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"Deep in my heart there's a sort of innate Slavic sadness whichresponded to the music's plaint, and my thought traveled with the melodyeffortlessly on and on. The warm darkness of my closed eyes lightened toinfinities of cold, deep-blue emptiness, through which I felt myselfgliding as the theme progressed.
"Each harmonic burst, every wailing echo, dominated me. My thought wasborne farther and farther like a leaf in a tempest.... There were basechords which made my throat quiver, and tears burned under my loweredeyelids. I felt a tingling at my shoulders, and with eyes still closedbut discerning by a sort of dream-vision, I half-consciously turned,beheld luminous yellow--draperies?--fluttering behind me, bouying me:like scarf-wings, whipping comet-tails.
"An instinctive transient fright gripped me, admonishing me to withdrawfrom this blue region into the calid darkness from which I had come--butthe melody's urge was stronger than my feeble urge to retreat. The azurebecame flecked with diamond points of light which augmented into greatwhite moons, and from one to another in a vast network rayed pulsingfilaments, vascular channels of fluid light.
"A stupendous chorus of clear unhuman voices, as from diamond throats,emanated from these linked moons,
of which the music which had conveyedme was only a distorted, ghostly echo.... In tangible waves this greatermusic rippled around the webbed moons, beating against me as though toforce me away on its tides I know not whither.
"Beneath me was a limitless tract of grey slime which rose and felltorpidly as with the breathing of a somnolent subterranean thing. Themoonlight burned brightly on it, and crawling across it from some remoteplace came--trees?--snaky-rooted things whose prehensile branches bore,instead of leaves, flexible lenses.... They left behind them red trailson the slime, and excrementory ribbons of thin blue vapor streamed fromtheir topmost appendages. Occasionally they paused to feed, focussingtheir lenses upon the gelatinous ground, which became luminously whiteunder the concentrated light. The sucking mouths of the serpentine rootsabsorbed this matter, and red viscosity seeped into the eaten places,greying rapidly under the moon's effulgence, chemically affected by it.
"And the trees mated. Gynandrous, they converged in pairs or groups,pressing close together, thrusting their limbs into one enormouscluster, aggregating their lenses into a series of complex, compactforms ... shuddering with a violent ardor.... From erectileprotuberances rimming the lenses ruby liquid spurted, bursting withincandescence under the condensed moonlight.
"Spent, drooping, the trees separated, and the radiant orgasmic matterdrifted lightly down to the slime, burning fitfully as the trees movedaway indifferently.
"Apparently these flickering radiances fed, for gradually they grew,dulling, becoming opaque, substantial----thrusting out probing roots,developing limbs, wandering like their parents. They snailed onward outof sight, all of them.
"Silently, a phosphorescent green river raced like a bolt of furcatelightning over the green wastes. It was composed not of water but ofmyriad tiny luminous crawling insects. A conscious river, altering itstortuous course at will, small streams deviating from the main body andmeandering erratically, then rejoining the general current. This river'send drew into sight, flashed under me and into the distance, leavingfast-greying red paths on the slime.
"The moon's music assailed me; simultaneously I felt those man-measures,which had carried me so long, cease, leaving me without a link to my ownworld--helpless against the inexorable tide of the lunar melody, which,bursting more loudly, swept me higher, through an interstice of thecirculatory web, into blue infinity. And there it left me; fadingripples of it would lap me, but were too dissapated then to sweep mefarther.
"I floated aimlessly in the void, it seemed for ages, less a body than amind, aware of neither hunger nor thirst nor ill of any sort other thana dreadful sapping weariness.
"There was no way of reckoning time, but after an eternity of lonelinessand self-boredom, I heard a glissando of mellow tintinabulations. Atroop of small stars flashed toward me like a scattered handful ofsparkling white gems, whirling in interweaving dance of enchantment,tinkling glad clear tunes like the babbling of crystal brooks. Thejoyous, youthful essence of their song so charmed me that I forgot myweariness and vocally ventured to imitate it.
"At last they broke their circle and swept away, single-file, out ofsight, diminishing with distance.
"For awhile I hummed their song, but with every repetition it lost someof its starry quality and gained a human-ness, earthiness,animalism--until it impressed me no longer beautiful, and I wassilent.... Wearily the sluggish ages passed ... in the illimitable bluesolitudes....
"Eventually I heard the man-music, again like a summons--its vibrationspiercing the moon-net, receding, drawing me with it. Its power increasedwith every unit of retregression, dragging me with it. Over the wastesof slime it dragged me, all in a fraction of seconds. Wind tore at me,racketing in my ears, drowning music of both moons and man.
"In a flash of cataclysm, of cosmic pandemonium, the moons, jostled outof their places by my abrupt passage through the web, strained apart,snapping their pulsant filamental arteries. White, searing drops ofblood of light oozed from the severed ducts, hissing as they fell, andsplashed on the slime, which heaved torturedly. The crawling treesreared upon their writhing roots, flailing their lensed limbs, and thephosphorescent rivers halted suddenly, piling into swiftlydisintegrating mounds.
"The rain of light blood thinned and ceased: the moons dimmed andplunged earthward, lusterless. As they touched the tempestuously tossingslime, it shrieked stridently, deafeningly--_cosmically_! An outcryvoicing all life's inherent dread of the horror of pain and death, whicharose from all sides, like an auditory vise, tightening upon andcrushing me. The blue chaos was wiped away by utter blackness; theshriek weakened, ceased.
"I opened my eyes, shut them--dazzled by daylight, and opened themagain, but cautiously. My brother Ray was standing over me, shaking me,calling my name ... AND IT WAS I WHO HAD SCREAMED!"
as i remember----
As I remember, August Derleth wrote, a time back: "My personal favoriteof the Lovecraft stories is THE RATS IN THE WALL, followed by DUNWICHHORROR, COLOUR OUT OF SPACE, THE OUTSIDER, WHISPERER IN DARKNESS." H.P.L.liked MUSIC OF ERICH ZANN as well as anything he did, COLOUR next.Donald Wandrei is busy in St. Paul writing plays and shorts. "My averageday brings me anywhere from ten to fifty letters that must be answered."
As I remember one night in Coney Island found seven strange lookingfellows, fans and authors, crowded into a car for a posed picture. RossRocklynne, freshly freckled by a New Yawk sun, at the steering wheel,Jack Agnew at his side with Mark (I'm makin' my mark in pulps) Reinsburgand immediately in back of Rocklynne a fellow with too much hair, a tanthat would make an Ethiopian blush, and teeth, Bradbury, augmented bythe humorously verbose Erle Korshak, the professorly nice Bob Madle andone V. Kidwell. I recall also a night at Mort Weisinger's home duringJuly with Rocklynne, Ackerman, Morojo, Hornig, Binder, Schwartz, Darrowand again Bradbury. A picture was taken that night and the only oneswith decent smiles were Ackerman and the under-done personality whoedits this magazine. Hornig looked strangely thoughtful with his hand tohis chin, Mort had a cigarette drooping from his lip and Darrow,Schwartz and Binder all were lost in profound contemplation of thelittle birdie which Mort's brother held. I remember also a night onCentral Park, a stag night, when it was raining convulsively and Binder,Bradbury, Hornig, Rocklynne and Darrow all clambered into a rocking boatand swished out onto the glittering water, yodeling popular tunes at theway-way top of their corny contraltos. Binder has a pleasing bath-tubbaritone, while Hornig can imitate a frog at the drop of a body. Darrowwas strangely silent, but that man Bradbury and Rocklynne set up such ahowl that the Park authorities came out in a submarine, thinking thatthe Loch Ness monster had turned up again. This was all settled whensomeone pulled the plug and everyone drowned peacefully.
Going way back in the cobwebs I seem to recall a letter arriving at anEastern post-office addressed to Mars. It was returned marked:Insufficient Postage.
As I remember Charlie Hornig wrote, on January 9th: "On Tuesday,February 20th, 1940, I'll be in Los Angeles. I will write for FuturiaFantasia, but my rates are 12 cents a word, before acceptance. I haven'tseen GONE WITH THE WIND yet, but if I stop off to see it on the road,expect me two days later than heretofore planned. If I walk it, expectme at the city limits on the R car-line, Whittier, the same time of themorning, only about 18 months later. I'll bring my overcoat and shovelalong for the annual sun showers and orange blizzards." And later, fromHornig: "I liked the latest issue of Futuria Fantasia very much,especially the page of conventional descriptions over which I laughedmyself sick and silly. The note about Bradbury and the mask and theblonde in the Paramount is the funniest thing I've ever read in afan-mag."
I seem to remember being at someone's house not so long ago and glancingthru a thick manuscript under submission to John W. Campbell. I seen toremember that the author was Robert A. Heinlein, member of our LaSfl.And the other day that story popped up in Astounding as a Nova, "IF THISGOES ON--" And it seems to me that here and now Bob should take a bowfor a swell story. And thanks to Campbell for providing it with a Rogerscover and R
ogers interiors. OMEGA----
* * * * *
_COMING in MAY_
"DARKNESS AND DAWN"
FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES
