IMADV8
01-11-2008, 02:19 AM
I believe it was in a short story collection, either some kind of years' best anthology or the collected works of some sci fi author. It starts off with the narrator being called up by an old, close friend, who asks him to come over to his apartment immediately. He gets there, and the friend has buckets of plaster (not sure, something like that) sitting around, and is busy putting as much of it as he can into every corner and onto every right angle in the room. The friend asks the narrator to help, as he doesn't have much time, and he needs to get rid of all right angles. The narrator helps, and in the meantime the friend explains.
He'd figured out a way to travel through time (I'm not sure, but I think it was through some kind of trance, and only his mind went through time). He went back as far as he could go, watching all of recorded history go by, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, of life itself, the formation of the earth, then of the solar system, until he finally reached the big bang. Then he realized he could go past even that, and entered what I suppose would be called chaos. There were powerful beings there, older than time and confined there before the beginning of everything we know. They noticed him as soon as he arrived, and as he saw them coming for him he fled back to the present, knowing that they wouldn't stop now that they knew of his existence, they'd follow him and take him back. So he gets back home, and somehow (Maybe this is explained in the story, I can't remember) knowing that they can only travel through right angles, does his best to transform the interior of his apartment into a sphere, at which point he calls the narrator for help. The narrator doesn't really believe all of this, of course, and after helping out he leaves.
After this, I can't quite remember, but a few days or a week or so later, he either heads back to the apartment alone out of concern, or the police contact him and take him there as part of their investigation into the following events. I'm leaning toward the latter. Either way, when he gets there, he finds that the plaster in the corners of the room has all cracked and fallen away, and his friend's headless body lies spread out in the middle of the floor, covered in a fine pink (red?) dust. I believe there was some other kind of mutilation of the body as well, maybe the entrails were hanging out or something. He finds a journal (or maybe the police did, again, not sure) his friend kept the last few days of his life, detailing his fruitless efforts to repair the plaster as the elder beings shook it apart (I think maybe they somehow caused small earthquakes to do this, and the friend noted in the journal that he hadn't thought of them doing that), before finally giving up and waiting in a chair for them to break through. If the police were there, they let the narrator go after he tells them he doesn't know what happened and that his friend was most likely insane.
I'm not sure, but I think after that the narrator realizes the elder beings are coming for him as well, and it ends with him plastering all the right angles in his place as well. Or maybe not, I dunno. But yeah, I'm dying to read this story again, so if anyone knows of it, I'd really appreciate the help.
He'd figured out a way to travel through time (I'm not sure, but I think it was through some kind of trance, and only his mind went through time). He went back as far as he could go, watching all of recorded history go by, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, of life itself, the formation of the earth, then of the solar system, until he finally reached the big bang. Then he realized he could go past even that, and entered what I suppose would be called chaos. There were powerful beings there, older than time and confined there before the beginning of everything we know. They noticed him as soon as he arrived, and as he saw them coming for him he fled back to the present, knowing that they wouldn't stop now that they knew of his existence, they'd follow him and take him back. So he gets back home, and somehow (Maybe this is explained in the story, I can't remember) knowing that they can only travel through right angles, does his best to transform the interior of his apartment into a sphere, at which point he calls the narrator for help. The narrator doesn't really believe all of this, of course, and after helping out he leaves.
After this, I can't quite remember, but a few days or a week or so later, he either heads back to the apartment alone out of concern, or the police contact him and take him there as part of their investigation into the following events. I'm leaning toward the latter. Either way, when he gets there, he finds that the plaster in the corners of the room has all cracked and fallen away, and his friend's headless body lies spread out in the middle of the floor, covered in a fine pink (red?) dust. I believe there was some other kind of mutilation of the body as well, maybe the entrails were hanging out or something. He finds a journal (or maybe the police did, again, not sure) his friend kept the last few days of his life, detailing his fruitless efforts to repair the plaster as the elder beings shook it apart (I think maybe they somehow caused small earthquakes to do this, and the friend noted in the journal that he hadn't thought of them doing that), before finally giving up and waiting in a chair for them to break through. If the police were there, they let the narrator go after he tells them he doesn't know what happened and that his friend was most likely insane.
I'm not sure, but I think after that the narrator realizes the elder beings are coming for him as well, and it ends with him plastering all the right angles in his place as well. Or maybe not, I dunno. But yeah, I'm dying to read this story again, so if anyone knows of it, I'd really appreciate the help.