Last week in the library I found a crumbled note, written in a large, raving hand, I thought might interest you. It read as follows:

These terrible truths I can no longer keep to myself, the burden is becoming too much for me. Yet I do not dare tell them to another person for fear of the effect it might have on him; so I will resort to writing them down.

Presumably I will give myself into the custody of a sanatory to be tought by my fellow inmates in the art of pretending that our surroundings are safe, simple and something we can understand whilst we know, and are constantly profen, to be wrong in this assumption, hoping to find consolation in it.

At least I do not endanger anyone with the knowledge I have to offer, for my wardens and doctors take it as a scientifically interesting delusion, studying it at face value, without considering for a moment what it would mean, were it true; and my fellow inmates are experts in disbelieving other’s believes.

Dangerous as that approach might be, for the warnings contained in this report might be discarded too easily, it at least grants the possibility to study such material without losing propper grip on it and being pulled down in its maelstorm, which taking it for fact, something one is forced to do by the overwhelming evidence there is to be reckoned, if not guided by years of experience to disregard anything such simple to forge as evidence, which for instance reading usenet offers, would certainly effect to.

Although, I have heavy doubts that I can ever find rest again, knowing all that I do know. Too deep a crack did it run through my perception of reality, too much did it change and reveal my relation to the world around me. Oh, how lucky is man for the ignorance he has of his position in the great play of the cosmos and of never having to face many of the others on its cast.

Often have I heard of creatures that have no shadow or cannot be photographed, and never did I believe a word of it. Shuddering now, I remember reading the tales of H. P. Lovecraft and his fellow writers, taking them for mere stories at the time. All this has changed forever to me, for what I have seen in my mirror last night.

When I closed the cupboard in my bathroom last night, and looked in the mirror thereon, expecting to see the face I knew and took for myself, I beheld a sight of shocking cruelty. Looking me in the eyes like an old friend was my true face, at last revealed, and I hope, not for myself but for the safety of their sanity, that no one else ever has to share this sight: An inhuman grimace, tentacles for a mouth and pupilless slits for eyes, grinning an evil grin from missing ear to missing ear, hairless and of faded green colour it rose from the sea of ignorance toward knowledge; ‘The stars are right,’ the thought rang in my brains in a strange, guttural voice not my own.

Even now I dare not think what they are right for. Am I a danger to humankind, a ticking bomb until this thing rises again, only now for all to see? To conquer mankind and the reality we are accustomed to, for no doubt was that its wicked plan, my wicked plan, for I am this unthinkable creature. I can feel the changes in me, beginning to fasten, becoming substantial. I have to prevent it from rising any farther out of the waters; I will throw myself into the nearby ocean, diving as deep as I can, taking it with me and binding it again to the unfathomable depths.

A marginal note in a different, younger handwriting read:

I guess it wasn’t one of my best ideas to tag the new Cthulhu poster on the bathroom mirror. Well, now I know…

August 5, 1993