The hideous animal

[imomus]

This hideous animal, denizen of some ghastly species hinterland between hare and deer, has long been dead. It "lives", stuffed, in a neglected vitrine at the Royal Museum, Chambers Street, Edinburgh and it was there, last month, that I exposed my photographic plate, steadying my apparatus against the cold glass pane lest terror should render the beast's visage even less supportable to my weakening constitution. Ghosting, red eye, shake or motion blur would, I confess, have induced in me an uncanny shudder even more unsettling than the clammy hand which was at that moment gripping my innermost being even as a body-trafficker grips the chill wrist of a half-decayed corpse.

It is rumoured that anyone who gazes too long upon this foul colt, even in photographic form, will be so possessed by the intense spirit of evil lurking in its yellow, ferine eyes that they must needs suffer night sweats and tormented dreams. Some even whisper that the creature's image is cursed; impossible, once seen, to banish from the inner chambers of the mind. That would indeed be unfortunate, for it is further advanced that those who cannot, after precisely forty nights of tossing, neurasthenic fever, squeeze the creature's likeness from their ken must--but no, I cannot credit it, but I will, I must mention it--perish in agony, burnt to death in a mysterious fire of spontaneous origin!

The nocturnal ringing of an infernal telephone! The scabrous scythes of Hades! Hieronymous Rabbit! A wall-eyed imbecile fumbling at the door! The spattered blubber of the murders at the Greyfriars kirkyard! Forgive me, dear reader, for a moment I lost my composure. But not my reason! Being a man of science I must discount all such rumours as the tittle-tattle of the frothing farmhand and the harlot-frisky bickerwench. And yet... and yet... this sinister will'o'thewisp, this vile flibbertigibbet haunts me still and will not leave my mind! The sprite has crept through my dreams for thirty-nine nights now, and will not leave... Even in this drowse which descends upon me, I feel its breath close upon my neck... close and cold... [Here the journal ends. The author was discovered, his corpse a ghastly scorched log, the following morning.]

Comments

[fortglacial.livejournal.com]

must be related to the capybara! but capybaras look a bit nicer.

my forehead's a bit warm

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Madam, if you think my cousin Nathaniel was hounded to his premature death by this



we have nothing further to discuss. Good day!

[spoombung.livejournal.com]

Haaahaaaa!!!

spoof!

[spoombung.livejournal.com]

Wasn't 'spoof taxidermy' (if that's how you spell it) a big thing in the news afew years ago?

Okapi

[jqmark.livejournal.com]

That looks like the young of an Okapi!

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

My little dog barks ferociously and banishes the horrid thing!

[kementari2.livejournal.com]

An animal resembling a capybara has turned you into something resembling Lord Whimsy. Odd, indeed. I expect there will be a worldwide shortage of chartreuse if this keeps up.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Whimsy is an impostor! Even a scullery maid knows there is no aristocracy in the New World.

[piratehead.livejournal.com]

I beg to differ. In Boca Raton (which is sort of like Lichtenstein, except with more Jaguars and palm trees) dwells the fabled Countess Henrietta de Hoernle (http://www.northwood.edu/aboutus/distinguishedwomen/00/index.asp?section=2002Awardees&subsection=CountessHenriettadeHoernle&nosub=no). Though the philanthropic countess may also be the fabrication of a taxidermist (http://www.bambiwithlove.com/page30.shtml).

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

(Sigh.)

W

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

My neighbor Earl would be very hurt by your comment.

There have been instances outside of colonial lore when the dregs and upstarts of European nobility (read: the interesting ones) have graced our shores:

Joseph Bonaparte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bonaparte) (eldest brother of Emperor Napoleon and onetime King of Spain and Naples) lived for 17 years on his Bordentown, New Jersey estate. He is said to have seen the Jersey Devil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Devil) while hunting one evening. His mansion, only 15 minutes from my door, still stands.

And let us not forget another dodgy yet titled sort who lived amongst the rabble, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. (http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/oisteanu/oisteanu5-20-02.asp#1)

W

[(Anonymous)]

And let us not forget another dodgy yet titled sort who lived amongst the rabble, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.

Thank you for that truly fascinating link. She seems very, very German.

[(Anonymous)]

Have you noticed that titled sorts often are quite dodgy?

bluebloodcurdling!

[(Anonymous)]

if whimsy were cthulhu, this would be one of his nephews...

[ximnot.livejournal.com]

I think I got attacked by a pack of those a while ago. Or it might have been a dream...

[ohnefuehlen.livejournal.com]

Been hitting the Lovecraft again?

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Your are either trying to prove to us, sucessfully I might add, that you could make a living as a writer of fiction, or the cabin fever up there in whatsit has been getting to you.

The style recalls Poe, or Melville as parodied by David Mitchell in the first part of Cloud Atlas.

[monkeygirlxx.livejournal.com]

clearly this were a wampyr capybara, or else your cousin was a vegan. because capybara - when properly prepared - looks and tastes just like a prime beef steak.

mm, a large herd of beef steak.

still, that is a hideous, loathesome, fulminous beast. what have they been feeding that poor vitamin-starved vegetarian, people?

DUNH-DUNH DUNNNNNH!

[jimyojimbo.livejournal.com]

Ach, it's just a really ugly donkey. You never been to Blackpool?

[moose-noise.livejournal.com]

Looks suspiciously like this beast, alive and well in Paisley's Barshaw Park. Of course, all residents of Paisley have that tormented look about them.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Ouch, my immortal soul!

[cementimental.livejournal.com]

Terrifying!

[carefulcareful.livejournal.com]

let you and i be friends, o good sir capybara!



sincere,
tufted deer

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Come now, I think it is a rather handsome, if rough, beast.

[vinylboy20.livejournal.com]

Scaaary stuff!

[hateforblayne.livejournal.com]

Are we entering an age where we'll be writing a new necronomicon?

I burt my other copy in a coffee can.

[(Anonymous)]

I suggest, this pretty animal never really existed but is a mix of various animals, put together by an ambitioned museum attendant back in 1864. The spectators deranged feeling stems from the collective-animals inner yearning for falling into pieces again.

Sublime...

[thetemplekeeper.livejournal.com]

The most sublime thing about this beast, stuffed though it may be, is the extraordinarily suggestive length of its eyelashes. It is as though, despite everything, it believes itself to be attractive.

Weegeesque

[xyzedd.livejournal.com]

Have you and young Master Crisp been imbibing the absinthe whilst coaxing the planchette to ventriloquize Le Fanu? Mind the ectoplasm, lads; it stains. Art is just spiritual taxidermy.

[(Anonymous)]

We can only hope.

[emobus.livejournal.com]

I have always wanted to get a pet and name it Hieronymous. Is that too pretentious?

...the esquilax, a legendary horse with the head of a rabbit, and the body... of a rabbit!

two words

[(Anonymous)]

jimmy carter

[onionist.livejournal.com]

I wonder what kind of sound it made?

[(Anonymous)]

it looks very matthew barney

[(Anonymous)]

you're all wrong...it's just cutest wee thingie