Transcribe
Translate
Acolyte, vol 1, issue 3, whole 3, Spring 1943
Page 7
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
MUSIC OF THE STARS by Duane W. Rimel -oOo- "there are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths, and now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through." -- H. P. Lovecraft The Thing on The Door-Step --ooOoo-- I am called a murder because I destroyed my best friend; killed him in cold blood. Yet I will try to prove that in so doing I performed an act of mercy---removed something that never should have broken through into this three-dimensional world, and saved my friend from a horror worse than death. Men will read this and laugh and call me mad, because much that happened cannot be labeled and proven in a court of law. Indeed, I often wonder if I beheld the truth---I who saw the ghastly finish. There is much in this world and in other worlds that our five senses do not perceive, and what lies beyond is found only in wild imagination and dream. I only hope that I killed him in time. If I can believe what I see in my dreams, I failed. And if I waited too long before I fired that last bullet, I shall welcome the fate that threatens to devour me. Frank Baldwyn and I were comrades for eleven long years. It was a friendship that intensified as time went on, nourished by avid mutual interests in weird music and literature. We were born and raised in the same village, and it was---as a cultured author and correspondent of ours who lived in Providence often remarked---unusual to find two people with such bizare interests in a village whose population was less than six hundred. It was fortunate, yes; but now I wish we had never probed so far into spheres of the awful unknown. The trouble began April 13, 1940. I was visiting my friend that day, and during a rambling conversation he hinted that he had discovered on the piano several combinations of musical tones that disturbed him. It was evening and we were alone in the huge, two-story house that stands there today, mouldy and empty beneath a giant maple, gaunt reminder of the horror we unleashed within it. Baldwyn was a pianist of great ability, and I admired the talent which dwarfed my own musical skill. The wild, weird music he loved often drove me into fits of melancholy I could not fathom. It is indeed a pity that none of those original manuscripts were saved, for many of them were classics of horror, and others so fantastic that I would hesitate to call them music at all. His statement troubled me; heretofore he had had utter confidence in his mad keyboard wanderings. I offered assistance. Saying nothing, he went to the piano, switched on a nearby floor-lamp and sat down. His dark eyes fastened on the keys; his lithe, white fingers poised above them for an instant, and descended. There was a weird cascade of sound as he ran the whole-tone scales from one end of the piano to the other, followed by a series of intricate variations that startled and amazed me. I had never heard anything to compare with it; it was utterly "out of this world". I listened, entranced, as his flying fingers wove a curious symphony of horror. I cannot describe that music any other way. The strains were eerie and unearthly, and stirred the very reaches of my soul. It resembled no standard classical music such as Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead", or Saint-Saens' "Danse Macabre". It was otrtuous, musical madness. -- 7 --
Saving...
prev
next
MUSIC OF THE STARS by Duane W. Rimel -oOo- "there are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths, and now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through." -- H. P. Lovecraft The Thing on The Door-Step --ooOoo-- I am called a murder because I destroyed my best friend; killed him in cold blood. Yet I will try to prove that in so doing I performed an act of mercy---removed something that never should have broken through into this three-dimensional world, and saved my friend from a horror worse than death. Men will read this and laugh and call me mad, because much that happened cannot be labeled and proven in a court of law. Indeed, I often wonder if I beheld the truth---I who saw the ghastly finish. There is much in this world and in other worlds that our five senses do not perceive, and what lies beyond is found only in wild imagination and dream. I only hope that I killed him in time. If I can believe what I see in my dreams, I failed. And if I waited too long before I fired that last bullet, I shall welcome the fate that threatens to devour me. Frank Baldwyn and I were comrades for eleven long years. It was a friendship that intensified as time went on, nourished by avid mutual interests in weird music and literature. We were born and raised in the same village, and it was---as a cultured author and correspondent of ours who lived in Providence often remarked---unusual to find two people with such bizare interests in a village whose population was less than six hundred. It was fortunate, yes; but now I wish we had never probed so far into spheres of the awful unknown. The trouble began April 13, 1940. I was visiting my friend that day, and during a rambling conversation he hinted that he had discovered on the piano several combinations of musical tones that disturbed him. It was evening and we were alone in the huge, two-story house that stands there today, mouldy and empty beneath a giant maple, gaunt reminder of the horror we unleashed within it. Baldwyn was a pianist of great ability, and I admired the talent which dwarfed my own musical skill. The wild, weird music he loved often drove me into fits of melancholy I could not fathom. It is indeed a pity that none of those original manuscripts were saved, for many of them were classics of horror, and others so fantastic that I would hesitate to call them music at all. His statement troubled me; heretofore he had had utter confidence in his mad keyboard wanderings. I offered assistance. Saying nothing, he went to the piano, switched on a nearby floor-lamp and sat down. His dark eyes fastened on the keys; his lithe, white fingers poised above them for an instant, and descended. There was a weird cascade of sound as he ran the whole-tone scales from one end of the piano to the other, followed by a series of intricate variations that startled and amazed me. I had never heard anything to compare with it; it was utterly "out of this world". I listened, entranced, as his flying fingers wove a curious symphony of horror. I cannot describe that music any other way. The strains were eerie and unearthly, and stirred the very reaches of my soul. It resembled no standard classical music such as Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead", or Saint-Saens' "Danse Macabre". It was otrtuous, musical madness. -- 7 --
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
