The fourth story from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, originally published in 1895.

The book is a collection of short stories in the genre of weird fiction, strange tales with slightly morbid tendencies. It inspired authors like H. P. Lovecraft in their works.

The text in full can be found on Project Gutenberg.

The King in Yellow, (4) The Yellow Sign

“Let the red dawn surmise
What we shall do,
When this blue starlight dies
And all is through.”

I

There are so many things which are impossible to explain! Why should certain chords in music make me think of the brown and golden tints of autumn foliage? Why should the Mass of Sainte Cécile bend my thoughts wandering among caverns whose walls blaze with ragged masses of virgin silver? What was it in the roar and turmoil of Broadway at six o’clock that flashed before my eyes the picture of a still Breton forest where sunlight filtered through spring foliage and Sylvia bent, half curiously, half tenderly, over a small green lizard, murmuring: “To think that this also is a little ward of God!”

Scorch Atlas: Want for Wish for Nowhere

A story from Scorch Atlas, a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books.

Recorded on location on a windy shore.

My first child splurged inside me. He ate what I ate - ate it all. There never was enough: my milk, my eggs and honey, my hunks of ham and strange things craved. I picked gnats out of the carpet; chewed through the shower curtain; swallowed blood. Baby hungry. Baby want.

Scorch Atlas: Glass

A story from Scorch Atlas, a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books.

Recorded on location on a windy shore.

The glass came first in early morning. I watched through the only safe storm window. The sound of sky come ripping - some sour music box, cranked to crack. The panes shattered on impact, each giving off a second spray. We watched the dead yards, already buried, now held under new refracted light.

This is the second reading of this story, the first one can be found here.

Scorch Atlas: Glass

A story from Scorch Atlas, a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books.

Recorded in a quiet, mostly empty room.

The glass came first in early morning. I watched through the only safe storm window. The sound of sky come ripping - some sour music box, cranked to crack. The panes shattered on impact, each giving off a second spray. We watched the dead yards, already buried, now held under new refracted light.

Scorch Atlas: Damage Claim Questionnaire

A story from Scorch Atlas, a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books.

Recorded in a quiet, mostly empty room.

Where were you that evening?

My hair was six feet long. I sat wrapped inside it in the kitchen - a gown of deceased cells. Outside the kids from next door beat the house and brayed. Days before, I'd watched their father swan dive from their roof onto the lawn. Their father, the electrician, with the tumor on his cheek. Such grace as he held his hands together and aimed straight for the dirt - he knew already what was coming - he'd sensed the ruining air.

Scorch Atlas: Gravel

A story from Scorch Atlas, a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books.

Recorded on location on a windy, stoney beach.

The day the sky rained gravel I watched it drum my father's car. A Corvette he'd spent years rebuilding. He liked to watch his face gleam in the hood. He kissed the key before ignition. He read the owner's manual aloud. When he lost the strength to stand he left the car uncovered in the street. Each morning I took a Polaroid and we tacked it to his headboard—a panorama of slow ruin.

Scorch Atlas: Smoke House

A story from Scorch Atlas, a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books.

Recorded on location in an office lot.

Nights at home now the house sat wordless, so still the mother could not sleep. The bed cramped small and dirty; the air above her suffocating. The mother in her nightgown, tight, worn ratty where she rubbed her fingers in worry circles. She got up and left her husband crimped with his back toward her on the mattress and went downstairs. She went through the kitchen stuffed full of flowers, long rotten, stinking.

Scorch Atlas: Dust

A story from Scorch Atlas, a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books.

Recorded on location near a distant shore.

Dry flakes of charcoal came big as men's heads, slather from some great fire overhead. The ash rained black into the evening, clung against the mud as some new second skin. Each inch sat spackled, crusted over. Each inhale brought a mouthful. The streets intoned with choral wheeze and incensed hiccup.

Scorch Atlas: The Disappeared

A story from Scorch Atlas, a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books.

Recorded on location in a secluded residential area.

The year they tested us for scoliosis, I took my shirt off in front of the whole gym. Even the cheerleaders saw my bruises. I'd been scratching in my sleep. Insects were coming in through cracks we couldn't find. There was something on the air. Noises from the attic. My skin was getting pale.

I was the first.

Scorch Atlas: Water

A story from Scorch Atlas, a 2009 short story collection written by Blake Butler and published by Featherproof Books.

Recorded on location in a secluded residential area.

We watched our dirt go white, our crop fields blacken. Trees collapsed against the night. Insects masked our glass so thick we couldn't see. The husks of roach and possum filled the gutters. Every inch mucked with white film. All spring the sky sat stacked with haze so high and deep it seemed a wall, a lidless cover sealing in or sealing out. Those were stretched days, croaking.