HP Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror - Weird Tales

58 | H . P . L O V E C R A F T ’S M A G A Z IN E O F H O R R O R
The paper dollars only fall back down onto her face. The
effort is exhausting. So she stops trying.
Dear Kyle, Doesn’t this camel look sweet? But Mido says they are actually
very mean. I didn’t win the belly dancing contest. The girl who did had
been taking lessons. That’s not fair, right? But I did win the mummy contest.
Mido wrapped me up in toilet paper. I had to keep very very still or
I would mess up the paper. Which was hard because it tickled. All this
eating, I’m gaining weight! Mido says it looks good on me, but I wonder
what you’ll think. Oh well. Soon I’ll be finding out. love, Karla
I HAVE to be prepared. I feel so dizzy sometimes now. I can’t
say that I’m frightened. I’m not. Just very sad. It’s such a waste,
after all. And I am bothered that in fact I am already dead to
you. So when they find me. And then when they find you.
What difference will it make? There will be a lot of money.
That’s all.
They may yet come. And if I get my second chance, I
won’t be afraid of what might happen if we met. Maybe you do
not hate me. Maybe you are a better person than that. Maybe
we can have lunch every few months, no strings attached. I
would like that. Very much. It gives me hope to think of it. I
need hope. But I’m rationing it, like the water.
/n the morning of the third day, she can barely hold the
guidebook. But she reads. She has finally found an
explanation for the painting above her head.
The faces are familiar to her. They all have those wide eyes
and mechanical poses, which make the people resemble space
aliens. But they are gods and goddesses, because of the elabo-
Lifeless tomb,
Dusty shrine,
Pallid flesh,
Stagnant wine.
Mausoleum,
Chilled and dank,
Deadened spirits,
Hearts that sank.
Sealed off crypt,
Standing stark,
Buried treasures,
Deadly dark.
Mortuary,
Windows sealed,
Silent slab,
Wounds unhealed.
rate ornaments on their heads. Two are seated in thrones, looking
at a balance scale, where a heart is being weighed against a
feather. The feather is the Feather of Truth. The heart is the
seat of intelligence. (The Ancient Egyptians paid so little attention
to people’s brains that they did not save them in canopic
jars.) If the heart is heavier than truth, the person is guilty and
that heart is fed to the crocodiles. But those found worthy were
led to the presence of Osiris and allowed to begin the process
of resurrection.
WHEN you find this, you should know. I remember. The last
Saturday I had you. We went to the Empire State Building.
That’s where you saw the pictures of the Wonders of the
Ancient World. In the lobby, we waited on that long line. I was
trying to show you the pyramid. But you weren’t interested.
You said you wanted to go home. You missed your mommy. I
told you I was your mommy. But you screamed no.
I took you straight home. Somehow I never saw you again.
And so I never got the chance to say that I was afraid you
would always like the new wife better. I couldn’t bear being
hated by you.
I am not afraid now. It’s a little easier, thinking how you
will read this. How you might gather up all my pieces and make
sense of them. If you will
WHEN they found her on the fifth day, she was still holding a
little rock in her hand. It had nothing drawn on it, nothing written,
it wasn’t even sharp as a shard. But they put it in the box
with her other belongings and her son kept it, never knowing
why it was important. n
C R A F T S M #LSJNC= ,C@? A G A Z I N E
"9 *),, "!5-!..
Psychic prison,
Oppressive stare,
Waking nightmare,
Beyond repair.
Cloistered cave,
Hollow halls,
Infertile chambers,
Barren walls.
Frozen fortress,
Enclosed in space,
Inverted time,
Forgotten face.
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