SHot70

“These days the trend,” I explained, “is going back to traditional, more ‘old fashion’ names.” I had to shout just to hear myself over the thumping music. “They’re all called, ‘Jennifer’ or ‘Susan’ or ‘Betty.’ The days of the ‘Pussy Galores’ and the ‘Amber Waves,’ ‘Leetha Weapons’, etcetera; all that shit’s history.” Chthulu’s facial tentacles swayed with tidal rhythms of an ancient sea, long forgotten and dry. Other amorphous features, eyes, mouths, orifices of unclear purpose bloomed, shifted and disappeared under the flashing freakish light. Whether he understood or not was unclear, but he pressed into the throng. “There’s a couple over there,” I said, leading the way to two empty stools at the far end of the bar. Chthulu, his form held to a vaguely humanoid shape by a Hawaiian shirt and khakis rested his bulk on a stool. Shortly I followed suit. Already our end of the bar had become colder and to those who perceive these things, darker. The dark of earthly night robbed and replaced by a dark more profound than The Thousand Purges. The tides of despair and madness ebb here in this, our corner of the Red Rooster. I order a Bud. “Dude?” “Doooouuuuuhhhhhhaaagha….,” the sound issued forth on a fowl wave, dancing on the edge of perception, not heard so much as felt- felt on the brittle ends of dead nerves. “Make it two.”