DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Acolyte, v. 2, issue 4, whole no. 8, Fall 1944 |

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Acolyte, v. 2, issue 4, whole no. 8, Fall 1944

shaken to the deeps of his being by enotional and imaginative responses of which he had never thought himself capable. Why should that resemblance be? Man and creatures manlike had vanished from the theatrer of evolution long even before the sun had become a bright dwarf. In the light of this fact, Ervool's resemblance to man of our age became definitely unwholesome. Far properer that he be a tentacled brain, a scaled and furry burrower, or some nightmare creature beyond depicting -- almost anything would be more proper than this abhorrent resemblance to a poor and ill-adapted creature so long gone. Of a truth, there was a remote connection between Ervool and Man -- the immortal germ plasm -- but this germ plasm also connected Ervool and Man -- the immortal germ plasm -- but this germ plasm also connected Ervool with a million oter forms of life that had come since and before. Why should the tiny continuity between Ervool and man have such a fearfully great influence? Those two subeyes of Ervool -- they too were vestigial organs, but for sons animal life had been single eyed. Those two sub-eyes of Ervool were the atavistic vestiges of a two-eyed form of life that died before those latter eons began. They were vestigial organs that the late reptiles never had vestigial organs that had remained for eons latent in the germ-plasm, that had jumped those eons, suddenly to reappear.
It was monstrous -- as though Ervool's progenitors had dreamed a vision of the engulfed past, a vision of the first species that wrought greatly upon the earth and felt the stirrings of far things, a vision of man. And as if they had created themselves in the image of that vision. As if Ervool's kind was but a harking back to an inconceivably distant beginning.
If that hypothetical scients and creative thinker had been also a physician cunning in diagnosis he might have gained the ultimate clue. For he would have noted in Ervool and all of Ervool's fellows symptoms of disease: fever, organic degeneration, and liability to sudden, unheralded death. And, although he would for some time have postulated a great mild plague, he would eventually have been drawn to the starling conclusion that disease was the natural state of Ervool's people. None were without it. Their very flesh seemed always on the verge of dissolution, the ultimate cells grown eccentric and unpredictable in their individual behavior. This, more than the scaliness, accounted for the peculiar quality in the texture of the skin of Ervool -- for his very skin shimmered with imminent change.
Ervool knew these things, knew the continual nearness of death, knew the senescence in his bone-marrow. And, as is characteristic of one near death, his mind was full of reminiscences, of visions of the past -- but not of his own past alone, not even principally of his own past. No; the mind of Ervool, as the minds of all of his kind, was filled with a shifting, flitting panorama of memories that went back to his reptilian forebears, their fishy forebears, and beyond. Memories that stretched back through the steaming maelstrom of earth's indian summer, through that and beyond. Memories that had slept in the immortal germ plasm for untold eons.
Ervool and his kind were dreaming of a primeval and eon-vanished lineage; they were dreaming of man; their very flesh was dreaming that dream; their very flesh shaped them in the image of that dream.
Even Ervool, advanced thinker that he was, tried to avoid the conclusion apparent: the immortal germ plasm was dying and, as dying things do, was turning to its youth.
The limestone caverns, hollowed by the interminable seeping of  slow-chilling waters and with air refreshed by a readapted vegetation dependant on internal radiation, shaped by the vanished reptiles, would support life for ages to come--but life was at the end of its course. The immortal germ plasm, which atretched its continuity back to the

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shaken to the deeps of his being by enotional and imaginative responses of which he had never thought himself capable. Why should that resemblance be? Man and creatures manlike had vanished from the theatrer of evolution long even before the sun had become a bright dwarf. In the light of this fact, Ervool's resemblance to man of our age became definitely unwholesome. Far properer that he be a tentacled brain, a scaled and furry burrower, or some nightmare creature beyond depicting -- almost anything would be more proper than this abhorrent resemblance to a poor and ill-adapted creature so long gone. Of a truth, there was a remote connection between Ervool and Man -- the immortal germ plasm -- but this germ plasm also connected Ervool and Man -- the immortal germ plasm -- but this germ plasm also connected Ervool with a million oter forms of life that had come since and before. Why should the tiny continuity between Ervool and man have such a fearfully great influence? Those two subeyes of Ervool -- they too were vestigial organs, but for sons animal life had been single eyed. Those two sub-eyes of Ervool were the atavistic vestiges of a two-eyed form of life that died before those latter eons began. They were vestigial organs that the late reptiles never had vestigial organs that had remained for eons latent in the germ-plasm, that had jumped those eons, suddenly to reappear. It was monstrous -- as though Ervool's progenitors had dreamed a vision of the engulfed past, a vision of the first species that wrought greatly upon the earth and felt the stirrings of far things, a vision of man. And as if they had created themselves in the image of that vision. As if Ervool's kind was but a harking back to an inconceivably distant beginning. If that hypothetical scients and creative thinker had been also a physician cunning in diagnosis he might have gained the ultimate clue. For he would have noted in Ervool and all of Ervool's fellows symptoms of disease: fever, organic degeneration, and liability to sudden, unheralded death. And, although he would for some time have postulated a great mild plague, he would eventually have been drawn to the starling conclusion that disease was the natural state of Ervool's people. None were without it. Their very flesh seemed always on the verge of dissolution, the ultimate cells grown eccentric and unpredictable in their individual behavior. This, more than the scaliness, accounted for the peculiar quality in the texture of the skin of Ervool -- for his very skin shimmered with imminent change. Ervool knew these things, knew the continual nearness of death, knew the senescence in his bone-marrow. And, as is characteristic of one near death, his mind was full of reminiscences, of visions of the past -- but not of his own past alone, not even principally of his own past. No; the mind of Ervool, as the minds of all of his kind, was filled with a shifting, flitting panorama of memories that went back to his reptilian forebears, their fishy forebears, and beyond. Memories that stretched back through the steaming maelstrom of earth's indian summer, through that and beyond. Memories that had slept in the immortal germ plasm for untold eons. Ervool and his kind were dreaming of a primeval and eon-vanished lineage; they were dreaming of man; their very flesh was dreaming that dream; their very flesh shaped them in the image of that dream. Even Ervool, advanced thinker that he was, tried to avoid the conclusion apparent: the immortal germ plasm was dying and, as dying things do, was turning to its youth. The limestone caverns, hollowed by the interminable seeping of slow-chilling waters and with air refreshed by a readapted vegetation dependant on internal radiation, shaped by the vanished reptiles, would support life for ages to come--but life was at the end of its course. The immortal germ plasm, which atretched its continuity back to the