
ASHTON: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." I recognize this gibberish, and this ghoul, Cthulhu, the sushi-faced god.
(ASHTON slaps the figurine back into CUTHBERT's hand. CUTHBERT carefully places the figurine back into the wooden box)
CUTHBERT: It's not gibberish. This was found in the ruins of Nan Madol, and the writing resembles the ancient language of the culture that once inhabited Micronesia.
ASHTON: (Uninterested) Oh, really.
CUTHBERT: Yes. It means, "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."
ASHTON: I know what it means.
CUTHBERT: Then why did you call it gibberish?
ASHTON: Because the less we know about Cthulhu, the better, in my opinion.
CUTHBERT: Well, that's not a scientific opinion. Can you show me Wilcox's work, or should I wait until Monday?
ASHTON: I'll show you. I've got a key.
CUTHBERT: Thanks, I didn't mean to put you to any trouble.
(ASHTON goes to a large cabinet, opens it, and removes an art portfolio. She opens the portfolio case on the table. Acts a bit disturbed by the artwork. CUTHBERT holds the water-colors up one at a time, studying them intently. They are of gruesome, chaotic scenes interspersed with fish men, and many portray a large squid/dragon creature looming in the background. He compares the drawings to the idol.)
CUTHBERT: See how similar they are? Cthulhu stirred in his slumber, and Wilcox heard his call.
ASHTON: Wilcox was a profoundly disturbed individual when he painted these.
CUTHBERT: Obviously. That's not the question.
ASHTON: Begging the question, what is the question?
CUTHBERT: Not if he was disturbed, but what disturbed him?
ASHTON: (Wiggles fingers in horror) Oooooo.
(CUTHBERT ignores the mocking tone and continues to examine the drawings.)
CUTHBERT: So what was he like before all this?
ASHTON: Henry was nice enough, if you didn't ask too much of him. Typical unmotivated rich kid.
CUTHBERT: Was he talented before?
ASHTON: (shrugs) He was still finding himself. Then he stumbled in here like a zombie and started painting those. Worked day and night, slept sitting in front of his easel. He's locked up in Arkham Sanitarium now.
CUTHBERT: He lost his mind and found genius. What every artist hopes for. You all must have been jealous.
ASHTON: (with a look of grudging respect) That's pretty perceptive of you. Pretty presumptuous, too. What does a scientist know about artists?
CUTHBERT: You'd be surprised. Do you know how many important archaeological discoveries have been made by madmen? Men who were willing to go a little further than everyone else, take a little more risk? The same sensitivity that allowed Henry to hear Cthulhu's call is probably required of any great innovator in any field.
ASHTON: Are you telling me you take this Cthulhu business seriously? You're a scientist!
CUTHBERT: Ancient ruins are rising from the seas. Old religions are being resurrected. You haven't felt a little (beat) unusual?
ASHTON: I guess I have. So what's happening?
CUTHBERT: No one knows for certain, but I've got a feeling we're all going to find out pretty soon.
(CUTHBERT sets the paintings down.)
You know, I've been taking up your time and I don't even know your name. Mine's Cuthbert Craft.
(CUTHBERT extends his hand. ASHTON shakes it.)
ASHTON: I'm A
shton. Ashton Clark.
CUTHBERT: Ashton, I haven't eaten anything since breakfast, but I'd really like to continue studying these. If I buy you dinner, will you let me back in for a few hours?
ASHTON: (Knowingly) So this is how a scientist asks a woman out.
CUTHBERT: (Shrugs) Sure. Two birds with one stone. Cold, scientific efficiency.
ASHTON: Why not?
(ASHTON and CUTHBERT walk offstage. Crossfade lights down, spotlights up. ASHTON and CUTHBERT take their seats downstage.)
CUTHBERT: (Looks at ASHTON and smiles) We ate Italian and drank red wine, and then spent hours looking at Wilcox's work together. (Looks at the audience again.) From that moment on, we were inseparable.
(CUTHBERT holds out his hand, which ASHTON takes.)
ASHTON: College romances don't usually work out that well. They burn too hot. Burn themselves out. But we had other interests. He was always going on trips to Micronesia, to Nan Madol or R'lyeh.
CUTHBERT: Well, R'lyeh was sunken until recently, but we went to where we thought it lay under the ocean, right under the Pacific Pole of Inaccessibility. Anyway, turns out we were pretty close. When Cthulhu awoke and raised his horrible citadel, it came out just about where we expected it to.
ASHTON: Let's not talk about that. We were having a nice time reminiscing. (pause) Like I said, he was passionate about his studies, I was passionate about my painting, and we gave each other space. I think that's the key to our relationship.
CUTHBERT: I agree. Before Ashton, all my relationships ended when my girlfriends got tired of trying to compete with my work.
ASHTON: Oh, “All my relationships. All my many, many girlfriends.” I seriously doubt your right hand ever got jealous of your studies.
CUTHBERT: Believe that if it makes you feel more secure.
(CUTHBERT brings ASHTON's hand up to his mouth and kisses it. ASHTON laughs. CUTHBERT looks out at the audience, listening.)
You want to know about the idol? Certainly.
(CUTHBERT removes the idol from the leather bag, then the box, and holds it forward gingerly.)
This is a primitive representation of the Great Old One known as Cthulhu. As I said, I was examining the Nan Madol ruins just off the coast of the Pohnpei island in Micronesia when I found it. There had recently been an earthquake, and the earth beneath the ruins shifted, raising one of the entrances above sea level. After several weeks, they'd managed to pump the ocean water out of one of the main chambers, and I was invited by my professor to accompany him on the expedition. As soon as we arrived on the island, I knew something was odd. The air was charged. I'd never been there before, and yet nothing looked right. It was as if reality were shifted one millimeter over from what I was seeing. (pause) As we traveled towards the ruins, we stopped several times for funeral processions. The locals wore black, head to toe black, only their faces showing. We asked our guides what was happening that there were so many funerals. The guides said that the rural people were going mad, killing each other, killing themselves. We almost ran over an old woman lagging behind a procession. She suddenly stepped out of the jungle right in front of us.
(CUTHBERT gets up, acting out the scene he's describing.)
I jump out of the jeep to see if she's alright, but when I reach down to help her up, she pulls me down to her, and she says, (in a low, scary voice) "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, but not for much longer." I fall back into the mud and scramble away from her. I still remember the stink of her breath, like the bottom of an oceanic trench. She runs back into the jungle, and I sit there in the mud and watch her go. (pause) So we arrive at the ruins, where these huge obelisks rise up out of the water. Even from a distance I can make out images carved into the surface of the obelisks, images of fish-men towering over tiny, stick-figure humans, tossing them into their mouths, crushing them beneath their webbed feet, but it's not a battle. The humans are kneeling, awaiting their fate, and even though they're crude figures chiseled in stone, I can feel their ecstasy. My perspective zooms in until the entire universe is black basalt. The rock doesn't move, but it moves in me. (pause) Eventually, we pull ourselves away, and climb down into the sunken chamber. I can't come close to describing what it was like. I think my mind rejected such illogical, impossible, non-euclidean geometry, parallel lines converging and falling away from each other.
(CUTHBERT stumbles as he talks, eventually falls to his knees and crawls.)
Impossible angles spread across my vision like a condemnation of concrete reality made concrete. We attempt to walk down what appears to be the floor but suddenly it's the wall, then the ceiling. We stumble. The others stop, vomiting from vertigo, closing their eyes to the ontological nightmare. I crawl on, down tumbling passages, past and across carvings of such horrific scenes that to describe them… (pause) I feel them taking over. I feel my brain turn to seawater-soaked basalt. I feel Cthulhu carving his dreams upon it. But I push on. Like I said, a lot of what happened down there, I don't remember, but when I emerged, I held this. (Holds up the idol) Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming. But he was beginning to stir, and his waking thoughts were as millstones, and our minds the grain. (pause) The struggle is so (beat) pointless. We live exactly as insects, and yet we look on them with horror, because they are us without justification, without the endless need to do things. The conscious mind is a freak accident, a program for double-checking cause-and-effect logic extended far beyond its purpose, an anti-virus program gone out of control. (pause) Have you ever felt nothing?
ASHTON: (Long pause, then to the audience) Our biggest challenge as a couple?
(CUTHBERT works his way slowly to his chair and flops into it. He finally notices the audience again.)
CUTHBERT: Oh, ummm, religion. Definitely religion.
ASHTON: Only because you made it that way. I didn't think religion needed to come into it at all. I mean, that's private. (To the audience) You don't have to share everything, just like you don't have to spend every minute together.
CUTHBERT: Yeah, but you kept it a secret.
ASHTON: I just didn't talk about it.
CUTHBERT: I know. You just neglected to mention that Atlach-Nacha would be completing her web to the dream world, bringing about the end of times and challenging Cthulhu as supreme Great Old One of Earth.
ASHTON: Oh, like you weren't just pleased as punch about the orgy of destruction that set off.
(Crossfade spotlights off, lights up. ASHTON is lying in the center of a rune drawn on the floor. A recording of her voice plays, repeating, "Align the stars. Unleash our dreams." After several repetitions, other voices join. Although they say the same phrase, they do not say it in unison. The effect is cacophonous. Then, the other voices drop away one by one, just as they began, until only ASHTON's remains.
CUTHBERT enters, carrying grocery sacks, then stops, staring at ASHTON where she lies in the center of the rune. Her voice continues to chant until CUTHBERT speaks.)
CUTHBERT: I thought I had some surprising news to tell you. Looks like you probably already know.
(CUTHBERT sets down the groceries. ASHTON sits up, rubs her eyes, is groggy.)
ASHTON: (mutters) Align the stars. Unleash our dreams. (in normal voice) What's the news?
CUTHBERT: While I was out getting groceries a ninth-dimensional plane opened over the sun. The new stars it's put into our sky have allowed Atlach-Nacha to begin work on the final portion of her web. We're going to be sent into permanent dream soon, but I guess you're happy about that.
ASHTON: Why do you say that?
CUTHBERT: Don't tell me you were just napping there in the center of that rune for no reason. I've got plenty of experience with runes. You were helping to open that portal.
ASHTON: That's a private matter.
CUTHBERT: Oh good Cthulhu… (like "good God")
ASHTON: Exactly! I don't chastise you for your involvement in your little cult.
CUTHBER
T: Come on! You just helped to bring about a holy war and you're going to pretend to be offended that I'm invading your privacy?
ASHTON: A holy war?
CUTHBERT: Seriously? You don't know? (Laughs) Sweet Cthulhu in R'lyeh! (Laughs)
ASHTON: (with surprising, explosive anger) Don't mock me!
CUTHBERT: Sorry, sorry. But you didn't think Atlach-Nacha was the only Great Old One dependent upon those stars, did you? You awoke Cthulhu. R'lyeh is rising! There's madness in the streets.
ASHTON: Oh no…
CUTHBERT: Oh yes. Your little spider bitch goddess has bitten off more than she can chew. Cthulhu is not happy about this.
(CUTHBERT picks up a bag of groceries and begins to unpack them, faced away from ASHTON.)
Could you start the water boiling? I got that fresh pasta you like. After dinner, though, I've got to get down to the temple. We're going to sacrifice a few virgins, you know, to aid the Great Cthulhu in rising from his slumber. Now, I don't want you going outside. This isn't going to be pretty. From what I've seen so far…
(As CUTHBERT speaks, ASHTON stands and quietly walks over to where he stands. She slowly removes a can of tomato sauce from a sack of groceries and hits him over the head with it. CUTHBERT collapses. Crossfade lights down, spotlights up. ASHTON and CUTHBERT take their seats downstage.)
CUTHBERT: I don't like that story.
ASHTON: Big tough-talking man taken out by a chick with a can of tomato sauce. What's not to like?
CUTHBERT: I know you had good intentions, but jeez.
ASHTON: (To the audience) I wasn't going to have him go get involved in a holy war. We might have been on opposite sides, but we didn't have to act like it. I knew that if he went out there, I'd never get him back.
CUTHBERT: I hate to admit it, but she was right. The madness was too… I can't describe it. Until you've torn a toddler apart with your bare hands and fed it to the snapping mandibles of a pair of beetle-men who were once its parents, you just can't know. She did what was best. (Looks at ASHTON) You remind me of my mother in that way.
ASHTON: Oh fuck that.
CUTHBERT: What? She was a strong woman. She always had her family's best interest at heart.