The Connection

A great flaming intestine threatens Jordan with a pair. Jordan quadruples a needle and sends in arching through the sky, exploding the eye of the intestine. A thousand drunk delirious chase goddess juice through the stone hewn, losing their way and falling dead one by one. "That'll happen to you one day," says the genius.

"You're psychotic," says Jordan, replacing the strings to his left leather dress shoe, then gazing in disgust that his toes today number six, sixteen, and sixty.

Jordan and the genius load their backs and begin anew their trek north. A long train of weary souls contains them, a long train of confused. "It seems more like north is up than yesterday."

"North isn't up," says the genius.

"Have you ever seen a river that goes north?" says Jordan.

"Yes," says the genius, but he too has the feeling they are going up.

When they reach the spire tumbling pieces harass the tail of line, getting more chaotic. They push on through the pieces, dumbness gently alighting their turtlenecks with its great snotty Passover pig.

Jordan motivates his knees to form a blossom, and thus the wind catches forth and propels his whoa he tends to spin upside-down through the air, then falls like a monster. "The chaos is coming," he says. "Every day the chaos from the south comes farther north."

"When we reach the River Jordan at the north pole," says the genius, picking ratlivers, "all we will have to do is cross, and the chaos will be behind us." He takes a ratliver and bites it, pauses, thinks, and places it behind his ear for safekeeping.

They come across a corpse. "Hey Jordan," says the genius. "Remember what I told you was inside your head?"

"A br . . . br something."

"Brain," says the genius.

"Aw," says Jordan, "there ain't nothing in my head. I would feel it if a brain was stuck in there, like you feel a splinter in your skin."

"I'll prove it," says the genius, who stomps his foot on the corpse's head, smashing it. The brain rolls out in two halves.

"There's two brains in his head," says Jordan.

"There's one that broke in half," says the genius. "You got one a those in your head."

"I would feel it if I had all that slime in my head," says Jordan. "You're nuts."

Suddenly a battery of infants pounds through the air, dozens of rounds flying superfast direct. "Down!" says Jordan, who drops with the genius as infants hit all around then. "Christ!" says Jordan, hearing the mess of babies crying. "What the hell are those things!"

"You were one of them once," says the genius.

"Like hell I was," says Jordan. "They're disgusting!"

They move on, the crowd of north-trekers thinned out by the dangerous chaos that fast engulfs them from the south. Most are crawling now, to avoid getting hit by sepherst.

"I've had enough of your shit!" cries Jordan to the genius, crawling along. "Just because some dead body has a brain in his head, you think I've got one. Just because I see others die, I'll die someday. It's shit! You look at birds flying so you think you can too for God's sake!"

"I never said that," says the genius. They crawl on in silence. The earth beneath them forms cancerous spots that burn the skin if they are touched. Jordan takes a knife and stabs one. The knife won't come out, and doesn't do any harm to the tumor. "Damnit," he says. "I lost a perfectly good knife just fooling around."

North does indeed seem to go up now. The horizon is flat ahead of them, but the angle goes almost straight up. "Hey look at that," says the genius, pointing. "You remember when I told you the Earth was round? Look at that."

He is pointing to the left of them, or west, where Jordan can indeed see that they are on some kind of large sphere, the horizon bending like the sides of an orange. "You're right!" says Jordan. "We're on some ball. Hey, I bet when we reach the pole we'll be right on top of it, you know, real easy travel. Not like this crawling up the side."

A burglar makes his way with stolen candlesticks growing from his eyes across the sphere, traveling west. Soon, Jordan sees him come around again, having traveled around the Earth in a few minutes. "Hey you!" says Jordan, but the burglar doesn't stop. He comes around again from the other side. "You!" says Jordan. "Hey!" The burglar doesn't listen, so Jordan climbs his way up, the genius right behind. They are very near the pole. Jordan can see the millions who have come up north in hopes of crossing the great river into their salvation. There are millions, billions of them, just standing there. He makes his way to the top of the Earth, where he can walk upright, and pushes on through the stopped crowd. He hears people chanting, "Jordan! Jordan!"

The genius chases him from behind, shouting, "Wait! Jordan, don't go!" Jordan reaches the river, where the crowd stands staring. "Jordan! Jordan!" they cry.

He takes an old man's ears into his fists. "What! What do you want!" he screams.

"It's the River Jordan!" says the man in some ecstasy halfway between bliss and pain. Jordan realizes whom the people are shouting at. There is another crowd, just as weary, on the other side of the River Jordan, another crowd who had hoped to cross onto his own side, who had come north from the opposite end of the world to escape the chaos. The crowds shout back and forth at one another, "Jordan! Jordan!"

Jordan looks at the Earth, the way even the ground beneath him is bent convex, looks at the horizon of the planet dropping on all sides, sees that he's standing on top of a very small globe. The River Jordan runs north, bisects this globe by crossing the pole, then runs south down the other side in a straight line.

Jordan feels sick, takes off running at the river, screams nonsense as he crosses, then darts around in front of the opposite crowd. "Wait!" cries the genius. "Jordan! No!"

Jordan runs back and forth across the river, making mad circles. "It's my brain!" he cries. "It's my brain!"

End