A day in the life

You ever read any Lovecraft?

Who?

Lovecraft.

Never heard of him. What'd he write?

Horror stories.

Never been into horror stories.

Shame. He created an entire alternate universe filled with elder gods. Mostly set in New England, which I always found odd because I never found New England to be a dark and scary place. But he did.

Never been there.

Old country, old stones scraped down to bare bones by glaciers during the ice ages. Ocean, lakes, rivers, trees, and granite. Old country.

Seen pictures.

I spent summers there growing up. Mostly I remember sunlight on water, and invisible air.

Invisible air?

Yeah, air that you can't see...

No smog.

No smog... except for the mill towns.

Mill towns?

Pulp mills, paper mills. Cut down the forest and convert it into toilet paper. White paper. bleached it with sulphur dioxide. What a stink. Eat the paint right off  your car.

Didn't folks complain?

"Son, that's the smell of money."

Ah....

This place makes me think of Lovecraft's New England, it's always night and cold, wonder if he'd been here sometime. Wandering around. Getting ideas for stories. 'Cept his dark places were full of things, living things, more or less, and this place is empty.

Except for us.

Yeah, except for us.