Flowers of the Abyss


Thomas Ligotti, "Flowers of the Abyss" in Grimscribe: His Lives and Works (Carroll and Graf: 1991). 

It is the madness of things all the way down; it seems foundational. The threads of this story fold in on themselves in fascinating ways. The solution to the madness is just more madness—the town gathers its torches. 

There is more going on in "Flowers of the Abyss" than I can figure out, but one theme that is worth more thought is the relationship between fear and the impossible/the contradictory/the paradoxical/the mad. That tie between the two is something prevalent in many early works of weird fiction: Arthur Machen, in particular, comes to mind.   

Comments

Post a Comment

What did you think about this story?

Popular posts from this blog

Children of the Night

Image
Stephen Graham Jones, "Children of the Night" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). This is a story involving the literal collision of subculturesă…ˇbigfoot hunters, truckers, and monsters.  Tol's theories and speculations about monsters are wonderfully absurd, but the truth is stranger and even more ridiculous. When monster kinds cooperate with one another, we don't have a chance against them.
Read more

You Have What I Need

Image
  Ian Rogers, "You Have What I Need" in Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). The hospital is a strange place. Apart from a war zone, you are unlikely to be physically closer to horror than when sitting in the ER waiting room of a hospital. There is nasty shit going on all around you—from blood, viscera, and death to injustice, psychological trauma, and financial ruin. It is a place where strange things happen, a place where both lives are saved and tragedies occur.  But people (and monsters, disease, and contagion) show up at the hospital thinking they are going there because it has what they need . It can feel like the last hope; the hospital can fix it. Most of the time, what you think will happen differs from what really happens. It is a place that often frustrates expectations and sometimes delivers pleasant surprises.  “You Have What I Need” takes up this weirdness of the hospital from the perspective of those who work there, those who v
Read more

The Smell of Waiting

Image
Kaaron Warren, "The Smell of Waiting" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). This story has a different take on returning the dead to life. Life isn't something to be restored, but rather, death is a thing or a presence that can be taken away. Of course, once you've taken it away, you've got to store it somewhere! What did you think about the role that Andrea played in the process as opposed to the role that the dog played in the process?
Read more