R'lyeh Sutra (2 page)

these grenades blow up

inside journals not yet written

your sweat tastes like shrapnel and orphans

to fight is to grow rich inch by incidental inch

>> globe.05 / DURSON / raven (22 familiar demons)
/ reveals occult secrets

>> this hollowed earth oratory suspiciously lacking in echo

neon grimoires spilled over spread sheets

womb imagery coiled

beneath barcodes and bright plastic

it’s the migraine discretion of the addict we feel

all our whispers soundbit with zero nutritional value

>> globe.06 / VUAL / a dark cloud
/ all manner of ancient tongues

>> Time locks down around us by each tumblered second

all words save those of binding lost

the cannibalized libraries

sigh in stiff late-autumn austerities

chew on this lotus and consult the book of hours

our language is born of magma hiss and raptor scratch

>> globe.07 / ANABOTH / yellow toad
/ tells of strange and hidden things

>> secret gods of closet moon and discarded sunken city

nautiloid eyes pick photons out of the black

I am seventeen hesitations

at the sight of your discarded promise

bleached whalebone splinters under my nails

I consign to the forest loam your onyx jade silver

In the original conception of
R’lyeh Sutra
, the following centrefold piece was imagined as a charming pop-up feature. The reader, upon reaching the middle of the chapbook, would be treated to / assaulted by a complex origami eidolon of Cthulhu, unfolding crisply from His tomb and ready for worship.

However, after a week of horror on the factory floor, seeing my staff of migrant workers messily absorbed, one after the other, into the howling voids concealed behind the paper-cut-thin non-Euclidean angles of the cursed pop-up, I realized that costs needed to be cut somewhere.

And so, Plan B:
the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe.

An asemic spell in three parts, the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe began as a long night of automatic writing.
The Atchison
: a channelled text from either an ultra-terrestrial entity with whom I have had a long history of possession/collaboration, or an autonomous ego splinter ejected from a psyche fractured by many years of sorcerous practice (a distinction entirely dependent on what floats your own ontological boat), this ‘meaningless’ document was written on a roll of newsprint. The session lasted four hours, peppered with blackouts, glossolalia and fugue states. Nine feet of newsprint was filled. I may have eaten something horrible in there somewhere, too; the next morning I had a rough time removing some nameless blue froth that had crusted at the corners of my mouth, and my breath was redolent of ozone and grave clay. Possession can be hard on a body, natch.

(On a purely academic level,
The Atchison
reminds us of the essentially magical nature of writing. As that other black book tells us, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was, if not God, then at least Its closest approximation this side of the Shining Realms. Language is Reality. What sort of reality does
The Atchison
describe? Who reads this writing? On what walls?)

The Topeka
: the document was then sectioned and trimmed to size for the chapbook. Each copy of
R’lyeh Sutra
contains a section of the whole. Each section is unique. You hold in your hands an authentic occult artifact, similar to but unlike the others. If you got one with a sigil, bonus. Good for you.

The Santa Fe
: as the chapbooks are sold, gifted, stolen, discarded and otherwise dispersed through time and space from the moment of their creation, I imagine that the gaps between the sections of the original document will generate a certain quantum tension, a longing. It is this longing of the parts for the whole (coloured by the wonder, confusion, possibly the disdain, of the reader) which will provide energy for the spell to do its work upon the base code of whatever-this-is. Perhaps at some point in the imagined future, the chapbooks may come together again. I’m not sure I’d want to be there when that happens.

And the nature of the spell, the true purpose of
the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe
? Well, that would be telling.

ELECTRONIC EDITION NOTE: the following graphic depicts a single section of
The Atchison
, one not included in the original paper chapbook edition. Clicking on the link above will, if the reader has their browser enabled, take them to a web page with further samples of The Atchison, on a randomized setting. Though not as unique as the original paper edition, I hope that this feature will provide the reader of this electronic version of
R’lyeh Sutra
with a similar experience.

Hounds of Tindalos

coming in from mad corners

blue froth stains my mind

Iä! Shub-Niggurath!

Fertile horror! Goddess-thing!

I’m (somewhat) aroused

Bells in the green deep

tolling for the Forgotten

shivers down the spine

the Brown Jenkin:

loathsome abomination?

Or kinky sex move!

Picture in the house:

“victuals yew cain’t raise nor buy!”

What’s that ceiling stain?

Behind the wheel of an industrial hovercraft, freight-hauling across a blasted desertscape of flattened brush, salt pans and black-blue onyx shale. On the seat next to me Astrid kneels, posing like a fetish Varga Girl, legs tucked beneath her, explosion of copper hair a halo of fire. She pouts. She's wearing a white rubber catsuit of some kind but it's obviously practical for the environment we're travelling through, there are tubes pulsing with some clear liquid criss-crossing her form and flat mesh panels at her abdomen, thighs and neck. She licks her lips and I laugh heartily. I am wearing a similar suit, black, cool against my skin.

A screen set into the dash flickers to light. Alex's face fills the screen. He is wearing communication headgear and rectangular implants in his forehead designate his rank, which is high.

"Agent Landotter, Agent Stargrave. You've got a stowaway. In the back."

I angle the rearview mirror while Astrid turns around to look. In the flatbed behind us, there is a barely discernible numinous form trying to conceal itself behind a stack of battered metal cases.

"Well, fuck," I say. "I thought this run was s'posed to be clean! Who do these disincarnates think they are? I mean, what's it want?"

Alex is impatient. "What does anything imaginary want? A little more reality. Early telemetry suggests a possible origin in the post-eschaton. I need you to deal with this futurist asshole before it condenses."

"I'm on it!" Astrid squeaks. She smiles, flash of terrible white teeth, some of which are filed to points. She reaches for a zipper just below her navel and pulls it down, reaches behind her with her other hand to grasp the tab and pull it up her backside. Then she folds the white rubber aside to her inner thighs and snaps it tight on metal grommets set into the rubber. Her pubic hairs spring forth, a forest of tiny peacock feathers, dripping with moisture. The cab of the hovercraft fills with her scent. Seawater and stars. She displays herself to me, little violet pucker and dripping folds, improbable iridescent feathers, and I feel myself getting hard.