Post by jessebaker on Dec 15, 2010 17:17:37 GMT -8
(Found this on an old zip drive disc a couple of months back; I wrote this around 2003 but never got around to posting it anywhere. Enjoy!)
The following excerpt originally ran in the November 27th, 1949 edition of the nationally syndicated advice column for teenagers "Ask Uncle Milton".
--------------------------------------------
Dear Uncle Milton
My name is Virginia and I'm a 17 year old living in Milhaven, Alabama. I have a question for you that may seem silly, but I desperately need your wisdom.
Two years ago, my older brother Timmy went to Mardi Gras with some of his friends from his fraternity. When he came back from the trip, my brother had radically changed. Something happened to him while in New Orleans, something that caused him to become a completely different person.
When I met up with him after the trip, my brother (who always dressed nice and proper) was dressed like a bum and unwashed and unshaven. He had not left his dorm room for several weeks, claiming that "certain people" were following him. The term "nervous wreck" didn't even begin to describe the condition he was in! This was a far cry from the way that my brother, a clean-cut All-American star linebacker for both his high school and college team, usually behaved.
When I asked what happened to him during Mardi Gras, he kept muttering a word over and over again: Cthulhu. My father confronted my brother's best friend about what happened during the trip. He was told that Timmy had snuck off from the group towards the end of the trip after meeting a young woman. The woman had invited him to a private party being held in the swamp. When my father asked my brother what happened at the party, he refused to say what happened. Furthermore, my brother confessed that he had been heavily drinking since returning from the trip, all in the name of blotting out the memory of what happened that night from his mind.
Our father chalked up the change in behavior to Timmy's drinking (my brother drank beer regularly, even though he was not the legal age for such behavior, a sad bit of business my father had tacitly allowed my brother to engage in). We left my brother, assuming everything that he would sober up eventually and return to normal in time to begin spring work-out with the rest of the football team.
But several weeks later, my brother tried to kill himself in his bathroom. If his roommate had not found him, he would have bled to death from the self-inflicted cuts to his wrists. Since then, my family has had to remove Timmy from college and place him in a mental institution, where he refuses to speak to anyone.
Which leads me to why I am writing you. What is "Cthulhu"? Is it some sort of liquor that causes people to lose their grip on sanity? Is it something worse, like grass or cocaine? The fact that my brother tried to kill himself, reminded me of the stories that my minister tells my local church youth group. Stories of drug addicts who kill themselves when the pain of withdrawal get to be too much. If Cthulhu is a drug, is there any hope that my brother can beat this terrible addiction?
Or is Cthulhu code for something else? Is it a name for a girl, used by Cajuns? Or was it just a made-up word my brother came up with in his messed up state of mind? Is there really such a thing as a Cthulhu?
Virginia Granger
---------------------------------------------------------
Uncle Milton: I read your letter and feel that the answer to your question is a complex one, but one that needs to be answered. Yes Virginia, there is a Cthulhu. And Cthulhu is far worse than any drug currently poisoning the minds of today's youths.
Your brother is not a drug addict. He is simply insane. Driven mad, as it were, at the revelation he discovered while associating with unsavory characters in New Orleans. His trip to the swamp was most likely to attend a cult meeting, where he was introduced to who and what Cthulhu is.
Cthulhu is a creature, a monster that dwells in a hidden Pacific Island called "R'lyeh". He is a large, gigantic creature, with a humanoid body but the head of a squid and bat-like wings in his back. He is the size of King Kong and is worshiped across the globe by sects of cult members.
Some say that Cthulhu is not just a monster, but a creature that hails from a dimension that we humans can not fathom with our limited human imagination. Some even say that Cthulhu is an unholy God-like figure, an evil entity that exists outside the usually understood concepts of good and evil, God and Satan.
The particular thing about Cthulhu, which is what most likely drove your brother to madness, is the the longstanding prophecy that tells of Cthulhu's ultimate and awakening. You see, Cthulhu spends most of his existence in a sleeping state. A deep sleep inside a monolithic temple that is covered in symbols from a long dead language and spiral-shaped structures that lead the way for visitors to enter the angular shaped resting place for Cthulhu.
Cthulhu sleeps, waiting for the day in which the stars will enter into the proper alignment. When this day comes and the stars are in their proper place, Cthulhu's lifeless body will suddenly begin to move and spring to life. Awaken, Cthulhu will leave his temple and once again walk the Earth.
And God help humanity, as Cthulhu will enslave or destroy us depending on what kind of mood he is in, when he gets up.
Cthulhu's power is such that no weapon made by man, not even the atom bomb, can hurt him. He will lay waste to our cities and countries. His followers, those who foolishly seek favor with this horror, will be transmuted into his star spawn: unholy abominations that are part slime, part tentacle, and covered in eyeballs. Their humanity wiped away, these traitors will enslave those who survive Cthulhu's rampage.
Those poor souls will envy the dead, as they are made to build grotesque monuments to Cthulhu. These spiral-shaped towers and angular buildings will rival the tallest buildings on Earth, littering the landscape. Their lives will be never-ending hell; within a single generation, we will forget all about how things were, before Cthulhu awoke.
Naked, whipped and abused and used as food stuff once we outlive our usefulness; this will be our fate for countless centuries. All of the many splendid accomplishments of our species: our religions, our science, and arts, all will be wiped out and all will be forgotten by mankind as the years of hellish servitude unfold.
Our only hope will be for the day when the stars, in their unholy alignment, begin to move once more and return to their normal places in the sky. When that day comes, Cthulhu will return to R'ylen and re-enter his tomb. His offspring will follow him and seal the temple shut as Cthulhu resumes his coma-like sleeping state. The star spawn, without their master, will die as the threat of Cthulhu ends. Humanity, assuming that we are not completely wiped out, will finally be free of our hell. But we will be reduced to the status of cavemen, all technology and civilization gone. Humankind will have to rebuild everything from scratch as memory our Cthulhu ruling over us will slowly fade from our collective memories.
As centuries pass, our world will recover and those dark centuries of horrible suffering will be forgotten. And all will be at peace... until the stars once again enter alignment and Cthulhu awakens from his slumber.
This knowledge is what drove your brother to madness. The knowledge that humanity is, at best, temporary custodians of the planet and that everything we accomplish will be wiped away like writings on the chalkboard once Cthulhu rises.
The only hope I can give to you for your brother's recovery, is for you to tell him that no one knows when Cthulhu will return. And that one must live their life as if that dark day will never come in their own lifetime.
So in conclusion: Yes Virginia, there is a Cthulhu. And we all must pray that the day of his return never comes during our lifetime.
The following excerpt originally ran in the November 27th, 1949 edition of the nationally syndicated advice column for teenagers "Ask Uncle Milton".
--------------------------------------------
Dear Uncle Milton
My name is Virginia and I'm a 17 year old living in Milhaven, Alabama. I have a question for you that may seem silly, but I desperately need your wisdom.
Two years ago, my older brother Timmy went to Mardi Gras with some of his friends from his fraternity. When he came back from the trip, my brother had radically changed. Something happened to him while in New Orleans, something that caused him to become a completely different person.
When I met up with him after the trip, my brother (who always dressed nice and proper) was dressed like a bum and unwashed and unshaven. He had not left his dorm room for several weeks, claiming that "certain people" were following him. The term "nervous wreck" didn't even begin to describe the condition he was in! This was a far cry from the way that my brother, a clean-cut All-American star linebacker for both his high school and college team, usually behaved.
When I asked what happened to him during Mardi Gras, he kept muttering a word over and over again: Cthulhu. My father confronted my brother's best friend about what happened during the trip. He was told that Timmy had snuck off from the group towards the end of the trip after meeting a young woman. The woman had invited him to a private party being held in the swamp. When my father asked my brother what happened at the party, he refused to say what happened. Furthermore, my brother confessed that he had been heavily drinking since returning from the trip, all in the name of blotting out the memory of what happened that night from his mind.
Our father chalked up the change in behavior to Timmy's drinking (my brother drank beer regularly, even though he was not the legal age for such behavior, a sad bit of business my father had tacitly allowed my brother to engage in). We left my brother, assuming everything that he would sober up eventually and return to normal in time to begin spring work-out with the rest of the football team.
But several weeks later, my brother tried to kill himself in his bathroom. If his roommate had not found him, he would have bled to death from the self-inflicted cuts to his wrists. Since then, my family has had to remove Timmy from college and place him in a mental institution, where he refuses to speak to anyone.
Which leads me to why I am writing you. What is "Cthulhu"? Is it some sort of liquor that causes people to lose their grip on sanity? Is it something worse, like grass or cocaine? The fact that my brother tried to kill himself, reminded me of the stories that my minister tells my local church youth group. Stories of drug addicts who kill themselves when the pain of withdrawal get to be too much. If Cthulhu is a drug, is there any hope that my brother can beat this terrible addiction?
Or is Cthulhu code for something else? Is it a name for a girl, used by Cajuns? Or was it just a made-up word my brother came up with in his messed up state of mind? Is there really such a thing as a Cthulhu?
Virginia Granger
---------------------------------------------------------
Uncle Milton: I read your letter and feel that the answer to your question is a complex one, but one that needs to be answered. Yes Virginia, there is a Cthulhu. And Cthulhu is far worse than any drug currently poisoning the minds of today's youths.
Your brother is not a drug addict. He is simply insane. Driven mad, as it were, at the revelation he discovered while associating with unsavory characters in New Orleans. His trip to the swamp was most likely to attend a cult meeting, where he was introduced to who and what Cthulhu is.
Cthulhu is a creature, a monster that dwells in a hidden Pacific Island called "R'lyeh". He is a large, gigantic creature, with a humanoid body but the head of a squid and bat-like wings in his back. He is the size of King Kong and is worshiped across the globe by sects of cult members.
Some say that Cthulhu is not just a monster, but a creature that hails from a dimension that we humans can not fathom with our limited human imagination. Some even say that Cthulhu is an unholy God-like figure, an evil entity that exists outside the usually understood concepts of good and evil, God and Satan.
The particular thing about Cthulhu, which is what most likely drove your brother to madness, is the the longstanding prophecy that tells of Cthulhu's ultimate and awakening. You see, Cthulhu spends most of his existence in a sleeping state. A deep sleep inside a monolithic temple that is covered in symbols from a long dead language and spiral-shaped structures that lead the way for visitors to enter the angular shaped resting place for Cthulhu.
Cthulhu sleeps, waiting for the day in which the stars will enter into the proper alignment. When this day comes and the stars are in their proper place, Cthulhu's lifeless body will suddenly begin to move and spring to life. Awaken, Cthulhu will leave his temple and once again walk the Earth.
And God help humanity, as Cthulhu will enslave or destroy us depending on what kind of mood he is in, when he gets up.
Cthulhu's power is such that no weapon made by man, not even the atom bomb, can hurt him. He will lay waste to our cities and countries. His followers, those who foolishly seek favor with this horror, will be transmuted into his star spawn: unholy abominations that are part slime, part tentacle, and covered in eyeballs. Their humanity wiped away, these traitors will enslave those who survive Cthulhu's rampage.
Those poor souls will envy the dead, as they are made to build grotesque monuments to Cthulhu. These spiral-shaped towers and angular buildings will rival the tallest buildings on Earth, littering the landscape. Their lives will be never-ending hell; within a single generation, we will forget all about how things were, before Cthulhu awoke.
Naked, whipped and abused and used as food stuff once we outlive our usefulness; this will be our fate for countless centuries. All of the many splendid accomplishments of our species: our religions, our science, and arts, all will be wiped out and all will be forgotten by mankind as the years of hellish servitude unfold.
Our only hope will be for the day when the stars, in their unholy alignment, begin to move once more and return to their normal places in the sky. When that day comes, Cthulhu will return to R'ylen and re-enter his tomb. His offspring will follow him and seal the temple shut as Cthulhu resumes his coma-like sleeping state. The star spawn, without their master, will die as the threat of Cthulhu ends. Humanity, assuming that we are not completely wiped out, will finally be free of our hell. But we will be reduced to the status of cavemen, all technology and civilization gone. Humankind will have to rebuild everything from scratch as memory our Cthulhu ruling over us will slowly fade from our collective memories.
As centuries pass, our world will recover and those dark centuries of horrible suffering will be forgotten. And all will be at peace... until the stars once again enter alignment and Cthulhu awakens from his slumber.
This knowledge is what drove your brother to madness. The knowledge that humanity is, at best, temporary custodians of the planet and that everything we accomplish will be wiped away like writings on the chalkboard once Cthulhu rises.
The only hope I can give to you for your brother's recovery, is for you to tell him that no one knows when Cthulhu will return. And that one must live their life as if that dark day will never come in their own lifetime.
So in conclusion: Yes Virginia, there is a Cthulhu. And we all must pray that the day of his return never comes during our lifetime.
