The Voice before the Void: Arcana, Story, Poetry

Apparently, Bigfoots have individuating characteristics and long lifespans. “Bigfoot” does start to sound less like a mythical creature, more like a species of large primate.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Pre Cambrian Shield Man Seen by Two Prospectors”

North Bay Nugget, North Bay, Ontario, Canada

Cobalt, Ontario, Canada

July 27, 1923

Mr. J. A. MacAuley and Mr. Lorno Wilson claim they have seen the “Pre-Cambrian shield man” while working on their mining claims North and East of the Wettlaufer Mine, near Cobalt. This is the second time in seventeen years that a hairy ape-like creature nicknamed “Old Yellow-Top” because of a light colored mane has been seen in the district. The two prospectors said they were taking test samples from their claim property when they spotted what looked like a bear picking in a blueberry patch. Mr. Wilson said he threw a stone at the creature. He said, “It kind of stood up and growled at us, then ran away. It sure was like no bear I have ever seen. Its head was kind of yellow and the rest of it was black, like a bear, all covered with hair.” The first report of the creature was made in Sept. 1906, by a group of men building the head frame at the Violet Mine, east of Cobalt. It had not been seen since that time.

“Old Yellow Top”

Wikipedia

Old Yellow Top was reported to be a 7-foot (2-meter) tall Sasquatch-like creature that was sighted several times around the town of Cobalt, Ontario, Canada, during the 20th century. Descriptions of the creature by eyewitnesses closely resembled that of a Sasquatch; however, Old Yellow Top had a blonde patch of hair on its head and a light-coloured mane, which accounted for the creature’s name.

Alleged sightings took place over a 64-year period, with the first reported sighting in September 1906, the second in July 1923, and the third in April 1947. The last reported sighting took place on August 4, 1970. Twenty-seven miners in a bus were on their way to work the graveyard shift at Cobalt Lode Mine when the creature walked across the road in front of them, causing the driver to lose control of the bus and nearly plunge down a rock cut.

“Fencing”

The Voice before the Void

Brandishing practice swords

And filing little foils for use

In fanaticism

Or farcicals

Practice a pursuit of perfection

And forget failures

For swordpoints sting, waver,

Thrust

And piles of prison release papers

File into rust cabinets

Bend, lunge,

Thrust

And parry

Swords are for beheading

Crimes for forgetting

Sport is state-sanctioned

Fun is funded

Sports halls sprout

Ubiquitously

Players bow, furrow

Ceremoniously

Games begin

Surreptitiously

One wrong move

And you blow out your knee

One false foot

And you lose your head

American poetry.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Tired”

Fenton Johnson

I am tired of work; I am tired of building up somebody else’s civilization.

Let us take a rest, M’lissy Jane.

I will go down to the Last Chance Saloon, drink a gallon or two of gin, shoot a game or two of dice and sleep the rest of the night on one of Mike’s barrels.

You will let the old shanty go to rot, the white people’s clothes turn to dust, and the Cavalry Baptist Church sink to the bottomless pit.

You will spend your days forgetting you married me and your nights hunting the warm gin Mike serves the ladies in the rear of the Last Chance Saloon.

Throw the children in the river; civilization has given us too many. It is better to die than it is to grow up and find out that you are colored.

Pluck the stars out of the heavens. The stars mark our destiny. The stars marked my destiny.

I am tired of civilization.

H.P. Lovecraft’s Birthday Special:

A decidedly Dunsanian fantasy adventure.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“The Hoard of The Wizarrd-Beast”

H.P. Lovecraft and R.H. Barlow

There had happened in the teeming and many-towered city of Zeth one of those incidents which are prone to take place in all capitals of all worlds. Nor, simply because Zeth lies on a planet of strange beasts and stranger vegetation, did this incident differ greatly from what might have occurred in London or Paris or any of the great governing towns we know. Through the cleverly concealed dishonesty of an aged but shrewd official, the treasury was exhausted. No shining phrulder, as of old, lay stacked about the strong-room; and over empty coffers the sardonic spider wove webs of mocking design. When, at last, the giphath Yalden entered that obscure vault and discovered the thefts, there were left only some phlegmatic rats which peered sharply at him as at an alien intruder.

There had been no accountings since Kishan the old keeper had died many moon-turns before, and great was Yalden’s dismay to find this emptiness instead of the expected wealth. The indifference of the small creatures in the cracks between the flagstones could not spread itself to him. This was a very grave matter, and would have to be met in a very prompt and serious way. Clearly, there was nothing to do but consult Oorn, and Oorn was a highly portentous being.

Oorn, though a creature of extremely doubtful nature, was the virtual ruler of Zeth. It obviously belonged somewhere in the outer abyss, but had blundered into Zeth one night and suffered capture by the shamith priests. The coincidence of Its excessively bizarre aspect and Its innate gift of mimicry had impressed the sacred brothers as offering vast possibilities, hence in the end they had set It up as a god and an oracle, organising a new brotherhood to serve It—and incidentally to suggest the edicts It should utter and the replies It should give. Like the Delphi and Dodona of a later world, Oorn grew famous as a giver of judgments and solver of riddles; nor did Its essence differ from them save that It lay infinitely earlier in Time, and upon an elder world where all things might happen. And now Yalden, being not above the credulousness of his day and planet, had set out for the close-guarded and richly-fitted hall wherein Oorn brooded and mimicked the promptings of the priests.

When Yalden came within sight of the Hall, with its tower of blue tile, he became properly religious, and entered the building acceptably, in a humble manner which greatly impeded progress. According to custom, the guardians of the deity acknowledged his obeisance and pecuniary offering, and retired behind heavy curtains to ignite the thuribles. After everything was in readiness, Yalden murmured a conventional prayer and bowed low before a curious empty dais studded with exotic jewels. For a moment—as the ritual prescribed—he stayed in this abased position, and when he arose the dais was no longer empty. Unconcernedly munching something the priests had given It was a large pudgy creature very hard to describe, and covered with short grey fur. Whence It had come in so brief a time only the priests might tell, but the suppliant knew that It was Oorn.

Hesitantly Yalden stated his unfortunate mission and asked advice; weaving into his discourse the type of flattery which seemed to him most discreet. Then, with anxiety, he awaited the oracle’s response. Having tidily finished Its food, Oorn raised three small reddish eyes to Yalden and uttered certain words in a tone of vast decisiveness: “Gumay ere hfotuol leheht teg.” After this It vanished suddenly in a cloud of pink smoke which seemed to issue from behind the curtain where the acolytes were. The acolytes then came forth from their hiding-place and spoke to Yalden, saying: “Since you have pleased the deity with your concise statement of a v...

An ancient tomb in Italy bears the only known picture of a mysterious monster of the underworld.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Tomb of Orcus”

Wikipedia

The Tomb of Orcus (Italian: Tomba dell’Orco), sometimes called the Tomb of Murina, is a 4th-century BCE Etruscan hypogeum (burial chamber) in Tarquinia, Italy. Discovered in 1868, it displays Hellenistic influences in its remarkable murals, which include the portrait of Velia Velcha, an Etruscan noblewoman, and the only known pictorial representation of the daemon Tuchulcha. In general, the murals are noted for their depiction of death, evil, and unhappiness.

Because the tomb was built in two sections at two stages, it is sometimes referred to as the Tombs of Orcus I and II; it is believed to have belonged to the Murina family, an offshoot of the Etruscan Spurinnae. The foundation is inscribed with the following enigmatic phrase:

“Larthiale Hulchniesi Marcesi Caliathesi munisule nacnvaiasi thamuce Le…”

which may be interpreted as:

“Le[ive] erected this monument for posterity [during the magistracy] of Larth Hulchnie and Marce Caliathe.”

1. History

Orcus I was built between 470 and 450 BCE; a separate hypogeum, Orcus II, was built c. 325 BCE. At some point in antiquity, the wall between the two was removed, creating a large tomb with two dromes (entrances).

The tomb was excavated in 1868 by an officer of the French Army. Upon its discovery, the excavator mistook the painting of the cyclops for the Roman god of the underworld, Orcus, hence the name “Tomb of Orcus.” The Italian name (Tomba dell’Orco) can also mean “Tomb of the Ogre,” and it is used that way in Italy today.

The second tomb has never been fully excavated.

2. Murals

Though most of the walls are muraled, the artists did not complete the ceiling. A scientific analysis in 2001 revealed that the paint used contained cinnabar, ochre, orpiment, calcite, copper, and Egyptian blue. While the artwork in Orcus I is highly praised (particularly the painting of Velia Velcha), some of the artwork of Orcus II is considered poorly done.

It is likely that the French excavators of the tomb tried to remove some of the murals for exhibition in the Louvre, which resulted in significant deterioration.

2.1 Orcus I

The Tomb of Orcus I (also known as the Tomb of Velcha) was constructed between 470 and 450 BCE. The main and right walls depict a banquet, believed to be the Spurinnae after their death in the Battle of Syracuse. The banqueters are surrounded by daemons who serve as cupbearers.

One of the banqueters is a noblewoman named Velia Velcha (or by some interpretations, Velia Spurinna), whose portrait has been called the “Mona Lisa of antiquity.” Her realistic profile (especially her eye) bears the influence of Hellenistic art. Unlike the Mona Lisa, however, she is noted for her grimace or sneer.

2.2 Orcus II

The Tomb of Orcus II (sometimes distinguished as the Tomb of Orcus) was constructed over a hundred years after Orcus I, around 325 BCE. Its entrance is guarded by paintings of “Charun” (Charon), the keeper of the underworld, and a cyclops (possibly Polyphemus or Geryon).

The back wall depicts a funeral procession overseen by “Aita” (Hades), the Etruscan god of the underworld, and his wife “Phersipnei” (Persephone). The left wall is believed to depict Agamemnon, Tiresias, and Ajax in the underworld.

Let’s say it was ice. But it was Cthulhu.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Bloop”

Wikipedia

Bloop was an ultra-low-frequency and extremely powerful underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1997. The sound was consistent with the noises generated by icequakes in large icebergs, or large icebergs scraping the ocean floor.

Analysis

The sound’s source was roughly triangulated to 50°S 100°W (a remote point in the south Pacific Ocean west of the southern tip of South America), and the sound was detected several times by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array. This system is primarily used to monitor undersea seismicity, ice noise, and marine mammal population and migration. This system was developed to augment NOAA’s use of the U.S. Navy Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), which was equipment originally designed to detect Soviet submarines.

According to the NOAA description, it “r[ose] rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km.” The NOAA’s Dr. Christopher Fox did not believe its origin was man-made, such as a submarine or bomb, nor familiar geological events such as volcanoes or earthquakes. While the audio profile of Bloop does resemble that of a living creature, the source was a mystery both because it was different from known sounds and because it was several times louder than the loudest recorded animal, the blue whale.

Fox initially speculated that Bloop may be ice calving in Antarctica. A year later, journalist David Wolman paraphrased Dr. Fox’s updated opinion that it was probably animal in origin:

“Fox’s hunch is that the sound nicknamed Bloop is the most likely to come from some sort of animal, because its signature is a rapid variation in frequency similar to that of sounds known to be made by marine beasts. There’s one crucial difference, however: in 1997 Bloop was detected by sensors up to 4,800 kilometres apart. That means it must be far louder than any whale noise, or any other animal noise for that matter. Is it even remotely possible that some creature bigger than any whale is lurking in the ocean depths? Or, perhaps more likely, something that is much more efficient at making sound?”

The NOAA Vents Program has since then attributed the sound to that of a large icequake. Numerous icequakes share similar spectrograms with Bloop, as well as the amplitude necessary to spot them despite ranges exceeding 5,000 km. This was found during the tracking of iceberg A53a as it disintegrated near South Georgia Island in early 2008. If this is indeed the origin of Bloop, the iceberg or icebergs involved in generating the sound were most likely between Bransfield Straits and the Ross Sea; or possibly at Cape Adare, a well-known source of cryogenic signals.

Cosmic horror.

/

However phantasmical his narratives may be, Lovecraft’s assertion that it is horrific to ponder what immensities in our universe must lie hidden from us oozes through as profoundly true.

/

(R’lyeh might be the capital of North Carolina.)

⁓The Voice before the Void

“The Call of Cthulhu”

H.P. Lovecraft

Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survival… a survival of a hugely remote period when… consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing humanity… forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and kinds…

–Algernon Blackwood

I. The Horror in Clay

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at strange survivals in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a bland optimism. But it is not from them that there came the single glimpse of forbidden eons which chills me when I think of it and maddens me when I dream of it. That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things – in this case an old newspaper item and the notes of a dead professor. I hope that no one else will accomplish this piecing out; certainly, if I live, I shall never knowingly supply a link in so hideous a chain. I think that the professor, too intended to keep silent regarding the part he knew, and that he would have destroyed his notes had not sudden death seized him.

My knowledge of the thing began in the winter of 1926-27 with the death of my great-uncle, George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages in Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Professor Angell was widely known as an authority on ancient inscriptions, and had frequently been resorted to by the heads of prominent museums; so that his passing at the age of ninety-two may be recalled by many. Locally, interest was intensified by the obscurity of the cause of death. The professor had been stricken whilst returning from the Newport boat; falling suddenly; as witnesses said, after having been jostled by a nautical-looking negro who had come from one of the queer dark courts on the precipitous hillside which formed a short cut from the waterfront to the deceased’s home in Williams Street. Physicians were unable to find any visible disorder, but concluded after perplexed debate that some obscure lesion of the heart, induced by the brisk ascent of so steep a hill by so elderly a man, was responsible for the end. At the time I saw no reason to dissent from this dictum, but latterly I am inclined to wonder – and more than wonder.

As my great-uncle’s heir and executor, for he died a childless widower, I was expected to go over his papers with some thoroughness; and for that purpose moved his entire set of files and boxes to my quarters in Boston.

The dark fantastical dream; the great dream.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Ex Oblivione”

H.P. Lovecraft

When the last days were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness like the small drops of water that torturers let fall ceaselessly upon one spot of their victim’s body, I loved the irradiate refuge of sleep. In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods.

Once when the wind was soft and scented I heard the south calling, and sailed endlessly and languorously under strange stars.

Once when the gentle rain fell I glided in a barge down a sunless stream under the earth till I reached another world of purple twilight, iridescent arbours, and undying roses.

And once I walked through a golden valley that led to shadowy groves and ruins, and ended in a mighty wall green with antique vines, and pierced by a little gate of bronze.

Many times I walked through that valley, and longer and longer would I pause in the spectral half-light where the giant trees squirmed and twisted grotesquely, and the grey ground stretched damply from trunk to trunk, some times disclosing the mould-stained stones of buried temples. And always the goal of my fancies was the mighty vine-grown wall with the little gate of bronze therein.

After a while, as the days of waking became less and less bearable from their greyness and sameness, I would often drift in opiate peace through the valley and the shadowy groves, and wonder how I might seize them for my eternal dwelling-place, so that I need no more crawl back to a dull world stript of interest and new colours. And as I looked upon the little gate in the mighty wall, I felt that beyond it lay a dream-country from which, once it was entered, there would be no return.

So each night in sleep I strove to find the hidden latch of the gate in the ivied antique wall, though it was exceedingly well hidden. And I would tell myself that the realm beyond the wall was not more lasting merely, but more lovely and radiant as well.

Then one night in the dream-city of Zakarion I found a yellowed papyrus filled with the thoughts of dream-sages who dwelt of old in that city, and who were too wise ever to be born in the waking world. Therein were written many things concerning the world of dream, and among them was lore of a golden valley and a sacred grove with temples, and a high wall pierced by a little bronze gate. When I saw this lore, I knew that it touched on the scenes I had haunted, and I therefore read long in the yellowed papyrus.

Some of the dream-sages wrote gorgeously of the wonders beyond the irrepassable gate, but others told of horror and disappointment. I knew not which to believe, yet longed more and more to cross for ever into the unknown land; for doubt and secrecy are the lure of lures, and no new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace. So when I learned of the drug which would unlock the gate and drive me through, I resolved to take it when next I awaked.

Last night I swallowed the drug and floated dreamily into the golden valley and the shadowy groves; and when I came this time to the antique wall, I saw that the small gate of bronze was ajar. From beyond came a glow that weirdly lit the giant twisted trees and the tops of the buried temples, and I drifted on songfully, expectant of the glories of the land from whence I should never return.

But as the gate swung wider and the sorcery of the drug and the dream pushed me through, I knew that all sights and glories were at an end; for in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but only the white void of unpeopled and illimitable space. So, happier than I had ever dared hope to be, I dissolved again into that native infinity of crystal oblivion from which the daemon Life had called me for one brief and desolate hour....

U.S. Independence Day Special:

We do not any of us have freedom if we do not all of us have freedom.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Stanzas on Freedom”

James Russell Lowell

Men! whose boast it is that ye

Come of fathers brave and free,

If there breathe on earth a slave,

Are ye truly free and brave?

If ye do not feel the chain,

When it works a brother’s pain,

Are ye not base slaves indeed,

Slaves unworthy to be freed?

Women! who shall one day bear

Sons to breathe New England air,

If ye hear, without a blush,

Deeds to make the roused blood rush

Like red lava through your veins,

For your sisters now in chains,–

Answer! are ye fit to be

Mothers of the brave and free?

Is true Freedom but to break

Fetters for our own dear sake,

And, with leathern hearts, forget

That we owe mankind a debt?

No! true freedom is to share

All the chains our brothers wear

And, with heart and hand, to be

Earnest to make others free!

They are slaves who dare not be

In the right with two or three;

They are slaves who will not choose

Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,

Rather than in silence shrink

From the truth they needs must think;

They are slaves who fear to speak

For the fallen and the weak.

U.S. Independence Day Special:

Comprehensive United States history does not offer much cause for celebration.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Every Year Has Its Dark Stain”

from A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes

Helen Hunt Jackson

There are within the limits of the United States between two hundred and fifty and three hundred thousand Indians, exclusive of those in Alaska. The names of the different tribes and bands, as entered in the statistical tables of the Indian Office Reports, number nearly three hundred….

There is not among these three hundred bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the hands either of the Government or of white settlers. The poorer, the more insignificant, the more helpless the band, the more certain the cruelty and outrage to which they have been subjected. This is especially true of the bands on the Pacific slope. These Indians found themselves of a sudden surrounded by and caught up in the great influx of gold-seeking settlers, as helpless creatures on a shore are caught up in a tidal wave. There was not time for the Government to make treaties ; not even time for communities to make laws. The tale of the wrongs, the oppressions, the murders of the Pacific-slope Indians would be a volume by itself, and is too monstrous to be believed.

It makes little difference, however, where one opens the record of the history of the Indians ; every page and every year has its dark stain. The story of one tribe is the story of all, varied only by differences of time and place ; but neither time nor place makes any difference in the main facts. Colorado is as greedy and unjust in 1880 as was Georgia in 1830, and Ohio in 1795 ; and the United States Government breaks promises now as deftly as then, and with an added ingenuity from long practice.

One of its strongest supports in so doing is the wide-spread sentiment among the people of dislike to the Indian, of impatience with his presence as a “barrier to civilization,” and distrust of his presence as a possible danger. The old tales of the frontier life, with its horrors of Indian warfare, have gradually, by two or three generations’ telling, produced in the average mind something like an hereditary instinct of unquestioning and unreasoning aversion which it is almost impossible to dislodge or soften.

There are hundreds of pages of unimpeachable testimony on the side of the Indian; but it goes for nothing, is set down as sentimentalism or partisanship, tossed aside and forgotten.

President after president has appointed commission after commission to inquire into and report upon Indian affairs, and to make suggestions as to the best methods of managing those affairs. The reports are filled with eloquent statements of wrongs done to the Indians, of perfidies on the part of the Government ; they counsel, as earnestly as words can, a trial of the simple and unperplexing expedients of telling truth, keeping promises, making fair bargains, dealing justly in all ways and all things. These reports are bound up with the Government’s Annual Reports, and that is the end of them. It would probably be no exaggeration to say that not one American citizen out of ten thousand ever sees them or knows that they exist, and yet any one of them, circulated throughout the country, read by the correct-thinking, correct-feeling men and women of this land, would be of itself a “campaign document” that would initiate a revolution which would not subside until the Indians’ wrongs were, so far as is now left possible, righted.

In 1869 President Grant appointed a commission of nine men, representing the influence and philanthropy of six leading States, to visit the different Indian reservations, and to “examine all matters appertaining to Indian affairs.