View source for The Crawling Chaos

{{short description|1921 horror short story}}
{{Other uses|Crawling Chaos (disambiguation)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox short story
| name           = The Crawling Chaos
| author         = [[H. P. Lovecraft]] and Winifred V. Jackson
| title_orig     = 
| country        = United States
| language       = English
| genre          = [[Horror fiction]]
| published_in   = ''United Cooperative''
| publication_type = Periodical
| pub_date       = April 1921
| media_type     = Print (magazine)
| pages          = 4
| preceded_by    = [[The Green Meadow]]
| followed_by    = [[Nyarlathotep]]
| wikisource     = The Crawling Chaos
}}

"'''The Crawling Chaos'''" is a [[short story]] by American writers [[H. P. Lovecraft]] and Winifred V. Jackson, first published April 1921 in the ''United Cooperative''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Joshi |first1=S.T. |last2=Schultz |first2=David E. |title=An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia |date=2004 |publisher=Hippocampus Press |isbn=978-0974878911 |pages=49–50}}</ref> As in their other collaboration, "[[The Green Meadow]]", the tale was credited to "Elizabeth Berkeley" (Jackson) and "Lewis Theobald, Jun" (Lovecraft).<ref>[http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/crc.aspx "The Crawling Chaos"]
By Elizabeth Berkeley and Lewis Theobald, Jun., H.P.Lovecraft.com</ref> Lovecraft wrote the entire text, but Jackson is also credited since the story was based on a dream she experienced.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Pillsworth |first1=Anne M. |last2=Emrys |first2=Ruthanna |title=Just Say No (To Drug-Induced Time Travel): "The Crawling Chaos" by H.P. Lovecraft & Winifred Jackson |url=https://www.tor.com/2016/03/09/just-say-no-to-drug-induced-time-travel-the-crawling-chaos-by-h-p-lovecraft-winifred-jackson/ |website=TOR Books |access-date=5 July 2020 |date=March 9, 2016}}</ref>

Despite the title's similarity to the character's epithet, Lovecraft's monster [[Nyarlathotep]] does not appear in this story.

==Plot==
The story begins with the narrator describing the effects of [[opium]] and the fantastical vistas it can inspire. The narrator then tells of his sole experience with opium in which a doctor accidentally administered him an overdose during the "year of the plague".

After a disembodied sensation of falling, the narrator finds himself in a strange, beautiful room containing exotic furniture. A pounding sound from the outside inspires an inexplicable sense of dread in the narrator. Determined to identify the origin of this sound, the narrator moves towards a window and observes a terrifying scene of fifty-foot waves and a seething vortex consuming the shoreline at an incredible rate.

Sensing imminent danger, the narrator quickly exits the building. Fleeing the waves, he travels inland. He eventually arrives in a valley with tropical grass extending above his head and a great palm tree in the center. Driven by curiosity despite his fear, he crawls on his hands and knees toward the great palm.

Soon after arriving at the tree, the narrator observes an angelic child fall from its branches. The child then smiles and extends its hand toward the narrator, and the narrator hears ethereal singing within the upper air, followed by the child saying in an otherworldly voice:

{{blockquote|It is the end. They have come down through the gloaming from the stars. Now all is over, and beyond the Arinurian streams, we shall dwell blissfully in Teloe.}}

As the child speaks, the narrator observes two youths emerging from the leaves of the tree. They take the narrator by the hand and describe the worlds of "Teloe" and "Cytharion of the Seven Suns" which lie beyond the [[Milky Way]].

As they speak, the narrator observes that he is floating in the upper atmosphere, with the palm tree far below, and now accompanied by an increasing number of singing, vine-crowned youths. As they ascend, the child tells the narrator that he must always look upward and never down at the earth below.

As he rises further, listening to the youths singing, the narrator is disturbed by the return of the sound of the waves. Forgetting what the child said, he looks downward and observes a sight of global destruction, with the waves consuming the cities until nothing is left. This is followed by the waters draining into the Earth's core via an opening gulf, which causes the Earth to explode.

==Reprints==
The tale was published in ''[[Beyond the Wall of Sleep (collection)|Beyond the Wall of Sleep]]''. The corrected text is collected in Lovecraft's revisions volume ''[[The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions]]'' (Arkham House, 1970).

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{wikisource}}
* [http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/crc.asp Publication History]
* {{librivox book | title=The Crawling Chaos | author=H. P. Lovecraft}}

{{Works of H. P. Lovecraft}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crawling Chaos}}
[[Category:1921 short stories]]
[[Category:American short stories]]
[[Category:Apocalyptic fiction]]
[[Category:Fantasy short stories]]
[[Category:Horror short stories]]
[[Category:Short stories about dreams]]
[[Category:Short stories by H. P. Lovecraft]]
[[Category:Works about opium]]
[[Category:Works originally published in American magazines]]
[[Category:Works published under a pseudonym]]