 |
| "We shall meet again, perhaps in the shining mists of 'Orion's Sword'." Art: Virgil Finlay, Weird Tales, March 1938 |
Opening Statement:
I have frequently wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams, and of the obscure world to which they belong.What in Brown Jenkin's Name..?
An intern at a sanitarium discovers that a cosmic entity is trapped inside the body of a rural simpleton. However, once the human shell dies, the entity will be free to pursue its cosmic jailer.Synopsis:
Around 1901, a notorious rural simpleton named Joe Slater is known for his bizarre dream-induced rants. After killing a neighbor while seemingly-possessed, he is imprisoned, where he begins having intermittent fits, swearing vengeance on some mysterious, oppressive cosmic force (a "blazing entity"). Eventually institutionalized, he is assigned to the story's narrator, an intern at the hospital. The narrator learns that a cosmic, "luminous dream soul" is trapped inside Slater's body. Thinking that the "Light Being" is unable to communicate efficiently using Slater's own, limited vocabulary, the narrator decides to use a homemade mind-reading device on Slater in order to make communication easier.
After connecting the telepathy device between them, the narrator nods off into a dream. He sees himself in a strange, blazing world, and speaks as a dream-brother with the Light Being trapped inside Slater. He learns that Slater will soon die, after which the Light Being will finally be able to escape, and pursue the one who had imprisoned him/it in Slater's sluggish human form.
The narrator and Slater both wake up, and the Light Being communicates directly to the narrator through the telepathy device. It reveals that, while sleeping, mankind's "real self" is able to roam great distances through time and space, although man's waking self is kept unaware of these journeys (in order to preserve its own sanity). In fact, the Light Being is usually only able to interact with "dreaming" humans, and that it is only under such extreme conditions that it is able to briefly communicate to the narrator while awake. It then claims that it will soon escape Slater's dying form and engage its enemy near Algol, the demon star. After this dialogue, Slater's body then dies. When the whole episode is reported, the narrator's superior is skeptical. However, the next night a bright flash of light is noted near the star Algol.Essential Saltes:
Walls, columns, and architraves of living fire blazed effulgently around the spot where I seemed to float in air, extending upward to an infinitely high vaulted dome of indescribable splendor. Blending with this display of palatial magnificence, or rather, supplanting it at times in kaleidoscopic rotation, were glimpses of wide plains and graceful valleys, high mountains and inviting grottoes, covered with every lovely attribute of scenery which my delighted eyes could conceive of, yet formed wholly of some glowing, ethereal plastic entity, which in consistency partook as much of spirit as of matter.
* * * * *
"Joe Slater is dead," came the soul-petrifying voice or agency from beyond the wall of sleep. "He is better dead, for he was unfit to bear the active intellect of cosmic entity. His gross body could not undergo the needed adjustments between ethereal life and planet life. He was too much of an animal, too little a man; yet it is through his deficiency that you have come to discover me, for the cosmic and planet souls rightly should never meet.
"He has been my torment and diurnal prison for forty-two of your terrestrial years. I am an entity like that which you yourself become in the freedom of dreamless sleep. I am your brother of light, and have floated with you in the effulgent valleys. It is not permitted me to tell your waking earth-self of your real self, but we are all roamers of vast spaces and travellers in many ages. Next year I may be dwelling in the dark Egypt which you call ancient, or in the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan which is to come three thousand years hence. You and I have drifted to the worlds that reel about the red Arcturus, and dwelt in the bodies of the insect-philosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon of Jupiter. How little does the earth-self know of life and its extent! How little, indeed, ought it to know for its own tranquillity!
"Of the oppressor I cannot speak. You on earth have unwittingly felt its distant presence—you who without knowing idly gave to its blinking beacon the name of Algol, the Daemon-Star. It is to meet and conquer the oppressor that I have vainly striven for aeons, held back by bodily encumbrances. Tonight I go as a Nemesis bearing just and blazingly cataclysmic vengeance. Watch me in the sky close by the Daemon-Star.
* * * * *
"I cannot speak longer, for the body of Joe Slater grows cold and rigid, and the coarse brains are ceasing to vibrate as I wish. You have been my friend in the cosmos; you have been my only friend on this planet—the only soul to sense and seek for me within the repellent form which lies on this couch. We shall meet again—perhaps in the shining mists of Orion’s Sword, perhaps on a bleak plateau in prehistoric Asia. Perhaps in unremembered dreams tonight; perhaps in some other form an aeon hence, when the solar system shall have been swept away."From Dr. Armitage's Notes:
 |
| Arkham House, 1943, featuring sculptures by Clark Ashton Smith on the cover. |
This story further develops the nature of Lovecraft's "Dream Quests", first hinted at in "Polaris". Here, Lovecraft expands the scope of these unconscious, nocturnal journeys to include the far future, as well as to other planets and star systems. When the Light Being teases scenes from the long pageant of cosmic history, it has the effect of reducing mankind's stature in the universe (a major theme in Lovecraft's future fiction). However, his story also dramatically expands man's potential vantage points by revealing to him the possibility of experiencing these times and places through Dream Quests. The Light Being also mentions an episode where the two soul brothers had dwelt within the bodies of Jovian "insect-philosophers". The background behind this outrageous claim would not be fully divulged until 17 years later in "The Shadow Out of Time".
"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" also introduces a "telepathy machine", and similar kinds of scienti-fiction devices would later resurface in stories such as "From Beyond", "The Whisperer In Darkness", "The Shadow Out of Time", etc. Interestingly, here is probably one of the few times where a Lovecraft protagonist manages to successfully leverage human super-technology against an alien super-ability, although this trend would become quite popular in '40s and '50s sci-fi.
Another unusual element here is that, unlike most of Lovecraft's future bestiary, the Light Being is unusually chatty about where it comes from, how it communicates, what it's going to do (and why), and how man fits in the cosmic equation. In the future, Lovecraft's cosmic beings would be far more inscrutable, and far less chummy.
On a final trivia note, Algol (the "Demon Star") actually does fluctuate in brightness over a roughly three day period. This variable star is visible to the naked eye, and was reported on as far back as in Egyptian times, over 3000 years ago. Just as in "Polaris", this story allowed Lovecraft to take advantage of his strong background in amateur astronomy.
- 1st psychic possession by alien.
- 1st telepathy machine.
- Cites the empire of Tsan-Chan, from 3000 years in the future (later referenced again in "The Shadow Out of Time" as extending to 5000 years in the future).
- Mentions a bleak plateau in Asia, possibly Leng.
- Mentions ancient Egypt, possibly a reference to Nyarlathotep.
- Insect-philosophers on one of Jupiter's moons (also referenced in "The Shadow Out of Time")
On February 22, 1901, a marvellous new star was discovered by Dr. Anderson, of Edinburgh, not very far from Algol. No star had been visible at that point before. Within twenty-four hours the stranger had become so bright that it outshone Capella. In a week or two it had visibly faded, and in the course of a few months it was hardly discernible with the naked eye.Read it here.
Follow'd by "Memory".
 |
| Weird Tales 1938.03, Margaret Brundage. |
