the parody from 2008

And if you like Lovecraft parody, here’s the one from three years ago (in Collapse IV, I think it was) where I imagined a Lovecraft story set in Cairo: “The Nile Hilton Incident.”

“Though apparently of recent date, the Nile Hilton is built around strange inner corridors of disturbingly ancient provenance. Its membership in the Hilton chain, meant to reassure travelers from the Occident, conceals grotesque legal maneuvers and deviant managerial practices of a purely local origin, and provides cover for a dubious history long expunged from brochures. The doormen are slumped and sullen in a manner not typical of Egypt, while their complexions speak vaguely of a strange admixture of Aztec and Polynesian blood not consonant with the known history of the city.

Unnoticed by the casual witness, the building itself embodies subtle though monstrous distortions of sound engineering principle. Though the outer walls seem to meet at solid right angles, the hue of the concrete departs from accustomed values in a manner suggestive of frailty or buckling. The gaping air-shafts are striking for an edifice of such late construction, and seem fitted to an age when consumption and leprosy were still in abundance. For unknown reasons, several of the fire escapes would appear to issue beneath the surface of the ground. And though the rear façade displays no evident structural flaws, there is a sense of looming collapse in the area; one arising less from visual clues than from certain peculiarities of sound and odour which the management has refused to acknowledge. It is here that a faint but incessant thumping or scraping noise is combined with a scent joining the aroma of sandalwood to one oddly reminiscent of the corpses of bovines. In response to occasional complaints, the concierge makes ostentatious show of despatching inspectors; yet something in the rhythm of his response gives the unwonted impression of deceit.”