The Shape of His Bones

“I have said before now that not only are our shadow governments fighting over ancient technologies, a buried resource more precious than oil, but that the end result of all this hidden diplomacy will be the awakening of dread Cthulhu, or some other such entity.”

“Listen, whatever this is,” I sighed, “it’s dead.”

“So’s Cthulhu.”

“Cthulhu’s not real. It’s just fiction. Something somebody wrote.”

“So are we.”

Not knowing how to respond to that, I glanced over at the angel, it’s broken wings held together by hidden wires, its palms turned upward. Even though I had done the reconstruction, I feel a little shock as I realize that the position of the arms and splayed fingers gives the unknown figure a posture of supplicating prayer, like a worshiper about to raise his hands to God.

“One of the lucky ones, on the day of wrath,” he said. “And I don’t think he’ll be all too happy with whoever wakes him from the nepenthe of dreamless dissolution to the memory of all which he has lost.”

“Look at him,” I pointed. “He’s fossilized. There isn’t anything left but the shape of his bones.”

“And our minds to perceive it, and tell stories, and name it, and call it.” He sighed and sat down. “Look at those wings,” he went on. “It could never fly; not naturally. Look at it and tell me that’s a result of evolution.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in—”

“But you do. I’m a mathematician, and I don’t believe in one and a gazzilion chance meeting of another one and a trazzilion chance. And I’m enough of a philosopher to say that chance doesn’t become meaning. That thing is real, but not of nature. Look at it. It’s a thing from our mind, the connection of the human form with the avian, to signify and project some meaning onto the airy hosts which once ruled and devoured mankind. It’s closer to a sculpture than a fossil; it’s a fossil of what man once perceived of the invisible.”

I study the bones a bit.

“That’s always your problem,” I say. “You’ll have some deep insight, but you smother it in your phantasies. It’s really not natural, not evolution, is it?”