Flowers of the Abyss


Thomas Ligotti, "Flowers of the Abyss" in Grimscribe: His Lives and Works (Carroll and Graf: 1991). 

It is the madness of things all the way down; it seems foundational. The threads of this story fold in on themselves in fascinating ways. The solution to the madness is just more madness—the town gathers its torches. 

There is more going on in "Flowers of the Abyss" than I can figure out, but one theme that is worth more thought is the relationship between fear and the impossible/the contradictory/the paradoxical/the mad. That tie between the two is something prevalent in many early works of weird fiction: Arthur Machen, in particular, comes to mind.   

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