"He Was Going to Warn Himself but He Didn't Finish"

"Stroke."
By John L. Chapman (born 1920).
First appearance: Science Fiction Quarterly, Summer 1942.
Short short short story (2 pages).
Online at SFFAudio (HERE) (PDF).

"Tahiti is a funny place for this sort of thing."

There's an ancient symbol of a snake with its tail in its mouth, presumably representing infinity. Wharton should have taken the hint . . .

Resource:
- Apart from his birth year, that the "L" stands for Leslie, and that he had about a dozen SFF stories published in the thirties and forties (thanks, FictionMags), we can learn nothing else about our author.