Vomb

From Fancyclopedia 3
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From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959
"Dear Jack: I am surprised at ya. However, -- when anything is sort of -- well -- you know -- then it's vombic. Hence VOMBUS one who is vombic; Vombii plural of vombus. The Vombists are those belonging to the Society for the Advancement of Vombii...yrs, Jack Gillespie."

Another Futurian explained it thus: "If that chair you're sitting on turned into a stack of Bab-O at 15¢ for two cans, that would be Vombish."

However, Ol' Doc Lowndes gave the real lowdown in Spaceways. "The vombis is an entity of intelligence fully equal, if not superior, to that of man, of a composition quite unknown tho some have made guesses, and possessing the ability to change form at will. So excellent a likeness can the vombis assume to any object or living thing, that, except in cases of malignancy [the vombii are not by nature malignant], it cannot be detected. One might scoff at this, and say, by virtue of this statement, the very typewriter on which I compose this article may be a vombis... for all I know, this typewriter is a vombis; my only reason for doubting it is, that in all the years I have known it, it has never acted contrary to the mechanical nature of typewriters." He goes on to cite cases in which vombii have taken the form of rocks, trees, swords, and even the water of a swimming pool. There is a "suggestion that the vombii are superhuman entities, well aware of man's existence, who are using man merely as a means of amusement or experimentation. It is they who have been the source of all man's legends and fairy tales, and they are what men have described as demons, ghouls, werewolves, vampires, elementals and wizards." Demoniac possession and the evocation of familiars are also mentioned; "Further things that the 'Song of Yste' [one of the sources of his data, the Necronomicon being another] mentions are too soul-shattering to be described here." In other words, the vombii are mighty medicine.

Lowndes supplied a brief glossary of vombic terms, exempla gratia: Vombitate, to go around doing weird sinister things; Vombic, weird and sinister, pertaining to the vombis, unpredictable; Vombulate, to put on a Vombic attitude without actually doing anything vombic; Vombitoria, a vombic collection or repertoire; Evombulate, to give a vombic meaning to anything theretofore not considered vombic; Devombulate, to divest of vombic meaning; vombitor, a devotee of vombicism; le vombiteur (for those who prefer the French), see vombitor.

Later Lowndes traced the word to the Cro-Magnon root "waahmb", indicated a sinister and incomprehensible emotion of fear or dread, which they associated with the Fortean rulers of the planet when they gained some slight awareness of them. A Roman scholar made up the Latin form, "vombis", whence "vombicism", the study and following, serious or whimsical, of things vombic. Lowndes published Le Vombiteur weekly for many issues, eventually letting it fade as most newszines do.

See Le Vombiteur.



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