My recent expeditions to the virtual lands of fandom wiki sites have been proving to be quite fruitful. As I ravage through the sites infinite pages filled with serendipitous yet viciously alluring valueless knowledge born out of begotten dark meticulous thoughts of bipedal night creatures sitting in front of a screen, the only sentiment I find flowing through my neurons is an insatiable thirst of an unknown origin! A pull towards darkness eternal for reasons yet unknown. I guess that is the only thing mutual between H.P Lovecraft and me. We are both drawn towards Gothic mysticism, but only one is renowned for his literature!
Last night, I stumbled upon this fascinating animated illustration of Lovecraft’s famous short, Dagon. A word with which you can almost hear the eerie sound of a Tibetan gong rang by a mute mastiff atop the snowy white mountains only to notify its auditeur of bad omens
Dagon is a deity. One of the many gods who reign over the deep ones, a humanoid race of conscious amphibians who lurk in the great depths of seven seas. Savage grey looking scaly monsters whose facial features can only be imagined in an LSD infused perpetual nightmare. Spikes all over their body and bio luminescence in shapes of spots make them look ever more horrifying. And their god, Dagon is a millennia-old corporeal being who’s ever-increasing age accounts for his unfathomable growth shadowing the largest of sea creatures! In the story written in a form that can be compared to a dead man’s suicide note, our protagonist narrates the beast to be Polyphemus like. Vast and loathsome coiling around a towering monolith casting a shadow of immeasurable heights under the gibbous and waning moonlight.
I have read this story several times as a kid, and it is entangled with some horrid experiences. Countless sleepless nights and whenever a little intrepid trance would make me shut my eyelids, a monotonous dream would start playing in a loop. I would get taken back to this unknown land shrouded with inky marsh for its topography. A pitch blank valley of death with the unbounded milky way rising slowly above its horizon. And then when is saw the animated rendition of this almost century-old story, it gave me creeps and shivers. It felt as if somebody had violated my dreams firewalls, stole the nightmares, and created the animation!
Despite risking the chance of waking up the forgotten memories, I watched the whole of its seventeen-minute duration at a stretch. And along came back the incubus of wraiths and bad omens.
Almost a decade ago, on a stormy night, I experienced true horror. A tale that is gore yet somehow a little too humane.
Back then, one of my uncles lived in a mountainous region filled with canals and rivers casting throughout the terrain—a village in a place called Bandarban. The natives were mostly fishermen, among whom my uncle was almost an outcast. They boasted evenly distributed brown complexion whence he was as pale as the Count Dracula himself. This was among my first lessons in life about how society perceives skin tones. My uncle was an unmarried wannabe journalist of sorts, and his pieces mostly revolved around poor ethnic minorities. He traveled to this lush yet godforsaken land only to find nothing but hardship for such a bit.
To show us the beauties this place hold, he sent an invitation letter to my mum and her sisters, to allow me, my brother and two of my cousin to travel there for a day or two. Back then, the internet wasn’t available in such rural areas. So letters were the only medium of long-distance communications. After some usual mommy type shenanigans about our security and existing health issues, we were permitted to visit.
The first couple of days were filled with an adrenaline fused haze of getting to see and live on the mountains for the first time in our life; Hunting, fishing, collecting unusual plants and leaves, and so on. The youngest among us who shall remain nameless was a freak for flowers. His eyesight was not so excellent, yet for some distraught reasons, he loved colors. Up to that point, none of us knew that a simple search of tinge could cause such devastation.
We were sheltered in an old government owned cottage where usually blue and white collars came for recreational purposes. So we were well fed and taken care of. That evening, after a successful venture of fishing, we lost our almost blind cousin! We searched till the sun took cover behind the tree lines but still, he was nowhere to be found. And almost as a cynic gesture, a feisty storm broke out. Such sounds were coming out of the tree lines, which Nature utters only in her wildest moods. As if some pagan god named Moder was searching for his prey, and his cries were raising uncanny whistles of winds.
The village was still devoid of electricity by then. The only light sources were either gas lamps or candles. On one hand, a gas lamp and my brother in the other, uncle, went out in the storm to find our cousin and told us to sit tight. The next two hours felt no less then eons. And then they came back. We opened the door only to be overjoyed. The kid was on my uncle’s lap, unconscious. He had broken his leg.
I was too young to remember the events minute by minute to recount what had happened, but as the story was told numerous times, we pieced some modicum of it together. And a total of three versions of it came to exist.
As we were fishing, he ventured out. Only a few hundred meters from us was this big burl flower tree—locally called KODOM. So, there was one blooming in a reachable branch, but the tree itself was near a slope. And this wouldn’t have been a story to tell if he didn’t fell down there. With his right leg broken and poor visuals, he couldn’t ascend. The storm and rain exhausted him when he lost consciousness. But my uncle kept repeating a different story. A story in which they had lost hope of finding him. Saddened with sorrow, they returned only to find him laying down at the front door. But my version was a little different. Mine includes a set of red, glowing eyes peering through the darkness, looking at us while my brother shut the door. After all, my kid cousin had a burl flower in his pocket, yet he never climbed up the tree!
Words are powerful. Your way of writing reminds me this.
What a simple story but you told it differently.
The area Bandarban changed a lot in last ten years. I can imagine how it was back then as one of uncles who was posted there back then.
Kolomei juddho, kolomei shanti!!
Thank you apu for reading this! Onek choto chilam she shomoy e! Ar golper khatire kichu fantasy er addition bad e ei golper origin khali dusshopner e jonmo dae!! Bandarban er she rup ekhon ar nei! Shamnei amiyakhum jabar iccha ache. Tokhon ei placegulo ghure dekhe ashbo hoyto abr!!
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I wondered what your mother's reaction was when your cousin returned back home with a broken leg.
And yeah, the last part of your story was creepy.