[ WP ] H.P . Lovecraft was a racist bastard who never even tried to understand us .

The... *thing*, there was no real word for what it was, took a long drag on my last cigarette. 
 
 `` Damn good stuff, this'' it said, considering the cigarette with a bulbous black eye, `` I'll tell you, you ca n't find anything to smoke down there.'' 
 
 Down there. The ocean floor. *Our* ocean floor. This *thing* claimed that was where he was from. It was, in a way, like a person, but at the same time so horrifying and monstrous that nobody in their right mind would have called it such. It would have been more than six feet tall, if it stood upright, but in the hours I had spent with it it was almost always hunched down on all fours, its webbed hands and feet splayed flat against the ground. Now we sat together, it on the floor and I in my shabby wooden chair, in a small confined room, and I watched as it continued to turn my cigarette over in its four slick fingers. 
 
 It looked aquatic, that was for sure. It had the webbed hands and feet, and those huge black eyes you see watching Discovery Channel at four in the morning. It had one, long, pointy red fin that stretched from the top of its head down to the base of its spine, and a wide, lip-less mouth that seemed to divide its head in two when it spoke. Two rows of sharp, pointed teeth stuck out at all sorts of odd angles when it smiled. 
 
 I gave a shudder, remembering the look of that smile. 
 
 I attempted to speak, but my nerves got to me, and all I got out was something halfway between a grunt and a squeak. It's face quickly turned toward me. `` Right'' it said, `` you were saying?'' 
 
 I swallowed hard and gathered up what little nerves I had left, and spoke, `` You... you were telling me a-about your...'' I paused, trying to think of a word besides'people' -- I refused to call them that, `` *kind*?'' 
 
 It tilted its head up toward me, and made a clicking sound at the back of its throat. `` What? What do you need me to tell you? We've been introduced before. You lot ran into another intelligent species on the same planet you and *you did n't even write it down? *'' 
 
 It was hard, listening to it speak. Its tones were all wrong, and the facial expressions did n't make sense. I never realized how much we relied on that for communication. 
 
 `` Well... this man, this'Lovecraft', you told us about... he did write it down. But, well, we thought it was just a *story*.'' 
 
 I spent the next few hours explaining the stories of `` Dagon'' and `` The Call of Cthulhu'' to this creature, at the end of which he demanded to be brought a copy of the books. He seemed adamantly opposed to believing me. 
 
 He, am I calling it'he' now? He called me back the next day. 
 
 `` THIS IS BULLSHIT!'' He roared at me, before I even sat down. 
 
 `` Wh -- what? What's wrong?'' 
 
 He slammed the stories we had printed out for him down on the ground in front of me. 
 
 `` Let me tell you about what *really* happened with this Lovecraft asshole!'' he said. The anger was so different from anything I had seen out of him before, I could n't keep my cool. I backed toward the door and twisted the handle, but it was locked. I looked toward the one-way glass wall across the room, and made sure my face told the men back there exactly how uncomfortable I was with this, before I crossed the room and sat back down in my wooden chair. 
 
 As I sat, he gave me a look that I imagine was a glare, but it was rather hard to tell without eyebrows or lids. 
 
 `` It was all about... Oh, I guess it was a hundred years ago now... you lot have a word for that...'' He trailed off, as if trying to remember. 
 
 `` A century?'' I asked, trying to be helpful. 
 
 `` That's it! A century. It was about a century ago. I was still only about as three *olmalcks* tall'' I winced at the harsh clicking pronunciation of what must have been a native word, `` at the time, but you can bet I remember it. Cthulhu, he was our President at the time, had declared that there would be an expeditionary mission to the surface. We would make contact with the land dwellers. The whole seafloor was talking about it. This was as big for us as you lot going to the moon!'' He sat back further on his stout hind legs, and toyed with his fingers, while he looked at them. 
 
 Recognizing the habit, I offered him another cigarette, which he quickly took and held out for me to light. Christ, I was going to give our first contact lung cancer. 
 
 `` Right'' he said, his mood seeming mollified by the cigarette, `` It was a huge deal! Well, they went, sure enough, and they were gone for *years*. Eventually, they did come back, and more than that, they brought one of you lot back too! It was that Lovecraft fellow. He looked scared out of his skin. You'd think they had just stuffed him into a tank and dragged him down there by the look of him, but when he was asked he claimed he was a leader. I was working for our governments department of upper-seal-level relations at the time, dealing mostly with dolphins and such, but they called me in for this. He claimed he had some kind of diplomatic significance. That we could n't kill him. Like we wanted to, I mean, he just met us! How can you pass that kind of judgement on someone you've only just met?'' He slapped his free hand quickly against the floor, in what I assume was a gesture of anger. 
 
 He took another drag on the cigarette, and attempted to blow a smoke ring into the air, as he'd seen me do the day before. Without lips, the attempt did n't go well. He stared, in what seemed a frustrated way, at the thin wavering lines of ash as they lingered in the air. 
 
 `` So we thought we were lucky as can be!'' He jumped suddenly back into the telling, as if he had just remembered I was there, `` I mean, we go up to the surface and the very first human we meet is a world leader! What are the chances? Well, before we even know what's what he was all over the news, saying that he would do anything we wanted. He was offering to teach us medicine, teach us languages, teach us whatever we wanted! He seemed like such a kind fellow...'' His voice took on a sad note at this, as if he had misjudged. `` We took him up on those offers, and made offers of our own. We showed him all about our people. We taught him our histories, and our language -- well, as well as he could learn it, never got past that horrific accent -- and I thought things were going great! We'd learned so much in the two years he spent down there, and so had he. Eventually, of course, he had to go back. He promised to spread the word about us. To tell everyone. Great fucking job he did of *that! *'' Again, he slapped the ground with his hand. 
 
 This story was getting stranger by the minute, and I was halfway inclined to believe it. Believe it? Christ, what am I thinking. This *thing* ca n't possibly know what it's talking about. I found myself wondering, though, how else it could have learned English. How else could it have known as much about us as it had demonstrated? I turned my attention back toward the creature, who was still talking. 
 
 `` -- Cthulhu was never any kind of threat to you lot! He was a *great guy! * One of the best Presidents we ever had, before he died. He's going down in history. I have no idea what is wrong with that Lovecraft guy, but he lived with us for *two years! * There is no reason he should have thought of us as some kind of horrifying monsters like he told you lot. No reason at all! We're good people! We fight a hell of a lot less than you, that's for sure. That's why it's taken us this long to come back. He told us all about your Great War. Said that the whole world had just erupted into fighting, practically in a day! Do n't know how someone from a race like that could think *we* were the monsters.'' He looked quickly up at me and hastily added on, `` No offense, you see... I'm just a little put-off by that'' he gestured to the stack of paper `` *drivel*'' he finished, apparently struggling with the pronunciation of the word. 
 
 `` I came up here because R'lyeh was looking for another diplomat. An *exchange* this time. they wanted one of your lot to come down to them, while I stay up here. Keep things fair. Now... now I'm not so sure how that's going to work...''
