Finish the Fiction Story Contest - Week #26 - @bananafish

Horror Vacui

The moonlight descended on the east side of the Wagner Tower like an ancestral bone dust. The ectoplasm of a vague awareness crossed a tenant’s mind seeking for oblivion: finally, the dull blows coming from God knows what remote corner of the old building had decided to quit and he would have slept. However, between the seventy-fifth and seventy-fourth floor, a particularly fine ear could have still seized an intermittent, stifled counterpoint of voices.

"I feel that this unusual condition is helping us bring out some interesting perspectives, Mendo." In breaking the silence, the psychotherapist's voice had soon lost its initial momentum.

"..."

"I want you to know that this time won’t be billed, go ahead if you feel like it." She tried to assume a playful expression. Hidden underneath her short suit jacket, Dr. Wallace's fingers were nervously playing with a fluorescent orange rubber bracelet.

"No-one is ever suspended, not even now with seventy-four floors of nothing underfoot..."

"Well, this is certainly a positive observation..."

"Shut up, you don’t know a shit." An almost calm remark, pronounced with a firmness that hit Dr. Wallace like a bucket of frozen water.

"Have you ever thought, doctor," Mendo continued, sharply spelling out his last word, "that the fear of emptiness, the horror vacui as they defined it in the Middle Ages, is nothing but the unconscious and desperate attempt to look away from the ultimate truth?"

Since the elevator had blocked its descent, the patient had confined himself to a corner on the opposite side of the entrance. His left leg was now dancing grotesquely, animated like it had a life of its own and in contrast with the cadaveric stiffness of his other body parts.

"I never thought of that." Dr. Wallace wisely responded in brief, observing for the umpteenth time the assistance number carved on the elevator control panel.

"Mmmm...” A growing moan on the other side of the narrow cabin.

The doctor instinctively thought of her daughter that night, when the wind had hit the fixtures of the old house in the mountains so intensely that it produced an endless banshee howl. The little girl had made a sound of compressed horror, just like that.

If only she had known, she would have never asked Mr. Anatoliy “Mendoza” Volkov, an extraordinarily subtle personality, to follow her downstairs after that emergency therapy session in her office. On the other hand, he was one of her first and most challenging patients. Furthermore, he used to pay awesomely.

"Because the void swarms." Now his eyes were on the doctor, sunken out and bugging out at the same time.

"Soon they'll free us, do you think you'll keep writing that song you were talking about?" Dr. Wallace ventured. She realized that the silk shirt was soaking with her acrid sweat.

"It's the Yellow King's dominion, he comes from the void, it's him who made me do those things. I did not want to." His whine ripped open in a sinister vocal of terror.

"Mendo .." She did not know what to add. Now the doctor's hand, behind her sweating back, was pressing the assistance button convulsively.

His wide open eyes. They had stopped staring at her and now they were pointing up, right behind her shoulders.

"Mendo, what's up?"

"The Yellow King. He's here."

My Entry:

“The Yellow King?”

And Mendo began his monologue:

“Yes, the Yellow King, from the Yellow Sign. On a winter’s marrow, where the edge of a coffin shines, in a land of fog known to some as Carcosa. The legend of my experiences with the Yellow King begin.

For you see, I’m not of Earth, and yet where I’m from remains a myth. Twisted in wormholes through time and space. This far away place of clouds that push against mountains like the waves of the sea.

In these high away places, peaks of an alien landscape, technology thrives far beyond anything you might demise.

However, we’ve encountered many species aside from humans. So many intelligent life forms. Some more powerful than me. And I’m more powerful than you.

And so we find the Yellow Sign.

Drifting like a leaf on the wind into one of our pillars of civilization. Much like this elevator here between the 74th and 75th floor. The wind rustling as his majesty introduces himself.

So it happened to be one night on the planet where I’m from. The Yellow Sign appeared in an innocent form. Once my sight stored the image in my subconscious it acted as an algorithm mixing with all my thoughts and experiences contained within my brain. Something from a superior civilization.

Unknown to me, my actions were no longer my own. As if watching a movie from my eyes. Even now, this speech of mine being decreed from a higher plane than our own. One that wants to meet you. One that wants you to pay tribute to the Yellow King from a place beyond the sight of the Hubble Space Telescope. Beyond the cosmic dew of the Big Bang 13 billion years ago.

Upon inspection the Yellow King will deliver on whatever you thought of him. His mustard crown? To each his own, and he finds amusement from the many forms that can plague the mind. And plague with dread I implore you. For his spirit would not be said to be kind.

Malevolent!

How this disease infects the mind!

For one such as we would never consent to these demands if controlled by our free will. Yet these experiences are wished for by a ruler that hides in the Horror Vacui.”

Mendo ended his monologue.

Dr. Wallace could see a leaflet sliding through the elevator door. On it she saw the Yellow Sign.

Thank you,
Cyrus Emerson

Red Roses the audiobook for your consideration at the Voice Arts Awards (NYC), and the Grammys (LA). https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Red-Roses-Audiobook/B07F2LWHPN

Red Roses narrated by Kira Omans
www.kiraomans.com

Red Roses music by Rike Luxx
www.rikeluxxbeats.com

Red Roses sound by Pond5
www.pond5.com

Also, available from The Author:

Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson - ebook
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B079R5KLPN&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_GsURAbAVDYNEM

Lost Angel – Introduction with Ray Manzarek of The Doors
https://www.downpour.com/lost-angel?sp=249812