Lust

I recently found out that an ex colleague had opened up a cosmetic medicine clinic depressingly close to my home town. I felt that the only lucid way to respond would be to submit a query via the company's Facebook profile in the style of H.P. Lovecraft. I was promptly 'unfriended'...

Dear Doctor,

I shall be succinct. Your time I am sure, as mine, is precious. I am in need of a large amount of cash money within the next four days following a series of indiscretions. I shall be frank from the offset; I require three hundred and fifty guineas without delay. Whilst I am ultimately to blame for my current predicament, I feel some explanation is in order, lest my frequenting of your establishment bring you, and your fellow renowned medical practitioners, into disrepute. I shall begin. On or around the 15^th July 2010 I gained, through no fault or omission on my part, sole possession of certain documents. Initially I dismissed these sheaves as the inconsequential ramblings of a mind turned sour, be it through madness or some other folly of the soul. Their content defied belief and spoke of either a profound insanity on the part of the writer or, if given credence, a shocking judgement of which we must all partake. Said documents, upon closer examination, and thorough academic scrutiny undertaken by Prof. H. R. James of Abergavenny University, Department of Archaic Artefacts, revealed certain profane and ancient rituals never before studied by the minds of civilised men. I cannot emphasise the sense of palpable terror that this revelation sent throughout the Department of Archaic Artefacts. Shaken and exhausted from the day’s events, I retired to bed at around eleven. The Magnolia paintwork, chipped Formica and dripping tap of my NHS accommodation only added to my sense of foreboding. Dreamlessly, I slept. No sooner had I emerged from a restless sleep following the events I have reluctantly delineated above than I strolled into the Abergavenny University library to see a scrum of professors and students crowded about my collection of demonic scripts. Imperceptibly a man came towards me. I say ‘a man’, yet he was without form. A shape within my mind, yes, but this man somehow managed to evade my usual senses, in that he was without being at all! Yet I took him into my company, not perceiving that he was unusual in any way. He spoke to me then, of what I cannot tell, for the memory, nay, the doing of it, was as transient as the forms of a dream. I regret I do not know how much time passed betwixt mine meeting with said beast and its interference with the others gathered within the library. Let it be said, however, that none stood lest myself, the beast and the Dean of Abergavenny. I approached the Dean, now supine on the polished wooden floor. He spoke. "Hng'uathua ngrlg'ngh t'krghu fteghn'uiangh-ikh'raghn." I stared incredulously at him. He paused, reached into his pocket for an ornate fountain pen and then wrote in death black ink across his torn, white shirt sleeve: “I’m choking you fool!”. Alas, he did indeed choke. It turned to me then, cast its eyes upon me. Unspeakable! Torrid hallucinations wracked me, my soul bare. The beast had me, its unfathomable eyes probing my very being. It bored into my very essence. It left me with a message.

“Maybe your lips?”

Yours,

Doctor.