By Vincent Michael Simbulan
Grave Tidings
Autumn, it is the season of madness and melancholy. The world prepares for winter sleep while unspeakable horrors begin to stir in their forgotten prisons and sunless tombs. Beneath the sickly yellow glow of a gibbous moon, Silverio works the shovel, turning the heavy flattened head against unyielding cold earth.
He pays no heed to the wispy fog that slithers across the empty field, swathing his legs in a cotton shroud, or to the continuous chirp of cicadas announcing their return to life. Wholly focused on unearthing his prize before the cover of night is pulled away, he has no time to spare.
His breath comes in short gasps, each exhalation adding mist to the early morning air. The light from his lantern is bright enough to limn the weathered contours of his face, a determined mask of world-weary wrinkles glistening with perspiration.
Exhaustion hinders his every move. Silverio’s youth is a distant memory and he has come to accept the inexorable degeneration of old age, his bones and muscles bent and twisted under the burden of half a century. It has not been an easy life, but not even the weight of the world is enough to crush his optimism.
Silverio cares for the world, even if the world never cared back the way he wanted it to. His mother once said that his problem was that he cared too much, but only about himself. Silverio thought her mad. He reminds himself that he is a hero, that he will save the world one day.
Silverio is convinced of his enlightenment. He has accepted the painful truth which no one else can bear to face—that the world is a place of suffering. Any sane man would understand that the best way to stop the suffering is to defer to the whims of powers greater than humanity. A simple and eminently logical plan to achieve this had formed in his mind. It is a plan so close now to becoming a reality.
There were many esoteric texts in his past that led him to this night. Every spare moment spent hunting down obscure references has yielded him an impressive list: the Liber Ivonis, the Oracles of P’an T’ang, the seven cryptic books of H’san, and numerous other forbidden tomes that would have easily reduced any man to madness.
Any lesser man perhaps, but Silverio believes he is above that. The righteousness of his cause is a shield that has never failed him. Silverio would never countenance the possibility of insanity.
Of course if he had been sane, he would not have learned of the hidden secrets that crawl in the chaos equations which govern the universe.
If he had been sane he would not have glimpsed the vision brought to him by a faceless emissary of the Black Goat With A Thousand Young. A vision that revealed the terrifying truth of an uncaring universe that simply waits to swallow all.
If he had been sane he would not have been chosen by the fish-headed tribes of Piscenos to discover their secret message written in the stars. A message he had received and deciphered barely a month ago, of the ancient alignment that would make this night possible, when he, Silverio de Guzman, would attain his rightful destiny.
The sudden thump of metal on wood tells him that his prize is within reach. With renewed vigor, he increases the pace of his digging, casting earth and stone aside until a small wooden coffin finally reveals itself to him. Clearing away the remaining soil with his hands, he exposes an odd star-shaped seal of melted wax.
Barely pausing to catch his breath, Silverio scratches the seal while ominous clouds gather above him, threatening rain. For a moment the seal seems to glow faintly before he finally manages to scrape it away. Silverio is assaulted by a sudden attack of vertigo, as if he were staring down an impossibly high precipice. He shrugs off the dizziness and uses the shovel to pry the coffin open.
He wrenches the lid aside with surprising ease and the world holds its breath; even the cicadas are silenced as Silverio looks upon the coffin’s contents—the mummified body of a woman, though he can only tell by the tattered remains of what must once have been an elegant gown.
Her face is an undulating mass of maggots, and clutched to her chest by worm-eaten hands is the eidolon: an exquisitely carved, vaguely anthropoid figure with prodigious claws protruding from each appendage, long narrow wings curved upward from behind, and a loathsome cephalopod head bent forward, its multi-faceted ruby eyes glinting with the promise of damnation.
Silverio is aware of the eidolon’s mysterious and colorful past. How it first traveled beyond the desert wastes in the hands of a mad Arab, and how it changed hands repeatedly, each of the previous owners having lost their minds or their lives in quick succession. He also knows that many years later it wound up in the hands of a writer of some renown before vanishing from history as mysteriously as it had appeared.
Silverio is no longer concerned by these details. The remaining motes of sanity flee from his mind even as he reaches for the eidolon. The figurine is cold, almost icy in his hands, and a wave of nausea threatens to overwhelm him. He suppresses the urge to vomit, struggling against every instinct that screams in his mind to get as far away from it as possible. Instead, he pries it loose from withered hands and holds it aloft triumphantly.
A powerful tremor shakes the ground beneath him. The earth’s expression of revulsion nearly knocks him off his feet before ceasing abruptly. Silverio steadies himself, still clutching his hideous prize as rain begins to fall in frenzied torrents. The furious downpour threatens to drown him where he stands.
The wind howls a wordless warning as Silverio races away with the idol, a herald of the end of all things. He makes his way across the field, slipping across the mud that clings to his every step and barely reaches his car as a bolt of lightning strikes the ground where he stood mere moments before. The ponderous motor grumbles to life and he makes his escape.
An angry red moon refracted by raindrops glares through the gathered storm clouds, and the skies weep blood, promising dire tidings to the world.
Portents of Doom
The following day is a Monday and Silverio calls in sick for work. His boss at the library barely listens to his excuse and hangs up without a reply. Silverio is too preoccupied to notice. There are more pressing things on his mind. He contemplates his grim trophy, and the carved obsidian figure leers back with sullen malevolence, casting a pall over the entire house.
He is used to living alone, in a house that has never really been a home, at least not since his sister disappeared from his life. Silverio has never found anyone else to share his life with; no one ever seemed to meet his standards, or he theirs. He knows that it will be different when the world ends. Solitude will soon be an obliterated anachronism. Nothing brings people together like death.
There is only one person that Silverio calls regularly and he lifts the phone to tell her the good news.
“Hello, I’m about to begin. You should get ready.”
“Who is this?” The woman’s voice is annoyed and vaguely threatening. “What do you want?”
Silverio patiently goes over the intricacies of his plan.
The buzzing on the other end sounds like flies or mosquitoes. Silverio has heard it before, and it gives him the strength to continue. He knows she understands what he is trying to do.
He settles down in front of the idol. It unnerves him but he remains steadfast. It is now perched over the mantelpiece and he considers draping a towel over it but decides not to, opting instead to place a series of candles in a circle around it as he starts reciting the ancient invocation. The sibilant words are difficult to pronounce but he speaks them slowly, gaining confidence until his chanting fills the house like the angry drone of bees.
The weather, as if in continued protest against the abomination in his possession, remains stormy for the better part of the day. Dark clouds that look like heavy ink blots unleash an endless stream of chilling rain that turns into hail the size of small stones. Silverio ignores the relentless clattering on the roof and bundles up under a blanket to keep warm. He stuffs his ears with cotton and falls asleep under the unwavering gaze of the idol.
Sometime during the night, Silverio is roused by the deafening stillness. The weather has finally cleared and the night sky glitters with the ephemeral brilliance of dead suns. A shard of moonlight cuts through the window to shine on the eidolon, casting tenebrous tentacles that coil and curl on the walls.
A mysterious melody fills his room. He can hear it through the cotton in his ears. Silverio cannot tell if it emanates from the moon or the idol. It vaguely reminds him of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, but he knows it is the music of alien spheres, symphonic strains from worlds undreamt of by humanity.
Tuesday morning brings an infestation of fire ants in their numberless thousands. A violent red carpet that covers his lawn, picking it clean of life. The mailman is quickly and efficiently stripped to the bone as he steps up the walk.
Silverio sees the bones when he peers out the window, alerted by the heavy thump of undelivered mail crashing to the ground. The letters and packages remain unmolested as the ants return to their routines and Silverio to his chanting.
The neighbor’s dog, a noisy brown terrier, is the next victim that afternoon. A sharp yelp quickly cut short, and canine bones join the mailman’s to gleam in the dying sunlight like lunatic lawn ornaments.
Silverio makes another phone call. “Please don’t come over today. The place is a mess and it wouldn’t be safe.”
“You again? Stop calling me or I’ll have the police haul you away.” The woman’s irate voice is followed by an exasperated sigh before the line goes dead.
Satisfied, Silverio resumes chanting.
On Wednesday, his breakfast is interrupted by a cloud of locusts. The ravenous buzzing horde descends on the trees and shrubbery of his garden, completely denuding it in seconds and eradicating all traces of foliage before moving through the rest of the neighborhood.
His neighbors whisper complaints, but none of them walk over to his house.
The constant chanting takes its toll and he decides to sleep early. His dreams are filled with visions of a world bereft of suffering, loneliness, and conflict. The visions are termites, eating away at his dreams until only a nightmare remains, an insectile nightmare that devours the world, bit by screaming bit.
Silverio wakes up in the middle of the night, his back drenched with sweat. He refuses to look at the idol, but he can feel its presence flooding the room. He feels like a drowning man.
Thursday morning and Silverio wakes up thinking it is still late in the evening as he peers blindly outside the picture windows of his bedroom, his eyes unable to penetrate the gloom. Then the darkness shifts and he realizes that the windows are completely covered by hundreds of scarabs, their oily black carapaces a skittering mass sealing away the sunlight.
He decides to watch some television, undisturbed by the lack of light. The static-laden images of newscasters seem to be on every channel. He listens to a report on beached whales in Boracay, switches the channel to find dolphins leaping to their deaths in Dumaguete. Every station airs an endless string of statements about finned, scaled, and tentacled creatures washing ashore, as if every undersea creature suddenly embarked on a mass exodus from the ocean.
For the rest of the day, Silverio continues his invocation by the flickering light of the television set. The idol remains unmoved and silent on the mantelpiece. Waiting.
Outside, the impending apocalypse continues in earnest.
Ghost of a Sister
Marianna is an unexpected development on Friday. When she first appears in Silverio’s bedroom, he is convinced that he is still dreaming. She is a luminous wraith that drifts in from the doorway and settles at the foot of his bed.
“Look at you.” His sister’s voice is firm yet kind, and the familiar sound brings involuntary tears to his eyes which he quickly wipes away.
“Marie, you’re dead,” he finally manages to say. Her death had left Silverio with a gnawing emptiness which he denied existed, even to himself.
“Of course I am, Silverio,” Her features suddenly resolve from the formless glow, becoming more distinct. “You know very well that I am.”
He flinches as he meets her gaze for an instant. “What do you want?”
“I’m here for you.” She ignores his question even as she answers it.
Silverio doesn’t know what else to say; a sudden attack of guilt silences him. He turns away from her and goes back to sleep, hoping for another dream.
Silverio wakes up to the smell of bacon, the sound of fat sizzling on the pan, and he goes down to the kitchen, remembering what happened the night before. It wasn’t a dream.
He peers out of the windows, trying to find the sun, but the scarabs have made it all but impossible. He hears angry buzzing and muffled shouts from the street outside but he decides to ignore them, drawn to the smell of food. Marie has set the table and is busy frying eggs.
“You should stop this nonsense,” she says as she serves the bacon and eggs over steaming fried rice and watches him eat.
“What?”
“I know what you’re doing.” Her gaze lingers over the idol on the mantelpiece. “Stop it.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says between mouthfuls of bacon. He knows feigning ignorance will only delay her at best.
His obstinacy does not faze her; she counters it with a tenacity that only the dead can hope to muster when haunting the living.
They argue philosophy. Nietzsche is on her lips constantly.
He denies staring into the abyss, though he is of the mind that the abyss stares back hungrily whether one is looking into it or not.
In the days that follow, she takes over the household, until he suddenly realizes that she is smothering him. She has banished all traces of his solitary life with frightening efficiency.
Silverio makes his one daily phone call, and finds her staring at him, rolling her eyeballs. He ignores her and speaks loudly into the telephone, drowning the angry voice on the other end.
Marie drifts through the furniture, passing a cloth to dust as she goes on her way. As she passes him she makes noises that grate on his nerves. He suspects she is making fun of him, making him feel inadequate and useless.
Silverio retreats to chanting. He finds some solace in the twisted syllabication of the summoning. It is a welcome distraction which he knows will keep her away.
Marie retaliates with a wave of cleaning the likes of which Silverio’s house has never seen.
Art of the Epitaph
“How would you want to be remembered?” The question, coming as it does from Marie, is unexpected.
Silverio struggles to find a suitable answer. “I don’t care if I’m forgotten,” he says at last. “We’re all disposable. No one remembers an empty bottle, so why should I hope for any better?”
“Surely you don’t mean that. Everyone wants to be remembered after they die. That’s why they write on tombstones.”
“I think what I’m doing makes the need for that irrelevant.” He turns to walk away from her, but she follows him.
“You’ve denied yourself a life. That’s why you aren’t worth remembering,” she says at last, and Silverio slaps her. He didn’t think his hand would strike anything but empty air, yet the sound of his palm hitting her face echoes in the stillness of the room.
“You haven’t changed.” Her eyes are accusations. “Is it any wonder that you’ve remained alone all this time? Unable to let anyone get close to you? Too scared to hear the truth?”
“Shut up!” Silverio runs from the room, but her voice hounds him.
“Here lies Silverio, his life was as meaningless as his death. How does that sound?” Marie enters his bedroom, easily passing through the locked door. “You think you’re saving the world? No one will care. Not even that woman you keep calling. She doesn’t even know who you are.”
“That’s a lie!” His face is livid as he remembers why they parted ways. Her words made it impossible for him to stand being with her for more than a few minutes. But he could not stand to be away from her, could not stand the thought of her leaving.
“Shut up!” His eyes fill with tears as he turns to face her. “What I’m doing now will change the world!”
“Will it?” Marie’s face softens, and she takes his hand in hers. “Live your life. What’s left of it can still be worth remembering. Live it before it is lost to you.”
The statement is almost a threat, a yawning abyss from which Silverio realizes there is no escape. He looks away, unable to frame a reply.
Corpse Clothes
Silverio is dying. Despite Marie’s best efforts to keep him fed and rested, the chanting is taking its toll. His eyes are ringed by dark circles and his thin frame has been reduced to the point of emaciation, but Silverio is excited and has never felt more alive. Today the summoning will be complete.
He leaves the bedroom and rushes down to find Marie seated on the sofa. There is the incessant click-clack of darning needles as she knits calmly. The scarabs have kept their vigil outside and the power had long since gone out, so she uses the last of the candles to keep the room from total darkness.
Silverio clears his throat to let her know he is there. Her knitting continues unabated.
“Some people are dead but they don’t know it.” Marie is knitting him a new sweater again, her hands a blur of rhythmic motion that Silverio follows, fascinated, almost hypnotized.
“What are you doing?”
“Me? What does it look like? I’m knitting you a sweater. You need one.” She smiles at him.
“I don’t want a new sweater.”
“You have to leave behind a beautiful corpse,” she says, her hands picking up speed until they are a locomotive force of nature, relentlessly weaving a plaid pattern in violet and blue. “Or failing that, a well-dressed one.”
And he knows he will have a new sweater soon whether he wants one or not.
She presents it to him in silence, her stance more insistent than words. She wants to see him wear it.
He refuses. “It’s hideous! I can’t wear this.”
The look she gives him inflames the guilt he had long forgotten but had been lurking, waiting for a moment to strike. The outcome is inevitable.
It is itchy. Just like everything else she had knitted for him in the past. Worse, it makes him look like a walking bruise. He prepares to rip it off and throw it away or burn it.
“Does your life really matter to anyone Silverio?” Marie’s eyes are mirrors of his sorrow. The look of pity that he sees in them is more painful than any physical blow. “Can you die knowing that nobody cares?”
Silverio ignores the question. He does not want to know the answer.
“I have to go now,” she says suddenly, a phantom tear trickling down her face.
“You do?” Silverio is struck by his overwhelming elation.
“My time here was always limited, but don’t worry. Once you’ve ended the world we can be together again.” Her face begins to fade, her body shimmers like an oasis in the desert and she smiles at him. Their eyes lock. “Forever.”
Her final words linger in the air long after she is gone. Silverio remembers to breathe after a minute. Desperation and a sinking feeling in his stomach cause him to retch on the floor. He is stranded with the thought that he will have to spend an afterlife with her, and the thought is more frightening than any he has ever had.
Silverio hesitates as he takes the eidolon in his hands; it seems to have grown heavier, warmer somehow. The final words are ready, all he needs to do is speak them aloud and it will all be over.
An image forms in his mind: a great misshapen bat-winged mass of ancient malice and hunger rising from the ocean depths, the smell of brine filling the air, the uncoiling tentacles of the apocalypse reaching out after untold millennia of slumber. The vision wavers and changes into his sister’s face, her eyes impossibly sad, asking him the question he cannot answer.
His new sweater clings to him and he scratches his back with one hand. There is the incessant susurration of a million wings beating in unison emanating from his backyard and the sound of thousands of chitinous feet scrabbling at the walls of his house.
“I’ll be with you soon.” Silverio shivers, a sudden chill runs through his spine. The figure on his lap is pulsing with baleful life; pinpricks of blood red light seep from its eyes, tentacles twisting with agitated anticipation. He has yet to utter the final call that will complete the summoning.
His hands, still tightly clasped around the eidolon, tremble with the weight of his choice.
Memories Made
Spring, the season of hope and heartache. The world beams with life, grateful that unspeakable horrors remain locked in their forgotten prisons and sunless tombs. Beneath the bright glow of a full moon, two people walk down a tree-lined path.
“I’m flattered, but… No.” The woman smiles at him kindly, and pats him on the back.
“I had a good time, though. Thank you for accepting my invitation.” Silverio smiles and takes her hand, planting a gentle kiss on it.
“It’s getting late. I’d better go. See you at the library again tomorrow?”
“Sure. I’ll be there.”
Silverio remains silent, and as he watches her leave, he realizes that his heart has broken for the first time. The night suddenly becomes warmer, as if to comfort him. He has met the woman of his dreams, and despite her rejection, he is comforted by the fact that she knows he exists.
Silverio begins to whistle. A symphony fills the air as he makes his way home.