I couldnt, thats all.
How that eye haunts me. Floating in the gathering darkness.
Other things behind it
CTHUN!
November 16, 2007
Eight. Always were. Im sure now. Today the field was silent, the hay dead, the trees at the foot of the slope bare, the Androscoggin gray steel beneath an iron sky. The world waiting for snow.
And my God, best of all: a bird roosting on one of those stones!
A BIRD!
Realized only when I was driving back to Lewiston that I didnt bother counting my steps when going back to the car.
Here is the truth. What must be the truth. I caught a cold from one of my patients, but now Im getting better. Cough gone, sniffles drying up.
The little joke was on me all along.
December 25, 2007
I shared Christmas dinner and the ritual exchange of presents with Sheila and her family. When Don took Seth to the candlelight ritual at the church (Im sure the good Methodists would be shocked if they knew the pagan roots of such rites), Sheila squeezed my hand and said, Youre back. Thats good. I was worried.
Well, you cant fool your own flesh and blood, it seems. Dr. J. may only have suspected something was wrong, but Sheila knew. Dear Sheila.
I had a sort of crisis this summer and fall, I said. A crisis of the spirit, you might call it.
Although it was more a crisis of the psyche. When a man begins to think the only purpose served by his perceptions is to mask the knowledge of terrible other worldsthat is a crisis of the psyche.
Sheila, always practical, said: As long as it wasnt cancer, Johnny. Thats what I was afraid of.
Dear Sheila! I laughed and hugged her.
Later on, while we were doing a final polish on the kitchen (and sipping eggnog), I asked her if she remembered why we used to call the Bale Road Bridge the Fail Road Bridge. She cocked her head and laughed.
It was your old friend who thought that up. The one I had such a crush on.
Charlie Keen, I said. I havent seen him in a dogs age. Except on TV. The poor mans Sanjay Gupta.
She whacked my arm. Jealousy doesnt become you, dear. Anyway, we were fishing from the bridge one dayyou know, with those little poles we all hadand Charlie peered over the side and said, You know, anyone who fell off this thing could not fail to kill themselves. It just struck us funny, and we laughed like maniacs. You dont remember that?
But then I did. Bale Road Bridge became Fail Road Bridge from that day on. And what old Charlie said was true enough. Bale Stream is very shallow at that point. Of course it flows into the Androscoggin (probably you can see the merging-point from Ackermans Field, although I never noticed), which is a lot deeper. And the Androscoggin flows to the sea. World leads onto world, doesnt it? Each deeper than the last; this is a design all the earth proclaims.
Don and Seth came back in, Sheilas big guy and her little guy, all dusted with snow. We had a group hug, very New Age, and then I drove home listening to Christmas carols. Really happy for the first time in ever so long.
I believe these notes this diary this chronicle of madness avoided (perhaps by bare inches, I think I really did almost go over the bridge) can end now.
Thank God, and merry Christmas to me.
April 1, 2008
Its April Fools, and the fool is me. I woke from a dream of Ackermans Field.
In it the sky was blue, the river was a darker blue in its valley, the snow was melting, the first green grass was poking through the remaining ribbons of white, and once more there were only seven stones. Once more there was darkness in the circle. Only a smudge for now, but it will deepen unless I take care of it.
I counted books after waking (sixty-four, a good number, even and divisible all the way down to 1think about it), and when that didnt turn the trick I spilled coffee onto the kitchen counter and made a diagonal. That fixed thingsfor nowbut I will have to go out there and make another house call. Must not dither-dather.
Because its starting again.
The snow is almost gone, the summer solstice is approaching (still over the horizon but approaching), and it has started again.
I feel
God help me, I feel like a cancer patient who has been in remission and wakes one morning to discover a big fat lump in his armpit.
I cant do this.
I must do this.
[Later]
There was still snow on the road, but I got up to AF all right. Left my car in the cemetery parking lot and walked. There were indeed only seven stones, as in my dream. Looked thru the viewfinder of my camera. 8 again. 8 is fate and keeps the world strait. Good deal.
For the world!
Not such a good deal for Dr. Bonsaint.
That this should be happening again; my mind groans at the prospect.
Please God dont let it be happening again.
April 6, 2008
Took longer today to make 7 into 8, and I know I have much long distance work ahead of me, i.e. counting things and making diagonals andnot placing, N. was wrong about thatits balancing that needs to be done. Its simbolic, like the break and whine in communion.
Im tired, though. And the solstitch is so far away.
Its still gathering its power and the solstit is so far away.
I wish N. had dyed before coming into my office. That selfish bastyard.
May 2, 2008
I thought it would kill me this time. Or break my mind. Is my mind broken? My God how can I tell? There is no God, there can be no God in the face of that darkness, and the EYE that peers from it. And something else.
THE THING WITH THE HELMET HEAD. BORN OUT OF LIVING UNSANE DARKNESS.
There was chanting. Chanting from deep inside the ringstones, deep inside the darkness. But I made 7 into 8 once again, although it took a long long long lung long time. Many loox thru the vufinder, also making circles and counting paces, widening the circle to 64 paces and that did it, thank god. The widening gyreYeets! Then I looked up. Looked around. And saw its name woven into every sumac bush and every tree at the foot of that hellish field: Cthun, Cthun, Cthun, Cthun. I looked into the sky for releef and saw the clods spelling it out as they traversed the blue: CTHUN in the sky. Looked at the river and saw its curves spell out a giant C. C for Cthun.
How can I be responsible for the world? How can this be?
Its not fare!!!!!!!!
May 4, 2008
If I can close the door by killing myself
And the peace, even if it is only the peece of oblitsion
I am going out there again, but this time not all the way. Just to the Fail Road Bridge. The water there is shallow, the bed lined with rocks.
The drop must be 30 feet.
Not the best number but still
Anyone who falls off that thing cannot fail to
Cannot fail
I cant stop thinking about that hideous 3-lobe eye
The thing with the helmet head
The screaming faces in the stones
CTHUN!
[Dr. Bonsaints manuscript ends here.]
5. The Second Letter
June 8, 2008
Dear Charlie,
I havent heard from you about Johnnys manuscript, and that is good. Please ignore my last letter, and if you still have the pages, burn them. That was Johnnys request, and I should have honored it myself.
I told myself I was only going out as far as the Fail Road Bridgeto see the place where we all had so many happy times as kids, the place where he ended his life when the happy times ran out. I told myself it might bring closure (thats the word Johnny would have used). But of course the mind under my mindwhere, Im sure Johnny would claim, we are all pretty much alikeknew better. Why else did I take the key?
Because it was there, in his study. Not in the same drawer where I found the manuscript, but in the top onethe one above the kneehole. With another key to balance it, just as he said.
Would I have sent you the key with the manuscript, if Id found them both in the same place? I dont know. I dont. But Im glad, on the whole, at the way things turned out. Because you mightve been tempted to go out there. Simple curiosity might have drawn you, or possibly something else. Something stronger.
Or possibly thats so much bullshit. Possibly I only took the key and went out to Motton and found that road because I am what I said I was in my first letter: a daughter of Pandora. How can I tell for sure? N. couldnt. Neither could my brother, not even at the very end, and as he used to say, Im a professional, dont try this at home.