Nightmares from a Lovecraftian Mind by Krall Jordan

Author:Krall, Jordan [Krall, Jordan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Dunhams Manor Books
Published: 2012-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

HAIL DESIRE AND BODIES OF COLD GENTLEMEN

Pockets of cold air moved across the bedroom. I occasionally felt them while I waited for sleep. Oh, how I waited and was always disappointed.

The pockets could be better described as invisible bubbles of frost. They came and went as I counted to ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and finally a hundred. No sleep came but I pretended to dream, to rekindle my nightmares with the movement of the cold air.

My name is Henry Bertrand and I haven’t slept in fifteen years.

That isn’t the worst of my troubles so I won’t pretend that it is just to gain sympathy or advice. It is simply the starting point of my narrative. Why is it the starting point? I’m not entirely sure but perhaps the reasons will reveal themselves to both me and you by the end of it all.

The end of it all.

That sounds so very final but that probably isn’t the case. Once the reading stops, the mind goes on and on and on until the details of the story disappear in some long term memory junk yard full of old names and plotlines from movies you’ve forgotten you’ve seen.

So forgive me if I rush through the story or obsess on some small detail like the wallpaper on my neighbor’s bedroom wall. Just so you know: I could see the room from my own bedroom. My curtains are always open and so are my neighbor’s. I think they are intentionally left open as if to ask me to stare inside and observe my neighbor’s life. The wallpaper in the room is old-fashioned and of a floral design. It was so old-fashioned in fact that it didn’t seem real. Did someone really design that wallpaper? I couldn’t imagine a time when it would have been deemed modern. However, it wasn’t that my room was so modern itself but compared to the neighbor’s I was practically living in the future.

The wallpaper was, like I said, floral and old-fashioned. It looked ancient and stained with yellow circles. Parts of it were falling down in strips. Each night I noticed the strips getting lower and lower until I could see the wall beneath. The wall consisted of faded drawings of horse-drawn carriages and men with tall hats and whips. Truthfully, I was probably jealous of the wallpaper. Though it was indeed old-fashioned (like I mentioned several times before) it held some significance, some depth of character that was surprising since it was only wallpaper. I got it in my mind to someday ask my neighbor about it….

Wait. I hear the neighbor now.

“But I don’t know any foreign films. Seven Winds? Never heard of it.”

Who are they speaking to? There is never anyone else in the house. They live alone. They do not own a telephone.

“Was it something about footprints? There’s no park around here.”

There they are again. Who are they talking to? Don’t they know I’m trying to sleep? Maybe they do know and maybe they don’t care. That would be unkind.

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