THE HARBINGER OF THE ABYSSAL MAW (NYARLATHOTEP)

THE HARBINGER OF THE ABYSSAL MAW (NYARLATHOTEP)
"You've had about enough. It’s all so tiresome — the late nights at work, the growing silences between you, the old passions grown cold. Even more than the loneliness all of that engenders, what bothers you is the dull predictability of the whole sorry mess. He’s made you into a cliche, and that’s something you can’t abide."

   " He’s sitting there eating his goddamned breakfast without a single word to you, without a grunt of acknowledgement, and you’re scrubbing the pan you used to fry his eggs, watching the dirty water spiral its way into the drain. He’s masticating his food with his mouth open like a feral child. It’s the little things that break you in the end. "

    “'This isn’t going to work anymore,' you say. You feel the rampant power of the statement, and the fear it drags behind.

    'What do you mean?'

    “'This whole thing. Us.' You can’t bear to look at him while you say it. Easier to watch the spiraling water, the black hole that sucks it all in.

  "He stops gobbling his food. 'I don’t understand.'”
   
“'I don’t know you anymore. I look at you and it’s like someone else staring back at me. All we ever do anymore is talk past each other. What happened to the man I married?'”

    “'I ate him.'”

    "You turn around. He has no head. In its place is a dark, swirling gyre, a buckling-inward of space. It is like looking into a black hole, you think, or down the throat of the Beast. Parts of your mind dislodge and float into it: your ability to apprehend color; your memory of your father. Something — a cold antagonism, a radiant evil — regards you from within the turning chaos."

    “'I slipped into his eye ate his brain from the inside out. Now I wear him like a suit. He’s a little snug, but I’m nothing if not adaptable. I am the harbinger of the waking of the abyssal maw. I’ve built a mound of blood-greased bones in the basement and in a week’s time I will light it afire, using the marrow of your own children and the rendered flesh of the Collinses down the block. This will act as one of the Black Lanterns which will summon Azathoth, the eater of worlds. There are many others. I’m surprised you haven’t smelled it! It’s pretty rank.'”

    "You can only shake your head."

    “'What I’m saying is, I need another week.'”

    "You find a way around your dismay, enough to use your voice again. 'Oh my God. Did you even hear me? I’m telling you I want a divorce.'”

    "He sighs, and sits back down. You turn away from him. He starts slurping up his food again. It feels as though nothing has changed. You turn off the water, dry the pan, and get on with your day. "

Nathan Ballingrud, What We Talk About When We Talk About Nyarlathotep
Written Exclusively For an Illustro Obscurum Collaboration