Achronos - SCIFIPEDIA

Achronos

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Achronos is a 4000-word short story by Lee Killough, about a beach where time does not pass. It was first published in the March, 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

1 Plot
2 Reprints
3 Additional Notes
4 External Links

Plot

Neil Dorn is an aging, unsuccessful painter with an unhappy marriage and a boring life. He is visiting a beach to get a break from the world, when he sees a small trilobyte wash up on shore, and is surprised at how well-preserved it is. He hears some people partying on the beach, and they come over to talk to him. They are young, beautiful, naked, and have strange names like Hero and Electra. Neil sketches their faces in charcoal, and they are all fascinated by this. They explain that this beach is an "achronos"—a place where time does not flow and nothing on the beach ages (it is always twilight there). Neil has sex with one of the women, who is very experienced and enthusiastic. He tries to paint a portrait of one of them, but the others become bored and wander off, and the woman explains that their people are from a time just before the end of the world. To them, this beach is not just a vacation; it is a sanctuary. A dinosaur enters the beach, and they all go off and hunt it, killing the beast, but in the process one of them is mortally wounded. Neil is horrified when no one seems to care that their friend is dying. Neil has the option of staying on this beach forever, never aging, but he decides to leave the beach and return to his family, now with more ideas for his paintings.

Reprints

This story is reprinted in Donald A. Wollheim's The 1981 Annual World's Best SF.

Additional Notes

The trilobyte is an arthropod that used to be one of the most common forms of life in the ocean. It has been extinct for over 100 million years, but trilobyte fossils are very common.

The title "achronos" is derived from the ancient Greek word "Chronos", which means "time", and the prefix "a", which means "not" or "without".

To see specific information, such as anthologies including this story, please click the Achronos category link at the bottom of this article. To see other articles that reference Achronos, please click the What Links Here tool in the toolbox at the bottom of this page.