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Nov. 29th, 2007 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gone_byebye14 North Moore Street, Manhattan
November 29, 2007
Wednesday
Ray had a policy of not listening to Christmas music until Thanksgiving Day or later. When he was a kid, his mother always said that that was the proper day to start the holiday season. For all that a mutual decision before Ray and Catherine were even born meant that nobody in the Stantz household followed any particular religion, Christmas music was one of those things that just seeped in through the cracks. It couldn't really be helped, and the 'no television until you're five, and then only an hour a week' policy cut down on a lot of the garbage that went with the season in other people's households. Christmas music was meant to start on Thanksgiving, no earlier, as a similar means of cutting down on possible toybegging and the like.
When Ray grew up he found out that most of the rest of the world had no such policy. Christmas music happened earlier, a lot earlier, and just kept going and going and going. The first time Ray discovered that fact he sort of liked it, but by the second year it felt all wrong, and by the third year he was reflexively refusing to so much as listen to the radio until Thanksgiving itself. It wasn't Scroogery, it was just a matter of wanting the radio to shut up until a more seemly time.
Some years, Thanksgiving came a little too early for his musical tastes. 2007 was one of those years. Ray simply refused to turn on the radio for anything except the classical stations and 1010 WINS, since they only played music as part of their commercials. Anyone who argued with him got a Look- and what a Look they got! One of the unexpected payoffs of Ray's time in Arkham was twenty-five years' worth of finely honed librarian skills. You didn't argue with that Look if you had any sense at all. You just didn't.
It wasn't until the twenty-ninth of November that Ray was willing to let anyone switch on WLTW in the car. After the first few tense seconds he nodded, and everyone- Ecto included- let out a sigh of relief. Not that they really got to hear much, since they were on their way to a string of vapor removals scattered across sixteen blocks of Jackson Heights, but it was still nice to hear in the increments of time they managed to grab in the car. By the time they finally headed for home, exhausted to the last man (Ecto tactfully avoided ribbing any of them for this), not a one of them so much as noticed what they were hearing any more.
Well. One of them did. As the car wheeled down Canal Street towards Varick, Ecto paused at the sound of the lyrics. "Uncle Egon?" she said quietly.
"Mmm?"
"Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing?"
Egon adjusted his glasses, sat up a little, and frowned at the speaker. "That would depend on what you think you're hearing," he said after a moment.
"I kinda think somebody might've been paying a little too much attention to what you guys did last year on the Space Station when they wrote this."
"Then yes. You are, in fact, hearing exactly what you think you're hearing. Raymond, wake up."
"Wngh?" Ray opened an eye. "What? We're still moving, I don't have to-"
"You don't have to get up. You just have to listen."
Ray's eyes sagged shut for a moment-
"-ugly Shoggoths!
And horrid Deep Ones, too!
Shub-Niggurath is waking up- and so is Cthulhu!"
-before flying open in that way that generally precedes a statement that one does not need caffeine any more.
"You better watch out,
you better go 'way,
before the big guy comes home from R'lyeh!"
Or, for that matter, ever again.
"The Great Old Ones are coming to town!"
Ray let out a very small whimper as the car pulled into the Firehouse driveway.
November 29, 2007
Wednesday
Ray had a policy of not listening to Christmas music until Thanksgiving Day or later. When he was a kid, his mother always said that that was the proper day to start the holiday season. For all that a mutual decision before Ray and Catherine were even born meant that nobody in the Stantz household followed any particular religion, Christmas music was one of those things that just seeped in through the cracks. It couldn't really be helped, and the 'no television until you're five, and then only an hour a week' policy cut down on a lot of the garbage that went with the season in other people's households. Christmas music was meant to start on Thanksgiving, no earlier, as a similar means of cutting down on possible toybegging and the like.
When Ray grew up he found out that most of the rest of the world had no such policy. Christmas music happened earlier, a lot earlier, and just kept going and going and going. The first time Ray discovered that fact he sort of liked it, but by the second year it felt all wrong, and by the third year he was reflexively refusing to so much as listen to the radio until Thanksgiving itself. It wasn't Scroogery, it was just a matter of wanting the radio to shut up until a more seemly time.
Some years, Thanksgiving came a little too early for his musical tastes. 2007 was one of those years. Ray simply refused to turn on the radio for anything except the classical stations and 1010 WINS, since they only played music as part of their commercials. Anyone who argued with him got a Look- and what a Look they got! One of the unexpected payoffs of Ray's time in Arkham was twenty-five years' worth of finely honed librarian skills. You didn't argue with that Look if you had any sense at all. You just didn't.
It wasn't until the twenty-ninth of November that Ray was willing to let anyone switch on WLTW in the car. After the first few tense seconds he nodded, and everyone- Ecto included- let out a sigh of relief. Not that they really got to hear much, since they were on their way to a string of vapor removals scattered across sixteen blocks of Jackson Heights, but it was still nice to hear in the increments of time they managed to grab in the car. By the time they finally headed for home, exhausted to the last man (Ecto tactfully avoided ribbing any of them for this), not a one of them so much as noticed what they were hearing any more.
Well. One of them did. As the car wheeled down Canal Street towards Varick, Ecto paused at the sound of the lyrics. "Uncle Egon?" she said quietly.
"Mmm?"
"Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing?"
Egon adjusted his glasses, sat up a little, and frowned at the speaker. "That would depend on what you think you're hearing," he said after a moment.
"I kinda think somebody might've been paying a little too much attention to what you guys did last year on the Space Station when they wrote this."
"Then yes. You are, in fact, hearing exactly what you think you're hearing. Raymond, wake up."
"Wngh?" Ray opened an eye. "What? We're still moving, I don't have to-"
"You don't have to get up. You just have to listen."
Ray's eyes sagged shut for a moment-
"-ugly Shoggoths!
And horrid Deep Ones, too!
Shub-Niggurath is waking up- and so is Cthulhu!"
-before flying open in that way that generally precedes a statement that one does not need caffeine any more.
"You better watch out,
you better go 'way,
before the big guy comes home from R'lyeh!"
Or, for that matter, ever again.
"The Great Old Ones are coming to town!"
Ray let out a very small whimper as the car pulled into the Firehouse driveway.
