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Acolyte, v. 1, issue 1, Fall 1942
Page 13
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THE JUDGE'S ELK TOOTH by Francis T. Laney "May not a malignant doom hold the soul tomb-bound, with naught but the feeding of the worms to break the grisly silence? Yet what spirit would meekly brook such imprisonment? Might not the mind, though indeed held to the mortal tenement by nameless sounds, rise natheless from the crypt and drive the rotting body once more through the very motions of life? In Azathoth are all things resolved...Azathoth is the end...Azathoth is the beginning...if ye seek, what may ye not find?" Chronicle of Math, Rhe-Mehl edition. ----------- The polling place was in an empty store building sandwiched between a beer parlor and a pool hall. Cracked and peeling, the leprous walls looked down upon a black and splintery floor, while a stale reek reminiscent of a small-town railroad station lay heavy over all. Flimsy canvas booths glaring in their newness, long folding tables, and a few rickety camp chairs sat lonely in the center of the deep room. "You will sit here, dearie," said the fat woman, as Myra entered. "When they come in, Mrs. Burns asks their names and you check them off the list of voters and call their names to me. That way we get a double check." Myra was a pale, under-nourished looking girl, whose fine dreamer's eyes made the neat shabbiness of her clothes pass unnoticed. Her father, now dead, had been a brilliant lawyer, but dead brilliance does not always clothe and feed unworldly young ladies; particularly when they are prone to play Bach instead of bridge, and buy the Lovecraft omnibus with their lunch money. A more practical turn of mind is needed for material success. Then too, burying is expensive, and the dead lawyer's estate had barely paid for his coffin. A friend of her father's had taken pity on her and gotten her a job as election clerk int he third ward; so Myra Moffat, already gasping in the stale air, sat leafing the list of voters. Soon they began to come, faster and faster; fat and thin, tall and short, clean and dirty, sleazy sports coats and honest denim, faded gingham and frilly voile, clean breaths, bad breaths, beer breaths---the sovereign people exercising their franchise. A constant gabble rose and fell with a mumbling rhythmic beat, and with each new arrival the air became more stagnant and overpowering. Straining to catch the voters' names, Myra's ears throbbed after but a few minutes; in the dazzle of the unshaded light, her eyes could scarcely focus on the thumbed pages. As the morning wore on, she became faint and dizzy. Half-forgotten names and faces flitted through her numbed mind, and she began to wonder if she could keep from confusing these mental images with the actual voters. Once she left her place for a bit, but after a few minutes of the monotonous routine she was in worse condition than before her rest. No longer fully conscious of the individuals before her, she was checking them off automatically as they -- 16 --
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THE JUDGE'S ELK TOOTH by Francis T. Laney "May not a malignant doom hold the soul tomb-bound, with naught but the feeding of the worms to break the grisly silence? Yet what spirit would meekly brook such imprisonment? Might not the mind, though indeed held to the mortal tenement by nameless sounds, rise natheless from the crypt and drive the rotting body once more through the very motions of life? In Azathoth are all things resolved...Azathoth is the end...Azathoth is the beginning...if ye seek, what may ye not find?" Chronicle of Math, Rhe-Mehl edition. ----------- The polling place was in an empty store building sandwiched between a beer parlor and a pool hall. Cracked and peeling, the leprous walls looked down upon a black and splintery floor, while a stale reek reminiscent of a small-town railroad station lay heavy over all. Flimsy canvas booths glaring in their newness, long folding tables, and a few rickety camp chairs sat lonely in the center of the deep room. "You will sit here, dearie," said the fat woman, as Myra entered. "When they come in, Mrs. Burns asks their names and you check them off the list of voters and call their names to me. That way we get a double check." Myra was a pale, under-nourished looking girl, whose fine dreamer's eyes made the neat shabbiness of her clothes pass unnoticed. Her father, now dead, had been a brilliant lawyer, but dead brilliance does not always clothe and feed unworldly young ladies; particularly when they are prone to play Bach instead of bridge, and buy the Lovecraft omnibus with their lunch money. A more practical turn of mind is needed for material success. Then too, burying is expensive, and the dead lawyer's estate had barely paid for his coffin. A friend of her father's had taken pity on her and gotten her a job as election clerk int he third ward; so Myra Moffat, already gasping in the stale air, sat leafing the list of voters. Soon they began to come, faster and faster; fat and thin, tall and short, clean and dirty, sleazy sports coats and honest denim, faded gingham and frilly voile, clean breaths, bad breaths, beer breaths---the sovereign people exercising their franchise. A constant gabble rose and fell with a mumbling rhythmic beat, and with each new arrival the air became more stagnant and overpowering. Straining to catch the voters' names, Myra's ears throbbed after but a few minutes; in the dazzle of the unshaded light, her eyes could scarcely focus on the thumbed pages. As the morning wore on, she became faint and dizzy. Half-forgotten names and faces flitted through her numbed mind, and she began to wonder if she could keep from confusing these mental images with the actual voters. Once she left her place for a bit, but after a few minutes of the monotonous routine she was in worse condition than before her rest. No longer fully conscious of the individuals before her, she was checking them off automatically as they -- 16 --
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