I remember still that dark afternoon when I wandered the area among the waterfront, in a crumbling section of town that had suffered much destruction from the recent earthquake.  Most of the old brick buildings had been constructed in the early 1900's.  Some had lost much of their facades during the quake, and most were roped closed with caution tape,  I stepped among the litter of fallen bricks as, in the distant, a gull cried in search of food.  I came upon a shop whose door was opened and whose small "Open" neon sign flickered.  From the freeway above, I heard the roar of traffic, a modern sound that I did not enjoy.  I was sick of the neotric world, with its rush and clamor.    Peering into the shop's cloudy window, I saw that it oveflowed with a clutter of antiques.  Charmed, I entered in and closed the door behind me, thus shutting out the vile city sounds.

 I walked past twisting towers of large old books, past lamps and household wares from a time long dead.  How I longed to dwell in that past, for there life might have been easier.  I was unemployed and had just been evicted from the small filthy hole that had been my apartment.  My backpack, stuffed with a few clothes, was all that I possessed, and I had not eaten for three days.  It was the subtle smell of fresh coffee, I think, that led me to the alcove that was decorated as a small yet elegant room.  A small bald man sat upon a comfortable antique sofa, holding a china cup from which he sipped the coffee I had detected.  On the coffee table before him were some few platters of sandwiches and a small bowl of potato salad.  A large tome nestled in his lap.

"Forgive me," I said as, looking up from his book, he smiled at me.  "I'm just looking around.  Don't let me disturb your repast."

"Nonsense," he chuckled, his quick tongue darting to the corner of his mouth so as to catch a crumb of bread that had gone astray.  "You're no bother at all!  Have you lunched?  I've sandwiches enough for an army.  My landlady gets carried away, you see, thinks I'm too thin.  Some of these will be thrown out, for I couldn't eat them all in a week.  Come, sit and eat.  Pour yourself a cup of coffee from the pot over there.  It's been a lonely week, I can tell you.  No one comes because of that adventuous earthquake that has caused so much ruin among these old brick buildings."

I tried to walk calmly to the coffee pot and then to the table with its spread of food.  My host handed me a fork and small clean plate as I sat beside him.  Carefully (not wanting to reveal my abysmal hunger), Iforked some salad onto the plate and reached for a roast beef and cheese sanhdwich.  And it was when I leaned back into the wonderful softness of the sofa that I noticed the strange wallpaper design -- if so it was, for the design was on the ceiling as well.  It was a pattern of crimson on which weird glyph-like characters had been inprinted in black-green ink.  Most curious of all, when I turned to smile at the fellow and glanced at the pages of his book, I saw thereon a replication of those eerie glyphs etched with dark purple ink onto yellow parchment.

He nodded, smiling, as he noticed my attention.  "It's a strange language, and a beguiling one.  And so decorative, don't you think.  Its design adds a kind of magic to the room, don't you think.  But of course -- hoo!   What weird words they are!  I can almost pronounce some of them.  This passage, for example -- can you wrap your tongue around it, do you think?  It's the only one that approaches our own alphabet in its characters, unlike these other esoteric glyphs.  Give it a try."

His playfully amused me, and I was grateful for his companionship and food -- and so I played is little eccentric game.  "Hmm, it's a weird one for sure.  I suppose, phonetically, it would sound something like, uh, 'Og-throdh ai'f geb'l-yh-eeh, Yog-Sothoth, Ngah'gn ai'y zhro.'  Sounds like a bunch of gibberish to me."

"Hmm?  You spoke it rather well.  But I think you need to utter it with more bravado!  Speak it with more force and volume, and add an exclamation point to its end!  Don't merely talk it -- perform it!"

"I used to do some acting, in college," I admitted.

"Excellent!  I thought I could detect such talent in your voice!  I've done a bit of theatre work myself.  A wonderful occupation.  Now -- pretend it's a line from Shakespeare and blurt it out!"

I laughed at his enthusiasm and took the book from his lap as I stood and declaimed the ridiculous line.  The room's pale light began to dim.  The ground beneath the building began to shake subtly, and I stood dead still as some few items in the adjacent room tumbled from their shelves and tables and crashed onto the floor.  From somewhere outside the window I could faintly hear a siren's sudden wailing.  The aftershock, so many days late, subsided.

"You okay?" I asked the fellow as I sat beside him once more.  "That was scary.  Listen, I'll help you clean up the broken stuff out there in payment for your kind hospitality."

He rose, waving away my offer with a petite hand.  "No, no.  You look very weary.  I think you've fallen on hard times, young man.  Listen, I do need a bit of help around here, moving heavy items and such.  I can't offer any payment except for food and this room, where you can sleep."

"That would be wonderful!  It would be temporary, naturally, until I find some decent work."

"Excellent.  Why not stretch out and rest a while.  I'll deal with the clutter."  Again the earth trembled, just slightly.  "It is as if the earth has opened so as to release some titan in its depth, some thing that has long slept and now, newly awakened, seeks nourishment."  How oddly he spoke those words, with what dark passion shimmering in his eyes.  Then he was gone.  Finishing another sandwich, I stretched onto the sofa, the closed old book on my chest with my arms around it.  How strangely warm that book felt, as if it were some pet that had come to nap with me.  As my eyes closed, I mumbled again the esoteric words that I had recited, those queer words that still lingered in some pocket of my mind.

Shivering cold awakened me.  I stirred and stretched my aching limbs.  The mythic tome was no longer in my embrace.  The room was very dark, and yet somehow I could just make out the queer glyphs on the ceiling above me, those arcane signals that seemed almost to move and shape themselves with diabolic meaning.  From outside the alcove there came a soft noise, a peculiar sound.  It was the deep and steady snuffling of some living thing.  Turning my head, I looked at the darkness just outside the alcome where I reclined.  I saw the slow approach  of a darksome form, a nebulous shape that seemed to blend with inky shadow.  A high and hooded dome loomed near  the ceilin, and then it bent forward, into the alcove space.

It sniffed.  The absence of any light made it impossible to see clearly the dim features of the palsied face.  I saw the somber twinkling of wide black orbs.  I saw the expanse of moving lips that clothed a churning mouth.  I noted the nostrils that flattened and expanded with breathing.  

The creature was joined by another of its kind.  They waited in eldritch darkness, silent for some moments; and then they sniffed as they bent nearer to where I lay.  I watched, as their bloated lips began to part, as from their mouths there slipped a pulsing whisper of airy sound.  They spoke, perfectly, the strange words that I had earlier declaimed!  I watched as the twin mouth began to blur and become one awesome cavity.  I felt myself sucked into that gaping void.  My body tried to repulse their pull, but there was no escape.  I suddenly knew not where I was.  I beheld shapes, indistinct and unwholesome.  I heard the deep chords of twin breathing.  I felt a darkness seep into my soul.  My flesh crawled and twisted on the wet padding of some alien surface.  I was drenched with hot moisture, a weighty wetness.  My sickened mind registered that portions of my body were being devoured -- yet something in the numbing pain beguiled.

In madness I understood my fate, and welcomed it.  I began to sing the words that were still swirling in my mind, the words from the tome with which I had summoned my fate.  It was a fate I welcomed.  How could dreary life compare to matchless death?  Even now, with so many portions missing from my limbs, I welcome the ravaging hunger of the feasting monsters.  For I am the foodstuff of Gods.  Devoured by them, I become a part of their tissue, their Immortal Essence.  I linger here, happily, in this wet and smothering place where dwells no masquerade of human hope.  Here I dwell, glistening in their ravenous glory, until I am forever and absolutely consumed!