Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories

by Alex Shvartsman

  They watched with varying degrees of amusement while Joe searched frantically for a way out. He circumnavigated the room, studying the ceiling, floor, and walls. There was no sign of an exit.

  “This is impossible,” Joe said.

  “Enough already,” said the witch. “Let’s bring the new guy up to speed and get back to the game.”

  “Hard-boiled private eye? Secret agent? Mercenary?” The fairy chimed in with another flurry of wild guesses.

  “What you need to understand first,” said the robot, “is that we aren’t people.”

  “That’s kind of obvious,” said Joe. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t discriminate against metal-based life forms.”

  “By we—I mean you too, genius,” said the robot. “We’re figments of people’s imaginations. Zeitgeists of popular culture. Tropes. Avatars, brought to life by a hundred thousand dreamers reading the same novel or watching the same film. Whatever’s the flavor of the day finds its way into this room, at least temporarily.”

  “Computer hacker? Terrorist? Ninja pirate?”

  Joe shook his head. The fairy pouted again.

  “At least he isn’t a prepubescent wizard or an emo glittering vampire,” said the witch. “We suffered a plague of those recently.”

  “A terrible embarrassment to my kin,” declared the vampire. “I would have liked to kill them all and drink their blood, if it weren’t so diluted with Prozac and Cosmopolitans.”

  “They were rotten card players,” said the robot.

  “Their one redeeming quality,” added the alien.

  “What happened to them?” Joe asked. “If there’s no exit, then where did they go?”

  “They faded away,” said the vampire. “Some tropes are much longer-lasting than others. Broomhilda there,” she pointed a razor-sharp red nail at the witch, “has been around since the Roosevelt administration. And she isn’t saying which Roosevelt. Those self-pitying pretenders? Not so much.”

  “I don’t much like the idea of fading away,” said Joe.

  “Can’t blame you one bit,” said the witch. “But people’s fancies are beyond our control. Be content with the fact that enough of them thought you up, and that you exist at all. Even if existence around these parts is nothing but a never-ending card game.”

  “Toreador? Clown? Astronaut?”

  Joe shook his head again.

  “Whoever you turn out to be, the important question is: do you know how to play Texas Hold’Em?” asked the alien.

  “Yes,” said Joe. “I think so.”

  “Pity,” said the alien. “I prefer easy opponents. It’s your turn to deal,” he reminded the fairy. “Scoot over and pass the new guy his chips.”

  “Ghost whisperer? Colombian drug lord? Pet detective?”

  The fairy made increasingly unlikely guesses but, in truth, Joe was no closer to figuring out his own identity than she was. So he played cards and studied the room and its inhabitants.

  They played for several hours straight. Joe surprised himself and his companions by being rather good at the game. He quickly learned that the robot never bluffed, the witch fingered a large wart on her nose whenever she had a strong hand, and the vampire always over-bet low pairs pre-flop. The fairy played badly, but made up for it with copious amounts of luck—she often caught just the right card on the river. The alien was the shark of the group—his playing style was tight but aggressive, he changed his strategy all the time, and his gray, emotionless features made for a perfect poker face.

  Very slowly, Joe built the modest pile of chips he started out with into an impressive stack that was second only to the alien’s. He searched for an opportunity to take the lead, but the wily extraterrestrial kept eluding his traps.

  “Why is this place so run down?” he asked, noting the dilapidated carpet and patches of the green felt on the table worn so threadbare that they were practically bald spots.

  “It is the nature of tropes to be well-worn,” said the robot, looking up briefly from his hand of cards.

  Not long after that there was a lively round of betting which resulted in a large pile of chips building up at the center of the table. The alien placed his bet after the flop and Joe raised the stakes, sensing an opportunity. The other players groaned and folded their cards one by one.

  The Grey studied Joe intently, looking for any kind of a tell.

  “Take your time, ET,” said Joe, staring right back at the alien, “and while you consider your move let me compliment you about the crop circles. If I traveled to some faraway planet a gazillion light years away from Earth, I would totally mess with the natives’ minds that way, too. Oh, and what’s up with the cowboy hat?”

  Joe grinned. He was trying his best to throw the alien off his game, but the Grey didn’t appear to be fazed.

  “That was an aggressive bet,” said the alien. “But you’re being bold out of ignorance rather than skill. Your new so-called friends conveniently left out a crucial detail. The game we play is more than a mere diversion.” He leaned in toward Joe. “These chips represent your influence and relevance in the outside world. Win some, and you might stick around a lot longer. Lose it all, and…” the alien snapped his fingers. “Poof.”

  “You asked about the cowboy hat earlier. Its previous owner liked to bet aggressively, too. Nice enough chap, if a bit unrefined.” The alien pushed a large stack of chips into the center of the table, almost doubling the pot. “Raise.”

  Joe pursed his lips and fondled the clay chips as he processed the new information.

  “Well,” he finally said. “Isn’t that an interesting tidbit? Thanks very much for omitting that factoid when you invited me to play.” He looked around the table. The other players wouldn’t meet his gaze. “The fairy has been trying to guess what trope I represent this whole time, and I’ve been mulling it over, too, and I’ve finally figured it out. I’m everyman.”

  The players stared at Joe, waiting for an explanation. Even the fairy kept quiet.

  “There’s a thin line between a trope and a cliché. I believe all of you have crossed that line, on occasion. I think enough people out there are tired of that. They’re interested in stories about a regular guy. No super powers. No martial arts training. No preconceived notions. A regular Joe who thinks and acts like a person, who can be cautious or reckless, malicious or kind, unpredictable, yet realistic. They want a sort of character who won’t fade away, but always remain fresh by reinventing himself.

  “Cowboys and Indians make room for little green men, who get replaced by gumshoe investigators… the tropes come and go. But everyman is always going to be around, for as long as people tell stories, no matter how the cards are dealt.”

  Joe shoved his entire remaining stack of chips forward, doubling the pot again. “All in.”

  The players reflected on his words in silence. Only Howie the Lovecraftian horror hummed along with the Sinatra tune.

  “Fold,” the alien declared after a long pause. He regarded his much-diminished horde of influence chips, then got up and stomped away from the table in frustration.

  Joe smiled and collected his winnings.

  “What did you have?” the robot asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Joe said. “I don’t remember.”

  Joe discarded the two of clubs and the seven of hearts he was holding face down and shuffled them into the deck. He decided that he was going to like it here. He had finally figured out what trope he represented and was confident it would take the others a while to get up to speed.

  Which was just as well, because he could use all the chips he could get out of them. Card sharp was not, on its own, a very powerful trope.

  This story was originally posted on the UFO Publishing website and then podcasted at Cast of Wonders.

  When I began work on the first Unidentified Funny Objects anthology, I wanted a cover that conveyed the theme of the book. I asked Dixon Leavitt for a depiction of “Dogs playing poker, except instead of d
ogs it would be stock SF/F characters like an alien, a robot, a vampire, etc.”

  He added his own unique style to the idea and produced what I consider to be a top-notch illustration. Afterward, I couldn’t resist the challenge of writing a story that explained what’s going on in that painting. I was happy with the story, but didn’t want to include it in UFO—it’s unseemly for the first-time editor to publish his own work in this manner. So I posted it on the site for everyone to enjoy.

  I’ve had a number of people ask me if “card sharp” at the end of the story is a typo. “Shouldn’t it have been ‘card shark’?” they ask. In fact, the two are interchangeable but “card sharp” predates “card shark”, I like it a bit better, and stubbornly refuse to go with the more “powerful” trope, which is fitting to this story.

  THE FAR SIDE OF THE WILDERNESS

  One way or another, I’m nearing the end of my journey.

  The spaceship is quiet now, except for the low rumble of the engines. It took me days, but I found all of the speakers which were filling the cabins with a cacophony of alarm bells. I pried each speaker open with a knife and cut the little rubbery wires until the last of the infernal things had finally been silenced.

  Deprived of its voice, the ship is blinking lies at me via the console screen. Warning: low fuel levels. Warning: engine maintenance required. Warning: life support system failure imminent. I once thought of the ship as a friend, a steed sent by the Creator to be the tool of our deliverance. Somehow, the Deceiver found its way in, wormed inside of the ship’s machinery, and is doing whatever it can to break my spirit and thwart me from reaching paradise.

  I place the decrepit postcard on top of the screen, covering the red blinking letters, then wrap myself in an extra layer of clothes against the steadily cooling air.

  On the world of Kemet, we spent our days scavenging. Our tribe traveled to a section of the caves we hadn’t been to for a while, long enough for fresh moss to grow on the rocks and tiny gnawers to repopulate. And then we’d make camp and collect the moss and trap the gnawers, and eat for a few days, until food became difficult to obtain and we had to move again.

  In the evenings, as we huddled around the fire, Mother and other elders would tell stories.

  Mother taught me that, a very long time ago, everyone used to live in paradise. She told me about the world of plenty, the world of blue skies and white clouds, where gentle sunlight bronzed the skin, and the air was thick and smelled of flowers. Countless generations lived in paradise, and they did not know hunger or fear.

  She told me about the Deceiver, who whispered from the shadows. It filled people’s hearts with pride, and desire, and wanderlust until they built flying machines powerful enough to puncture the sky. They thought themselves equals of the Creator as they crossed the void and spread out across the stars, but all they really accomplished was to deny their children paradise. And the Deceiver rejoiced.

  When I was eight, I once hiked to the barren surface in search of the wonderful place from my mother’s tales. I walked around for most of the night, until the pale reddish glow of our sun appeared in the East. Soon it would scorch the surface, make it too hot for a human to survive outside. I barely made it back to the caves, sweating and sunburned, choking on the sparse, dusty air. I did not find what I sought, and I began to doubt her stories.

  When I confessed my doubts to Mother, she didn’t chide me. She reached into her pack and retrieved a bundle wrapped in many layers of cloth. Inside was an ancient picture, a postcard, covered in plastic.

  “This is the only image of paradise that survives on Kemet,” Mother said.

  The tribe had a handful of items from before the colonists landed on Kemet. Mostly simple gadgets, built well enough to survive the centuries: flashlights and water purifiers, and drills. But I’ve never seen anything like this. I reached for the picture with great care.

  A bright yellow sun reflected off azure water, more water than I could ever imagine collected in one place. Next to the water grew a cluster of trees, their branches reaching proudly toward the sky. And although the picture was very old and faded, the colors in it were still brighter than anything on my world.

  “There is a better place in the universe,” Mother said. “A better life. We must never forget this; never surrender our values and our culture, and never descend into barbarism. Then, one day, the Creator will welcome us home.”

  I cast doubt from my heart and resolved never again to let the Deceiver weaken my faith.

  The ship came when we were studying.

  Every day, the young ones had to spend two hours on reading and writing and math and all manner of other subjects. Like so many of my friends I often lost patience with learning about things that did not matter on our world, couldn’t help fill our stomachs. Mother was patient with me. She explained that we must rise above our circumstances so that one day the Creator would look upon us with pride, forgive our ancestors’ transgressions and bring us back into the fold.

  It was while we struggled to memorize the periodic table of elements that there was a rumble and the walls and ceiling of the caves shuddered, shaking loose a shower of pebbles. It felt like a quake, but came from above and not below. When the noise ceased and the shaking stopped, we rushed to the mouth of the cave. Outside, there was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

  The ship rested on its side wedged between rock formations, its gleaming silver surface out of place in our world. There was a faint glow around the hull, which made the ship look like it had a halo. I knew right away that this was the Creator’s gift, the carriage to bring us home to paradise.

  We approached the ship and it opened to us, like a desert flower at dawn. Inside, there was death.

  We found five bodies inside the ship, and one woman who was still alive, in her quarters.

  She was feverish and sick, and we could do nothing except tend to her and make her last days a little more comfortable. I volunteered to stay with her, despite the dire warnings she issued in her rare moments of lucidity. The strange smells and textures of the ship called to me and were too alluring for anything to scare me off.

  Her name was Beata and she was an explorer. Her ancestors left paradise at the same time as mine, four hundred years ago, but they landed on a much more hospitable planet than Kemet, and kept on developing their technologies.

  This ship was designed to travel from one human colony to another, so that Beata’s people could reconnect with their long-lost cousins. She said that they had been to several worlds before something went wrong. There were no people alive on the last planet they had visited, and the crew became sick very soon after taking off. Beata believed that they were exposed to the same virus which must have killed the original colonists, and she begged me to stay away from her lest I contract the disease and pass it on to the rest of my tribe.

  Confident that the Creator’s favor would protect me, I stayed and questioned Beata about paradise. She said that we came from the planet called Earth and that it was no utopia. Our ancestors poisoned its air and polluted its water, and that’s why they had to leave for the stars.

  I didn’t believe her. Beata’s people never lost their technology, or their pride. Their lives weren’t harsh so they never found the strength to deny the Deceiver. Their bodies and spirits were too soft and the Creator never forgave them like he did us; that is why I didn’t get sick despite spending days in a small room with Beata.

  We talked of distant worlds and wonders of space. I told Beata of our life in the caves and she was horrified. She said that her people could help, could carry us to a more hospitable world. That her scout ship was automated, and would eventually return to her home world, and that she would record a message for them once she felt strong enough. But she was getting weaker and weaker. Near the end, she ordered the ship to transfer control to me, and asked me to record the call for help.

  We burned Beata’s body and scattered the ashes on the same plateau where we burned the bodies o
f the other explorers, so that Beata could be with her friends in death. That’s when I told the others that I could pilot the ship.

  It was a lie, of course. Not even Beata could pilot it. Learning that skill took a lifetime of training on her world. All I could do was give the ship’s onboard computer basic commands and hope that its machine brain could interpret them right. But it wouldn’t do to let the others know this. The Creator had chosen me to lead them home.

  Twelve of us boarded the ship. It was too small to house the entire tribe, and so the elders decided to send only the young. I wanted so badly for Mother to come, but arguing for this would not have been fair or wise.

  She hugged me tight when I was ready to go. Hope and pride shone on her face. She handed me a small bundle. “So you’ll never lose your way,” she said, her voice trembling.

  I claimed the captain’s bunk, placing my few belongings in the compartments by its side. Then I unwrapped her gift. It was the postcard, her most prized possession. The yellow sun beckoned to me from the photograph.

  “Fly, ship,” I implored and the engine roared to life, lifting us toward the arms of the Creator.

  Life on the ship was better than the life in the caves. There was a machine that produced an edible paste that was tasteless but filling. Little screens could be made to play music and moving pictures, and the time passed by quickly while we discovered sights and concepts that were previously unfamiliar.

  I maintained the illusion of control.

  “Take us to paradise,” I whispered to the ship when others couldn’t hear me.

  Unspecified parameters, the ship would answer.

  “Earth. Fly us to Earth,” I begged.

  Unable to alter flight plan, the ship would say.

  I knew that surely, with time, I could convince it.

  “This place is not what you promised,” said my tribesmen when the ship had landed.

  Outside, grains of frozen water danced in the frigid air. Everything was covered in white, except the area around the ship where the engines melted the water and uncovered black patches of wet dirt. Beata had said that the ship would travel to planets with known human colonies, but if any people had lived in this inhospitable place they had long since moved or died.