Lineage

"Of furniture there was only one narrow iron bedstead, a dingy washstand, a small table, a large bookcase, an iron music rack, and three old fashioned chairs."

The Music of Erich Zann (1921) by H.P. Lovecraft


I.

Mason Underwood sought out Gordon Prim, Chicagoland's elucidator of the eerie, rightful un-weaver of mysterious and baffling knots, for he was troubled by a singular reoccurrence apart from the collective consciousness of the herd that was worthy of the attention of father Poe, American master of horror.

Prim sat in the balcony where like-minded elites had gathered for a transcendent moment, a space and time of healing stillness and meditative exuberance, a majestic and mystical gathering together into a singular consciousness that re-energized them to carry onward along their various and diverse paths of temporal existence.

The doors closed softly and the lights dimmed leaving the renowned orchestra in a warm, golden glow of light. He gently closed his eyes envisioning the blackness of space alive with the motion of planets and their encompassing satellites to the Allegro tempo of Mars, The Bringer of War. Nearing its resolution, he recollected that from a horse driven carriage on Michigan Avenue he had earlier observed through hurrying sidewalk crowds that Mason was seated in a window booth at the nearby Artist's Café.

Venus, The Bringer of Peace, Adagio-Andante-Amimato, lead the thirty- second opus to a satisfying conclusion before a brief pandemonium: weird notes, horrific harmonies and searing strains. Prim's eyes immediately sprang open. The house lighting returned almost simultaneously and cast the forever still and silent audience in an indescribable otherworldly hue. Instruments continued playing independently of the glassy-eyed musicians as the nubile and petite enchantress danced in circles across the stage in her finest Goth attire.

Why was the Music Hall full of ghosts? The elucidator of the eerie recognized the Grimm, goat-bearded resonating piece at once, something from an old vaudevillian black and white negro minstrel show about the time of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'

The Harlequin played an ebony violin whose frantic yet precise bowing exhuded a symphonic sound not possible by one player but for supernal intensity and the strength of pallid, vampy fingers. Though it was well after Samhain, Fantastique was evidently on one of her soon to be infamous escapades adding a genuinely horrific tang to the faux misery index of the newspapers.

"Jealous ears! Leave me alone!" she shouted, her face aglow in alien beauty. "Anyone who apes these words gets an ethereal echogram."

Due to his acquired metaphysical endurance, Prim remained the sole survivor of the evening. He stood and applauded. "Are you expecting someone to have left?"







Note: American horror writer Edgar Allan Poe was also the inventor of the detective fiction genre.




©2019 by L.P. Van Ness. All rights reserved.



[genre: weird fiction]