A playwright, much enamoured with tragedies based on true stories, once tried to write a melancholy play about the Cellingo. He worked on it for years, travelling around the world to interview people who had heard the Cellingo play, spending nights furiously scribbling down potential lines and characters. He went everywhere to collect his facts, from the Mountains of Oddness to the Splendid Sea, from the little towns of Arizim to endless Oneiropolis itself; he spared no expense in his pursuit of the true tragedy of the Cellingo.

But again and again he failed to find something useful; again and again he threw out his notes. Sometimes he thought there was simply nothing tragic about a flamingo that travels the world playing the cello. But that can’t be, he told himself. The essential ennui of existence is well-established. Everything is flawed and ultimately pointless, and anyone who does not see the tragedy inherent in the world, the inevitable triumph of the darkness of human nature, is a fool. Not that the Cellingo was human, of course, but that didn’t enter into it. There must be some angle, some way of looking at this, some way of deconstructing this creature’s narrative that would show that it was all just tragic self-delusion.

Unfortunately, the facts didn’t agree with his intentions. Everyone who had heard the Cellingo play was ecstatic about it – “you’ve never heard a cello played until you’ve heard it played by a flamingo!” An alarming number of people claimed to have been visited by the Cellingo when they were deeply depressed, even suicidal, and its beautiful music had given them hope and strength. The first time he heard that story he thought he’d finally found the right approach: something about the bittersweet illusions we must embrace to keep from going mad, even though in the end our happiness is not real. Or something like that. But then it turned out that the person he was talking to really was happy, and that the strength and hope they had derived from the Cellingo’s music was quite real. Further interviews confirmed this. He was devastated.

After that disappointment he tried to focus on the Cellingo itself. Surely there was something terrible in its past to make it do this, to make it travel around the world like that. Maybe it had been abused, or grown up an orphan, or witnessed some horrific event? But no. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just a regular flamingo with a love for cello music. Not even a hint of something awful. It was infuriating.

He assembled thousands of pages of notes. Descriptions of sightings, of concerts, interviews, sketches. There must be some way of turning this into a good play – a play that would leave audiences confused, puzzled, and vaguely unhappy. He could do it, he knew he could. He rented a small cabin near the Forest of Eyeballs and got to work. He threw out enough ideas for ten plays. He wrote lines, crossed them out, screamed. There was no way of making this work. Even when he filled it up with self-referential passages it still felt genuine.

As he became more obsessed, he stopped paying attention to himself. There was nothing in the world except this play, this awful play that he couldn’t write. He started to deteriorate, mumbling to himself as he slouched around the cabin. Sometimes he cried in his sleep.

One misty morning in the spring, he decided he’d had enough, and he was finally going to kill himself. He’d do it in some odd way, leave behind an incomprehensible poem, and maybe that would be enough to uphold his reputation as a true artist. Some part of him didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to die, but that was just silly. Life was inherently depressing, anyway.

Just as he was about to kill himself, he heard the beating of wings outside, and the sound of something large being set down. He was filled with horror. No, this was too maudlin, too trite! But there it was, on his doorstep: the Cellingo. It began to play, and the music was beautiful; it was so beautiful and it made him so happy that he started to cry.

He cried like a baby for what seemed like hours. When he recovered the Cellingo had left, but he wasn’t sad about that. He burned his notes and went for a walk in the forest. There a witch named Baba Yaga turned him into a newt, and he spent eleven years living in a creek. He wasn’t sad about that, either. Being a newt was fun.

When the spell wore off, he went back home. He tried to write a couple of pessimistic stories, but he just didn’t have it in him anymore. Instead he wrote some very silly limericks, which none of his colleagues liked; nowadays they’re considered classics. One of them is about a flamingo.

—

This entry in the Oneiropolis Compendium was made possible by Ryan.

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Everyone thought they’d figured out the village idiot. Silly creature, mutated and ugly, prone to falling off walls. Someone to be pitied, to be mocked, or to be ignored. In a way more akin to an animal – probably part animal, anyway. Always talking to his pet lizard. Where did he get that thing? Maybe he should’ve been a Mutant Priest of Gloop.

Some people were nicer to him than others, but few ever talked to him; a number of people didn’t even know that he could speak. The nicer folks sometimes brought him food or old clothes to wear, especially when it got cold. It was the right thing to do, their parents had taught them. Their parents, too, had fed and clothed the village idiot. So had their grandparents. In fact, if anyone were to think back, the village idiot had been around an awfully long time.

But one didn’t think about such things. To suggest that anything odd might be going on would be highly improper. The very fact that the village was in the Lands of Dream was vaguely embarrassing. It was all much too mad, really. Maybe that nice Mr. Urizen would finally bring some order.

When the troops came marching in, many in the village cheered. The village idiot was nowhere to be seen.

It took some time for the villagers to realize that the sort of order Urizen brought was not to their liking. They’d always said that foreigners (everyone not from the village) didn’t work hard enough, but when they realized what “working hard enough” entailed, it suddenly came to them that they might have been a little wrong. As the hours on the fields became longer and the time to live what had once been a normal life became shorter, they started to resent the tyrant they had once cheered on, or at least been content to ignore.

But the village idiot was not a friend of the occupation. The village idiot moved in the old streets and the secret muddy places. He spoke to his friends the ravens, and the ravens carried messages to the resistance in the mountains. He danced little dances around the fire, and the soldiers had nightmares. He farted at the mess hall and gave the soldiers diarrhea. When he walked down the street, Urizen’s people stumbled. Sometimes walls fell on them. When they were practicing their archery, he sang a little song, and they all took an arrow in the knee.

He couldn’t defeat an occupation on his own, of course. But he helped. And in time, people woke up, and said “no more!” Then it came in handy that most of the guards were exhausted, bruised and limping. But that’s a different story.

As for the village idiot, he died a tragic, lonely death when – oh come on, of course he didn’t. He went to Oneiropolis University and got a degree in fourth-dimensional literature. Then he went on with his life. Not everyone who looks funny ends badly.

—

This entry in the Oneiropolis Compendium was made possible by a different village idiot.

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There is a city in the depths of the sea, built measureless aeons ago by forces unknown, that is called by the name of R’lyeh. Many stories are told about it, and many terrible moments of its history remembered, but too few now have a clear understanding of its nature and its denizens.

The city’s beginnings, as noted above, are lost to history; in fact they may predate history as we know it. Its houses, made of beautiful stones of varying colours, have been a treasured home to the diverse creatures of the sea for uncounted centuries. R’lyeh has inspired poets and painters alike. There is nothing quite like the way the light of the sun, when the sea is calm, falls gently on the sandy plains below the Mustardy Cliffs as varicoloured jellyfish float above. Visitors from foreign lands always marvel at the unusual colours of the city, at the dreamlike proportions of its architecture.

The city’s most ancient and respected inhabitant is the creature known as Cthulhu, though that name is only a slight approximation of its true name. Cthulhu is the heart and spirit of the city – some even say he is its founder and builder. But none know, for none are entirely certain as to what Cthulhu himself is. The most common belief is that he is one of the Ancient Gods of Outer Darkness who came to live upon the Earth, though the old folks of R’lyeh say that he was already there when the Ancient Ones arrived.

What is certainly known of Cthulhu is that he loves colours, and interesting shapes, and delights in swimming and splashing about. He loves playing with bubbles and observing the silly games fish play; and most of all he loves to settle down to sleep after a long day of games and adventures, and dream of things so strange and wonderful the human mind can barely imagine them.

There was a time, however, when R’lyeh became an entirely different city, a time that stands out like a dark stain in its bright history.

The decline began when a group of fish-beings, often called the Squelchini, began to worship Cthulhu. None had done so before, for his true nature is too strange and wild and silly to worship; but the Squelchini were not concerned with his true nature. Cthulhu, they proclaimed, was a Supreme Being, an avatar of the Infinite Darkness and the Perpetual Grey. His purpose was to obliterate all that is improper in the world: all colour, all sexual delight, all instrumental music. Cthulhu was he who has come to reveal that all is meaningless except the worship of Cthulhu, that all is worthless except faith in Cthulhu. To spread that faith and enforce its principles, they formed the dreaded Moral Reform Committee.

The Squelchini built temples in R’lyeh, and raised statues to Cthulhu on every square. These statues were utterly monstrous, for none can capture the alien grace of Cthulhu as he swims in the Abyss, so the Squelchini declared that all beauty was an affront to Cthulhu, and began to refashion the entire city in the image of their own incompetence. Visitors recoiled in terror at this nightmarish corpse-city in which all the higher pleasures of life were forbidden. One by one the original inhabitants fled to the deeper places of the ocean, unable to adjust to the dreariness, until only the Squelchini remained.

The propaganda of the Moral Reform Committee began to affect Cthulhu himself, and slowly he became the kind of creature they imagined him to be: the Messiah, the Sole Purpose of Everything, whose very existence drained the world of meaning and light. Squelchini were sent out to other underwater cities to proselytize, and the cult of Cthulhu grew.

A long time passed. The power of the Moral Reform Committee became absolute. Finally they declared that Cthulhu’s true purpose was to reign above the sea, in the Land High Above where his Eternal Kingdom lay. So they chanted for Cthulhu to raise the city above the waters, and he did as they told him that he commanded. Immense waves formed as the earth shook, and R’lyeh ascended.

And so the Squelchini, being fish-creatures, died of suffocation.

Cthulhu was confused. His worshippers were all gone, and though he could breathe air, he was not very fond of the cold and miserable place where he had ended up. Had he fulfilled his destiny? Was this his kingdom? He waited for a sign, for some kind of revelation, but there was nothing, so he decided to take nap. Centuries passed as Cthulhu waited in his house in R’lyeh, dreaming.

When he finally awoke, he was disappointed. It was still cold and unpleasant, and he missed his colourful fish-friends. Maybe he didn’t want to be the Messiah after all. Maybe he just wanted to swim and play and observe the infinite patterns of the light.

So he went back to the sea, and took R’lyeh with him. And slowly, carefully, he removed all the nonsense the Squelchini had built, and rebuilt what they had destroyed. It took many human lifetimes until everything had been restored, but Cthulhu is patient. In time he was joined by such of the original inhabitants of the city as still lived, and the descendants of those who did not, and life returned to the once-dead city.

The scars have never quite faded, and there is a fear in the modern city that never existed in the old days – an awareness of how easy it is to fall, how quickly madness can take over. The citizens of R’lyeh know that the lives of our cities are in our hands, and that if we forget to nourish them with beauty and delight, they will become monstrous and turn on us. And I think that is not such a bad thing to be afraid of.

—

This entry in the Oneiropolis Compendium was made possible by Melissa and Gregory Avery-Weir, of Irrsinn.net and Ludus Novus.

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Nobody knew much about the Fish With No Name. Some said he was from a faraway place called Illinois, but that’s all anyone had ever heard about his background. He rarely spoke; mostly because he had no vocal cords, communicating instead via mime. Sometimes people called him Goldie, but that was just a nickname.

His adventures had long since become folk tales and legends. He strode across the history of the west like a mysterious shadow, playing gangs against each other, chasing down wanted men, taking out anyone in his way. His duel with Angel Fries, the greasiest of criminals, had already been depicted in films, songs, even in epic poetry.

Given these facts, and the moral ambiguity of fish being a subject as old as philosophy itself, it is not surprising that the Fish With No Name had tracked down Billy the Squid. After all, the reward was good and the job seemed easy enough.

So there they stood, in that dusty little town in the middle of nowhere, two gunslingers facing off under the scorching midday sun. Who was the faster draw? Who would live, and who would die? Billy the Squid had unmatched agility, but Goldie had the perfectly optimized killing machine that was his body. Who was going to come out on top?

The squid and the fish stared at each other, both strangers to these lands, both having little to lose but their lives. The wind blew. Mumbleweed rolled by, muttering to itself. People hid in their homes, afraid of being accidentally shot down. You could cut the tension with a knife, if you had a tension-cutting knife.

Billy didn’t want to shoot. He’d killed before, but only reluctantly. He had no hatred for the fish. The fish had nothing to do with the tofu ranchers. Besides, he was certain the bounty hunter was better with a gun.

But the fish didn’t move. It squinted mysteriously, observing Billy. The doors of the saloon creaked. The mumbleweed muttered something about noise pollution.

It could’ve gone either way, really. Death walked the desert that day. The air smelled of murder.

The cavalry arrived just in time, like it does in the stories. But what the stories forget to tell you is whose side the cavalry was on, whose side it’s always on. Urizen’s men, mounted on their mechanical horsautomatons, were there to make an example of the town’s citizens for refusing to bow to his demands. They smashed windows, set fire to houses.

And then they made the mistake of shooting at the Fish With No Name.

Five minutes later, Billy and Goldie were methodically shooting the attackers from behind a small shed. Ten minutes later, the attackers were realizing that the battle wasn’t going so well. Fifteen minutes later, every last one of them was dead.

“That is one vicious goldfish,” the mumbleweed said.

Billy the Squid and the Fish With No Name joined forces that day, which was just about the last thing anyone had expected. As has happened so very often, Urizen’s attempts to gain power created new forms of resistance.

The days that followed were tumultuous. The gunslingers waged bloody war on Urizen’s troops, throwing his plans into complete disarray. Many saw them as heroes, but when it turned out that Goldie was actually female, and the two began an unconventional cross-species relationship, they lost many of the supporters they could previously count on. Some ignored them, others angrily denounced them. The only question, some said, was what was worse: a female gunslinger or the possibility of miscegenation?

Goldie and Billy fought like hell. Rarely have two people alone caused such carnage amongst their enemies. Urizen’s commanders feared them, and rightly so: Goldie and Billy made a contest out of how many commanders they could take down. Urizen had to recruit new officers.

They were magnificent in their fight against oppression. Even the people who hated them for their inappropriateness were in awe of them.

In the end they lost, of course. Two people alone cannot win a war. A priest of the Brotherhood of the United Monotheistic Sacrament ratted them out to their enemies. They were surrounded in a small dusty town in the middle of nowhere – they very same one where they had first met, as chance would have it – and gunned down. Their bodies were left to rot in the sun as a warning to those who might follow their example.

When people came out of their homes after the soldiers had left, they found a dead squid gently cradling the broken remains of a fishbowl.

—

This entry in the Oneiropolis Compendium was made possible by Terry Cavanagh, the kindest eyeball in the Lands of Dream.

You too can support the Compendium by keeping its creators from starving