Thirty-one days of Lovecraft: Day Seven

I don't know how or why I came up with this

Full disclosure, I did not get to my reading target today. Instead, I'll give you something incredibly nerdy. Here is some original writing, a Lovecraftian take on the Eagles song 'Tequila Sunrise'.



Whether it was from the grief or something spurred on by the bottle of tequila I had nursed through the night, I could not say. It was . doubt madness that prompted the accursed decision that I ultimately made. As the sun rose, stretching its long tendril rays across the sky, I grabbed the shovel left behind by the grave digger and set myself the undesirable task of undoing his work of the previous day.

It had been three year prior when I had met Sonia. She was a brilliant physician though her unorthodox views on the finality of death often kept her from getting the recognition that she deserved. I kept running across her articles in obscure medical journals, as I set out on my own course to solve the problem of mortality. When my university threatened to expel me, I left in the cover of night, traveled here and asked Sonia for any job in her lab. “I want to be there when you unlock the secrets of the universe and place us mortals on the same plane as the gods.” She agreed. I was nothing more than a hired hand in her laboratory, but no matter. I knew that we would do amazing things and the scientific community would laugh at us no longer.

After I had struck the casket with the shovel, I took a moment to consider my plan. While we had made certain strides over the past three years, we had never succeeded in our aims, but just a few days prior, I had dreamt up a new formula for a serum, which I had coined courage, as the very composition of it would be daring. While we had brought a few subjects back, they were not of sound mind and were often violent. However, I felt that the gods had reached out and touched me and given me the solution. They had surely seen me as one of their equals. I could only try the dreamed solution on my beloved, and I had to do so tonight. I could not allow for the days to go by.

After the sun went down, I removed the body. Though Sonia was with me, without her being alive, I was, at least for the moment, just another lonely boy in town. Over the past three years, I had learned that Sonia was not just another woman. We grew close, our passion to overcome death translated into passion for one another. I could not help myself. But now, even though I was sure that my serum would work, I was left with a hollow feeling, being even temporarily separated from my love.

Such a feeling would never end.

I got back to the laboratory and placed Sonia’s cold corpse on the table. With speed I did not know that I had possessed, I worked on my formula. Time was my enemy, more so than usual. As quickly as I moved, mixing chemicals, firing burners, I heard the infernal ticking of the laboratory clock. Finally, after too many seconds and minutes had passed, the formula was complete. I injected it into her lifeless veins and waited. Still, the ticking of the clock. There was nothing, nothing. I made another shot of courage and gave it to her.

The next thing I knew there was a terrifying scream. Sonia was not alive, but she was no longer dead. Her eyes were alight, but the could not articulate any words. I implored her to speak, but the right words would never come. With a slowing numbness, I realized that not only had my serum not worked, but I had turned by beloved Sonia into a mindless creature. In my despair, I mixed together the chemicals to create a large flame that quickly engulfed the lab. I ran from the building and did not stop till I had crested a hill some distance away.

I turned and watched as the orange and yellow flames began to intertwine with the sun of a new day, as if the primordial gods of fire and life had come back to mock me in my failure and loss.