Fossiloctopus Read Online Free PDF Page B

they must not turn back to the city, not even for a peek.  The Lord was going to destroy the city, and they expected Lot and his family to leave it all behind them.
    About halfway across the plain, as the ravens, sensing something spectacular about to happen, headed towards the city, Lot’s wife decided to backturn.  Thankfully, in her sudden circling swoosh of skirts, the key flew out of her pocket and landed near her husband, who dutifully picked it up as a token in remembrance of her – she had turned to salt, he somehow sensed, before the key even hit the ground.  So it was.
    The group retired to a cave in the amber glow of the burning plain.  Once inside, Lot, in his sorrow, drank himself into a stupor and slept on the floor.  He awoke the next morning to find his girls moping guiltily in the corner.  When asked what the problem was, both ran off into the cinder fields that once surrounded his fair city. 
    Lot sighed – it had been a hard day and night.  The magnitude of the things he had seen weighed on him, and he questioned his grip on reality.  Then he remembered the key, his only anchor to sanity, given all he had been through.  He reached into the folds of his garments.  Gone.  The girls had taken the key from him, right out of his pocket.  His grip on reality slipped ever so slightly.  He didn’t know where the key had been, nor where it was, nor whether it was ever really there at all.
    It is now stuck in Palestine.
     
    The Schloss Key
     
    We very much want you to have it, but it is clearly not yours to have.  It is beautiful to behold.  You must behold it.  You will behold it, hold it.  Soon.  Soon.
    Perhaps.
    If you stay within procedure.
    The handle is black and green apple, a representation of a beetle with the same fruit embedded in its putrescent broken back.  The tongue of the beetle – and of the key – is in the form of an etiolated Hungerkunstler, though few people care, past a certain point.  It is beautiful, indeed.  But they simply do not care.
    You have submitted the requisite paperwork.  You are to be commended, K.  No, you are to be rewarded.  Behold the key.  Is it not as beautiful as we had given you cause to imagine it to be?  You will find we know much.  We share what we know.  Of you it is only required to submit to our good judgment.
    Place the key near a lock – any lock will do – and you will notice the tongue of the key changing shape, metamorphosing into the proper zig-zag combination, dimension, and thickness needed to open the lock.  This key will open anything.  Anything.
    You thrust toward a lock, watching the Hungerkunstler contort in a writhing dance of obedience to the approaching lock’s tumbler.  You guess – for you must, it is not given to you to know – that the bone-breaking spins and arches of the key’s tongue must match the lock.  Somehow, you just know, though you do not really know.
    The key slides in, a perfect match.
    Then flies out, as if from a gun, and tocks you in the forehead, leaving a raspberry smudge that will become, before the night is through, a small black bruise atop a knot.
    You push the key in again.
    And you find yourself with a sister bruise-to-be.  You are a holy, horned Moses-in-waiting.
    You look around for the key, the beautiful key, but it is not beholden to you.  It is simply gone.
    As we said, it is clearly not yours to have.
    You will ask “where has it gone”?
    We will answer: “This key was last seen on the streets of Prague, beneath a headless statue, where it was picked up by a man.  Man?  How does one know?  Perhaps it was several men, a mob, who can tell? – wearing a black suit, polished shoes, and a bowler hat.”
    This is so far as you know.  Please apply to section K for more information.
     
    Penderekey
     
    One feels the Penderekey, one does not see it, though it has been seen.  It is an elusive thing – the object – but its presence is clearly felt.  Thankfully, this