The Unseeing Thing

In 1923 my grandfather passed away, and left me his estate. The influenza outbreak of a few years earlier had made me his only living relative, and left us both miserable. Before he died he sent me a series of cryptic notes about a wolf at the top of the stairs.

He was not ripped to shreds. He lost his mind and died out on the estate in his nightclothes. Of course I do not mean to disparage his character; it was 1923. It had been a strange and testing ten years for both of us. He was left alone in a large house, and had buried his wife and offspring and I'd buried my siblings and parents. My father's funeral was the last time we saw each other.

He tended to ramble about an unseeing black canid, that would perch upon the stairs. He said he could feel its gaze upon him, constantly judging him, and that it found him unworthy and lacking. This was not superstition. His mind had broken. When he was found frozen solid in a field, his dog was next to him, trying to keep him warm. He had not been torn to shreds, or consumed in any way.

The simple creature he had loved so, had loved him so. This blind dog could see only him, while he saw things no eyes could detect. A man in control of himself is not found frozen solid in his nightclothes. A man in control of himself does not jump at every noise and scare himself to death at the sight of a dog's cataracts in the dark.

It does bother me though that this dog, this blind dog, can make eye contact with me. She'd been old and blind since I was young. She was always with him, and I can remember feeding her twigs and dried leaves as an infant.

This is when a cold chill goes down my spine. I was born in 1891. As I put down my pen and journal, I am filled with a sense of dread. When I look behind me there will be the unseeing thing, looking for eye contact. I can feel its gaze on me, boring into me, this thing that should not be. I wonder if I should pretend to go to bed, and suddenly I know how my grandfather died.

E: You said "Lovecraft" and I've been dreaming of a blind dog that died a long time ago, and a spooky old house.

You know, something I've noticed about King, and people who like King, is that he is super hit or miss even to the people that like him. Don't know why you're being downvoted for sharing an honest opinion. If you tell me your favorite King book I'll read it if I haven't already.

I think a lot of what I liked about this one is the concept of time itself being obstinate and resistant to change, and that changing something big might cause the universe to come flying apart at the seams. In most time travel you find people trying not to change anything because even the smallest change might have unforeseen consequences for the future. In this one, time itself is the monster, and this faceless, unknowable monster hates change. It'll screw up your whole entire day if you screw around too much.

I also liked the approach to time travel taken, here. No mad doctors, no fancy science, just an inexplicably weird thing. How does it work? It just does. Why? Fuckall if I know.

Anyone else read 11/22/63 by Stephen King? Such a good book. Broke my heart repeatedly.