I don't know, but Love:

Her lips are a stop light at 2:00 AM.
Sleepy drivers glance at her for direction.
Before letting them on their way, she holds them close, and,
With a blink, the cars’ brake lights extinguish.

By the Linden Tree

I will sit down and lie, and lie downwind from the linden tree. A breeze will waft a subtle, sweet scent just enough to make the stars seem slightly brighter, and my sleeping bag a little warmer, and the rustling bushes a bit softer.

And when the light spears through the branches and leaves, and the morning birds pierce my groggy soul, and the wind all but dies, I'll go back to smell the linden and I'll never leave.

It Is Lovecraft

From the surface, daylight casting shallow shadows on the rocks and dunes, nothing appears strange or weird to the busy traveler. It is only if one stoops down and notices a square rigidness in the sand that suspicion is aroused, and even then, it is only the obsessed that will uncover the depth of this discovery, and of those that reach this far, fewer still will realize that this once unambiguous bump is just the tip of a weathered obelisk, covered by time’s endless dust and granules. To the truly obsessed and brave lies an even greater discovery some fifty feet down from the summit of the monument: at the base, there is an opening up into the structure, such that sand cannot reach up and fill the interior. Stumbling inward, one comes across a long, infinite cavern running deep into the earth, far below the layers of sand, towards an unknown destination.

Once beginning this quest, there is no hope left of recovering. The locals hired as diggers will scatter once they gaze, agape, on the chasm that funnels up into the jet structure. The peasants, especially, know the worth of their sanity, and would never risk it for some Western explorer’s wanderlust.

Deep into this hollowed earth, all torches fade, all flashlights die, and fear overcomes everything that makes up the being of mankind’s intrepid journeyer:

In this subterranean adventure, extruding beyond the silhouette of the monstrosity’s countenance, never seen, never noticed, and never conceived, its eyes gore cerebrums into frenzy— Is this chill, felt running across arms as hairs jump, from a numbing surface breeze that’s weaved down into this labyrinth, or from the manifestation of a malevolent geist, intent only on short-circuiting the core and burning blisters into the heart as the flow of blood exceeds the body’s capabilities to pump?

It is throbbing. It is dark, and it is still throbbing. The beat of this erratic bass cannot be of the body—the spirit is pouncing from wall to ceiling, up and down the endless winding tunnel, shuffling and grunting a syncopation of thuds and thumps. No heart drives these clashes. Indeed, it could not inspire such agony as to make rain fall in this cave. If this sweat’s intent was to merely cool a sweltering soul, surely it would not boil skin, and surely it would not force dread in a fiery glaze of anxiety. This rain is not rain; it is a figment of too many hours spent below ground, and a creation of despair, manipulating only sweat for the berserker that stalks. Still meticulously pounding rhythm into the stones that hold the arches of the cavern together, it menaces. Every fourth thud is louder, as if the underdweller conducted his steps before an agonizing symphony. Crescendo and decrescendo stitch the shadowy concourse together.

As the being rips life from the hammering chest, and blood flows inevitably further than any sound representative of humanity could explore, the heart fades alongside the being’s footsteps, and the beads of brine along the skin evaporate, leaving only a moist salty precipitate that glazes and would glow if light was ever cast on it in this bottomless stony jungle.

____

Notes:

This takes heavily from H.P. Lovecraft, as referenced in the title. The foundation of this lies in his short story, The Nameless City.

This is a work in progress and will be edited and updated.