Cthulhu Cthursday: Giving the Gift of Cthulhu

This Christmas, in an effort to clear our heads of the noisome din involved with visiting family members you don’t see all too often, my brother and I took a brief break in my hovel on the hill. My apartment is not like the other EctoEditors; it is not a bright, urban loft filled with offensive artwork like Brownlee’s, it isn’t rife with aged mahogany bookshelves and leather bound books as I imagine Rosenberg’s (having always been blindfolded and told to keep my hands at my sides during visits), nor is it a kiddy pool full of filth-water bordered by a trough, parked in front of a bank of monitors like Eliza’s.

No, where I rest my head is a dark, cold, cement affair; a soul crushing void in which only a few, deeply troubled, individuals find respite. Bookshelves of varying size and description, many hastily constructed with wood scraps and exposed nails with a taste for blood, line the walls, supporting a vast collection of graven images, idols, and blasphemous literature.

It had been quite some time since my sibling’s last visit to my pit, and though he was obviously fearful of my tentacular accoutrements, I felt the need to show off my recent acquisitions; soothing fear with knowledge like the Greek scholars of old, but with less catamitism.

I pulled my most recent treasure down from the shelf and handed it off to my brother, expecting squeels of excitement at his recognition of a truly awesome interpretation of the murderous octodidact. Turning the monstrosity over in his hands as if it were nothing more than a piece of plastic bearing a faint chemical reek, my grievously malformed psuedo-clone uttered a wholly uninterested acknowledgement of my obvious interest.

“Neat. So…what is it?”

No, there was simply no way he wasn’t familiar, not after the years spent in my clan of deviant demi-apes. Perhaps this was simply an overly artistic rendition, or maybe the gloom pervading my space was particularly gloomy that day. I assumed the best and pressed onward.

“Oh, well…it’s Cthulhu. You know, from Lovecraft?”

A blank look.

“Cthulhu?! Horrible tentacle God from beyond the stars dreaming only of destruction and the ruination of man?”

The youngster had obviously spent more time practicing looking confused than reading up on the author of his inevitable, glorious, destruction. A perfect mask of confusion, slightly tinted by the precursors of derision, graced his visage.

I felt a deep shame. My own flesh and blood, the man for whom from the offices of a Cthulhoid priest I would issue edicts to have murdered early and painlessly in the beginning days of our great tentacular lord’s arrival, ignorant in the ways of Cthulhu, Yog Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, and the rest of the gang. Stifling a nearly overwhelming desire to bludgeon the boy for his blasphemy, I sat down to edify him. Beginning with Ectomo and Cthursday (because who doesn’t like a little irreverent fun when receiving an education in sanity rending monstrosities) and ending with a box full of books shoved into his recoiling arms I finished my part in his induction into the cult. The rest would be up to him.

My introduction to a world of endless torture and pain complete, we set off for Christmas dinner, a harrowing event nearly rivaling the Lovecraftian apocalypse, for which my brother was now adequately prepared. The timing was perfect, and the coincidences leading to his edification abounded, if not serendipity this was truly a Christmas miracle of which even Cthulhu would approve.

Christmas Cthulhu Brooch [DeviantArt]