Sunday Cthulhu

To bring back an ancient tradition:

It was the third day of Alfred and William’s thirty-first harvest as neighbours. Both hoped it would be their last – as they had for two decades.

Their time was split. Half was spent staring at the other, either in the eyes or in the back, droning along their rows of wheat. The other half was a blessed relief: their tractors carried them away to the furthest ends of their fields.

Unknown to either, they had each spent long hours prowling around the other’s home, shotgun in hand. In the end both men were too stubborn to surrender by being the one who pulled the final straw.

Without warning each man’s engine stalled.

At that same moment, in a small off-off-Broadway theater, the men’s ex-wives were holding hands and watching a terrible play. Despite the poor acting and pretentious script, they were smiling.

In the distance dogs and cows began to howl, in Alfred’s chicken coop his two dozen hens dropped dead.

Gouts of dirt began to erupt in each man’s field.

Hay bails, at least a hundred pounds a piece, were tossed into the air and became grassy bombs as they shattered on the earth.

This day, their last, both men would know the horror of Cthulhu.