“Hey, wake up! You gotta help me! I stole the ninth eye of the Seven-Eyed King!”
I opened my eyes and saw my nogoodnik dope fiend cousin looking down on me. Her hair was a mess and by the look in her eyes she was tripping on some upper.
“The hell…?” I said and yawned. “Its” - I looked at my alarm clock -“Its three in the morning. How did you get in here?”
“I broke down the door.” she answered casually “Thought that the noise had already woken you. But thats not important now. As I said, I stole the ninth eye of the Seven-Eyed King. We gotta skip town, and fast!”
“Wait a minute. Just so I get this right: You stole something, broke my door…and now you want me to help you get away with it? Shit, man, my home insurance will…”
“Fuck your home insurance! With this thing here”-she lifted up her purse-“we can buy hundred insurance companies. Don’t you understand? Its the Ninth Eye! It sees present, past and future! No secret is off limits for us now! But we gotta hurry now! He is after me already!”
I got out of bed, grabbed the purse without a word and looked inside. I saw a bottle of vodka, car keys, a tampon and something that looked vaguely like a hideously mutated starfish that glowed with an otherworldly light.
“Fucking…!” I cried and dropped the bag, but the thing had already pounced and fixed itself on my face. What followed I can hardly describe. I guess for the next few seconds I kind of became the universe. Or maybe I just was omnipresent, I don’t know. At any rate, I saw, heard, tasted and knew everything.
I saw the first man making the first hand axe and the last woman smash the last computer. I was at the Thermophylae with Leonidas, at Marengo with Napoleon and at Brooklyn with X-193. I listened at the feet of Buddha, Sokrates, Zarathustra and George Carlin. I saw the Phoenicians sacrifice their children to Moloch and the Australians sacrifice their common sense to Mhör-Dhoch. I saw Atlantis sink and Antarctica bloom. I divined the hideous dreams of Cthulhu and the deviant lusts of Shub-Niggurath. I spoke with Horus of the Egyptian Past and with another Horus in the Grim Dark Future. I saw Saint Augustine conversing with something he thought was an angel and Jorge Luis Borges looking into the Aleph. I learned how to play the violin with Einstein and wrote my first poem with Richard Wagner. I understood how the development of the hot water bottle had influenced the later works of Immanuel Kant, and learned of the terrifying connection between the Kalevala and the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. I perished a million times and was resurrected a billion times. I traveled the Burma Railway, the Shining Path and the Khuramb Channel on Mars. I sacrificed people on top of the Aztec pyramids and was sacrificed myself in a penthouse in Berwick-on-Tweed. I went mad in Vietnam, Bolivia, R’lyeh, Namibia and in the United States Senate. I hollered the names of forbidden gods into a walkie-talkie and The Goodies answered me. I performed the Chickens Song at the court of Ürhar Thorm Marhan Khan and was condemned for blasphemy against the coat of arms of the Suzuki dynasty. I watched Copernicus have sex with a chambermaid and Luis XIII. lust after the Viscount of Hartington. But most importantly…I understood the secret of the Ninth Eye.
After an eternity of two or three seconds, my earthly ears heard a crash and a hideous scream. The eye peeled itself off my face, just in time for me to see nogoodnik dope fiend cousin struggling in the grip of a translucent claw that had apparently crashed through my bedroom wall. I was tempted to do something, but understood that any interference would not be good for my sanity. So I just stood where I was, eyes tightly shut, and waited till the screams and crunching noises from outside had subsided. When everything was calm again, I stepped towards the hole and looked outside into the cold, starry night.
The Seven-Eyed King had vanished without a trace, taking his eye and my nogoodnik dope fiend cousin with him. All I was left with was a woman’s purse, a hole in my house and a terrifying new understanding of the universe.
Needless to say, my insurance company did not believe the story. Neither did the police, who even briefly investigated me for murder. I tried to teach them something about the arcane secrets of the universe, but they did not seem particularly interested. Then I pointed out to them that the death or disappearance of drug addicts seldom gets a proper investigation, and that therefore, if I had wanted to kill her, I could have just driven her across state lines, shot her in the head, dumped her into a swamp and be done with it. They did not like to hear that either, but they had no body, no motive and no reason to pursue the investigation further…so they let me go.
As for my nogoodnik dope fiend cousin, she was never heard from again. Of course I know the fate of her body, and it is easy to guess the fate of her soul. And while both are hideous beyond the understanding of ordinary humans, I sometimes envy her. She was a pawn in the game of the Seven-Eyed King, but at least she was an unwitting pawn. She thought that she had stolen the Ninth Eye, but in reality she had taken it with his full knowledge. It was all a ploy to let me gaze into the void of eternity. While I wore the eye, I understood his plan clearly.
The absorption of so much knowledge, particular knowledge that man was not meant to know, will shortly drive me insane. Soon I shall found a cult, deceive men and women with comforting lies and bathe in the light that this strange world likes to shine on charismatic nihilists. Thousands shall march under my banner and the dwellings of man shall ring with the screams of the sacrifices and the laughter of demons. Ya, Shub-Niggurath The Goat of a Thousand Young! Burn the fields! Preach the hellish gospel on every mountain top! Put the ancient forests to the torch, so that the sky may darken and the birds of heaven may fall! Make a holocaust of this dismal sphere we call Earth! Glory be to the Seven-Eyed One, who sits on the thrice-cursed throne between the voids!
I am sorry…I got carried away. The madness is already seeping into my soul. And while I know perfectly well every step of the stairway that will lead me into the depths of ultimate depravity and bliss, I know equally well that I am absolutely powerless to resist going down this path. The Seven-Eyed King is guiding me like a puppet.
This morning I made an effort to get hospitalized as a dangerous madman. A bright young doctor with a sympathetic smile received me and listened patiently to my story. Afterwards she made me answer some questions about my childhood. Then she took of her glasses, looked at me earnestly and told me that I was having a depressive episode, probably triggered by a recent traumatic event. She gave me some pills and told me to come back on Tuesday. When I asked her how it was possible that I, an upholsterer without a college degree, could suddenly write a washing bill in Babylonyc cuneiform and spontaneously hold lectures about German baroque music and quantum physics, she just laughed and said that nowadays one could learn everything on the internet. I thanked her and left. Of course I had known from the start that this was a fruitless exercise. The bright young doctor was a puppet of the Seven-Eyed One too. Not in the way that I am, and not in the way that most people are, but an actual cultist. And a very useful one too. Her efforts have led hundreds of people into the claws of our glorious master. After my ascent I probably should make her minister of propaganda or something.
When I got home, I tried to put a bullet into my head, but, predictably, was unable to do so. I threw away the revolver, sat down and started writing this text. Something in me still hopes that this somehow will alert alert someone to the danger which I pose, but I already know that I will delete the file as soon as I have finished writing. The sense of despair which I felt only a short while ago has now largely dissipated. I know feel only apathy and a sense of mild curiosity.
After all, it will probably be an interesting experience to be seated on a throne on top of a black ziggurat and look down on nightened skies and burning cities, while the powerful of the earth are kissing ones feet. Wearing an iron crown and ornate black robes might even feel good. And the women…why have I not thought of the women until now? I am not an greedy man, but a harem of three- or four thousand would probably be appropriate for the Anointed and High Priest of the Seven-Eyed King. To preserve the dignity of my office, if nothing else. And the goddamn insurance company would probably think again about not paying for the repair work on my house. Yes, the more I think about it, the more the idea of leading the faith of the Seven-Eyed King to victory grows on me.
Fuck, what am I doing here, indulging in useless reminiscences like a sap? I have to draft my first speech to the masses…