And God Belched Read online

  “Which is it?”

  “Which is what?”

  “More or less?”

  “Ah,” he ahhed. “Humans have forty-six chromosomes; my race has forty-seven.”

  “And what do you get with that added chromosome?” I pictured a second dick, three butt holes. For some reason, my pictures were always X-rated. I chalked it up to being barely an adult.

  “Your race has the sex chromosomes X and Y; ours has evolved an additional Z, as yours most probably will in the future.”

  Oh my God, so he did have two dicks? Well, thankfully, I had more than one hole. Sadly, none of them were near enough to each other. Then again, maybe both his dicks were ginormously long.

  “And what does this Z chromosome do?” I asked.

  “It’s mostly devoid of functional genes, similar to what our Y once was. Instead, it acts as a booster. We, as a race, are fairer than most, are smarter, even have a keener sense of humor.”

  I smiled. “So, it’s a gay gene.”

  “That’s a stereotype.”

  I shrugged. “You say tomato.”

  “Huh?”

  I pointed at the mirror. “Ah, so you don’t know everything.”

  He laughed. Again, my dick went boing. His laugh was Pavlovian that way. Pavlov threw his dog a bone; Milo threw me a boner. But back to the conversation. Or at least back a bit farther into it.

  “You said I was cute,” I said. “In fact, you and I look similar. Different eye and hair color, but similar. Is that why you contacted me?”

  He started to reply, but sadly, just then, the connection shimmered and quivered and was promptly lost. I was now staring only at myself. My laptop speakers went silent. My dick, of course, remained stiff as a board. Yippee for that Y chromosome of mine!

  Still, I wondered what it would be like to have that aforementioned Z.

  Chapter 4

  Days went by. There were no quakes, no signs of Milo. Suddenly, I knew what that expression about pins and needles was all about. And these were big-ass pins and massive needles, all jabbing relentlessly into my very soul—yes, see drama queen, as previously mentioned.

  When we did finally have a quake, wouldn’t you know it, I wasn’t at home. I ran to the nearest bathroom and stared into the mirror, just in case, but even I knew it would be hopeless; the mirror back home was the conduit, the portal, our portal.

  More days passed. I was bereft.

  “What’s wrong, dude?” Craig asked as he sat on my bed and played on his iPad. “You’re, you know, lackluster. Like the gay’s been sucked clean away.”

  “That’s a visual.”

  He thought about it for a moment, then shuddered. “Sorry. My bad. Still, what’s up?”

  I shrugged as I stared forlornly at the mirror. “Milo.” I’d already told my brother about the conversation. “I haven’t seen him in nearly a week. What if the connection was lost? Like forever lost, I mean.”

  “Possibly, but we’ve been having these quakes for a little over twenty years. In the context of time and space, that’s not even a blip. Best guess, the universes are still adjacent, the connection just temporarily severed.” He looked up from his device. “Picture two quivering bubbles. They ebb and flow, side by side. Sometimes they touch; sometimes they don’t. So long as they’re on the same trajectory, they’ll regularly touch down. Also best guess, they’re at their closest at our point here in San Francisco and Milo’s point on his planet, hence the earthquakes only occurring here.”

  “Hence? What happened to ergo?”

  He shrugged and went back to his iPad. “Dropped it, dude. Didn’t fit in with my new cooler persona.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, because hence is so friggin’ cool. Like skinny jeans.”

  “I hate skinny jeans.”

  And I hated hence, but whatya gonna do? “Anyway, back to Milo. I hope he’s okay. I have this, I don’t know, this feeling that somethings wrong.” I touched my chest. “It’s that connection of mine, of ours, him and me. It’s like there’s a message coming through: danger, bad shit ahead. Step carefully.”

  He nodded and again looked my way. “I’m sure he’s fine. You’re just overreacting.” He grinned and pushed his Bieber-like hair from his eyes. “You’ve been known to do that, you know.”

  I did, and I had, but not this time. “I’m sure you’re right.” Though I wasn’t sure, not by a long shot. Plus, this is what happened not five seconds later…

  As per before: five-four-three-two-one. Contact!

  The earth rattled, first slowly and then with gusto. The bed bounced on the floor. My chair vibrated beneath me. I’d put a few quarters in a motel bed once. It sort of felt like that, only free this time, no spare change needed.

  Craig looked at the mirror. I turned my speakers on and then gazed into those eyes, those eyes like sparkling pools of blue. Only, unlike before, the sparkle was gone, the smile as well. My belly tightened. I was right; something was wrong.

  “Randy,” he said in a whisper, or maybe the connection was off. Either way, something was most definitely wrong. “In trouble. They found out.”

  I gulped as Craig jumped up and stood by my side. “What’s wrong?” Craig asked.

  I turned to him, then back to the mirror. “Milo, this is my little brother, Craig.” My gulp repeated, lemon-sized. Heck, it felt like an entire citrus orchard was stuck in my throat. “Who found out about what? And what kind of trouble?”

  He glanced left, then right. His eyes were wide, nervous looking. He was breathing heavily. “The law. Not supposed to communicate. I thought it was safe. Had measures in place.” He moved his face closer in. I did the same. “I was wrong, Randy. I shouldn’t have contacted you. But…”

  His face disappeared from view, though he was still connected, as was evident by the sound of the struggle that now filled my room and made my head swim. Michael Phelps should’ve swam so well, in fact.

  “Milo!” I shouted. “Milo!”

  The speakers went silent.

  “Fuck,” said Craig uncharacteristically.

  I turned to him. “He’s in trouble,” I rasped. “It’s…it’s my fault.” A tear welled up and spilled over, running down my cheek, my chin. I didn’t know Milo, not really, but that connection of ours was so tangible that it felt as if someone had sucker-punched me in the gut.

  “It’s not your fault, dude. He found you. He contacted you. He knew he was breaking the law; he told you so himself.”

  “But why would he?” I asked. “Why me?”

  Craig shrugged. “Don’t know.” Then he sighed. “And there’s nothing we can do.”

  I dropped my head to my hands. Nothing? Nothing at all? “The mirror,” I said. “It’s a portal, right?”

  “Of some sort. The worlds connect there, it seems. And?”

  I turned and looked at him. “And I was hoping you could figure something out. You’re the genius, after all.” I pointed to myself. “Beauty.” I pointed to him. “Brains.”

  He pointed to the mirror. “Solid.” He pointed to me. “Idiot.” He pointed to the door. “Leaving.”

  “Wait!” I shouted. “Please. Please don’t go. I need your help. We need to help Milo.”

  He turned my way. “We?” I nodded, my eyes pleading. I gave good plea-eyes. He sighed, yet again. “Okay, I’ll think about it.”

  “Not too long, though; they could be torturing him. Or worse.”

  He frowned. “Pressure much?”

  I nodded. “Much, little bro. Much.”

  He left me alone in the deafening silence as my stomach gurgled and my heart felt like it could explode at any moment.

  Yeah, yeah, drama queen. Didn’t we cover that already?

  § § § §

  More days went by, the hours ticking past as if they were coated in molasses. That is to say slowly, very slowly. Craig and I did very little interacting. When we were at home together, he was holed up in his room. He’d wisely learned from my mistakes, his door very much locked.
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  Mom and Dad were worried about me. I was worried about me. I was far more worried about Milo. Was he in jail? Was he being tortured, like I said? Sweat formed along my forehead as these thoughts formed and morphed into even worse thoughts.

  An earthquake hit. I was home at the time. I rushed to the mirror, to the speakers, but there was nothing, no sign of Milo, no sound of him. My worry increased. I walked to Craig’s room. I knocked on the door.

  He unlocked it, opened it up, if only by an inch. “Almost.”

  My breathing was labored. “Almost? You mean, you think you can help him?”

  He shrugged. “No clue. They don’t teach inter-universe search-and-rescue in high school.”

  I sighed. “But you said almost.”

  “I did,” he replied. “And maybe I have something. An idea, anyway. Next earthquake, I’ll be ready, okay?” He looked tired. He looked like Justin Bieber after a long night of shenanigans and cheesy tattooing.

  “Okay, little bro. And thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, dude,” he said as the door slowly shut and again locked. “Don’t thank me yet.”

  § § § §

  It was two days later, two days of utter hell and frustration. It was late, close to midnight. I no longer slept. I was either awake or momentarily passed out. I was twenty-two and looking forty—a pretty forty, sure, but forty nonetheless. I was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Hang in there, Milo,” I whispered. “We’re coming for you.”

  The bed shook a second later. I hopped up and flicked on a light. Craig came barreling in a moment later, a large garbage bag flung over his shoulder. He closed the door behind him and tossed the bag to the pink carpet.

  “What is all that?” I asked as he dumped the contents out.

  He put his index finger to his lips. “Shh. Working.”

  I began to argue, which is how Craig and I did things, argumentatively, but then thought the better of it. Instead, I sat on the bed and watched him assemble the strange apparatus he’d invented. It took shape quickly enough. There was a basin on the floor, a structure of metal beams in the shape of a cube above that, a pan resting above that. There were some tubes running from top to bottom and back again. On the floor sat some sort of small motor. It looked like a…well, I hadn’t a clue what it looked like. It looked like a mess of metal and tubes, like an erector set gone wrong.

  “I have no idea what all this is,” I freely admitted when it was at last complete.

  He rose to hand me two emptied gallon jugs, now deplete of their milk. “Fill these.”

  “The cow went home for the evening.”

  He grimaced, eyes, as usual, rolling. “With water, jackass.”

  I nodded. “Water. Right. Be right back.”

  I raced to the bathroom. I raced as my mind raced. What was Craig up to? What was that apparatus he’d set up? And how would it help Milo? In any case, the jugs filled up quickly, and so back I rushed. I handed them to Craig. He filled the basin with the water, and then passed them back my way.

  “Two more,” he commanded.

  I sighed. “Really?”

  He mock-sighed me in return. “Did Einstein’s assistants question his genius?”

  “I doubt Einstein had assistants when he was eighteen, little bro.”

  He glared my way. “Don’t doubt; fill.”

  Thus again commanded, I tore to the bathroom and filled up jugs three and four. By the time I’d done five and six, I was duly exhausted and even more frustrated. We didn’t have that much time, after all. The portal never stayed open for more than ten minutes, and we were close to that already.

  “Please tell me that was the last one,” I said, now breathing hard.

  “That was last one.”

  “Thank God,” I exhaled as I watched him crouch down to the small motor.

  “I’d say pray to him,” he said, flicking the thing on. “Thank him after this is all over with.”

  The motor purred. Fortunately, it wasn’t all that loud. Also fortunately, my parents slept on the first floor of our house, while Craig and I slept on the second. I mean, how would I have explained any of this, especially the waterfall Craig had suddenly flicked on in the middle of my bedroom.

  “Pretty,” I said. “But, uh, why does it suddenly look like the tropics in here?”

  He rose and walked to the mirror. “Like I said a couple of days ago…” He touched the mirror. “Solid.” He pointed to me. “Idiot.” He pointed to the waterfall. “Leaving.”

  It took me a few seconds to put all the pieces together. “Wait,” I said. “Water isn’t a solid; it’s a liquid.”

  “Eureka,” he said with an exaggerated sigh.

  “Now what?” I asked, instantly coming down off my high.

  He slid my mirror out of the way and got down on the floor next to the waterfall. He’d put the basin on wheels, and so all the thing needed was a push before it was sitting where the mirror once had been.

  “Now this,” he said as he again stood next to me. “Go ahead.”

  I gulped. “Go ahead and, uh, what?”

  He looked my way, his eyes burning like two tiny stars. I guessed that this is what Justin Bieber looked like just before he went on stage. “Try it out, dude,” he said, then grabbed my hand and placed it in front of the downward flowing water.

  “What if it works?” I asked. “What if it works and we’re sucked into space? What if his world doesn’t breathe oxygen? What if it works and we’re trapped over there?”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “All surprisingly good questions, dude. But there’s one more: if we don’t do this, what happens to Milo?”

  I paused, but not all that long. In truth, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t know what happened to Milo. And no, that wasn’t me being a drama queen, for a change; that was me knowing that I had a connection that had been severed, leaving me very much short-circuited, so to speak. Milo, I’d come to believe, was my destiny. Whether or not rightly so, it didn’t matter; this is what I felt, and so that was all that mattered.

  In other words, with just the slightest bit of trepidation, I stuck my hand through the water and promptly winced.

  “What, what?” Craig asked, concern washing over his face. “Did it hurt? Is your hand disintegrating?”

  I shook my head. “The water is cold.”

  He socked me one in the arm as he sharply exhaled. “Fucker.” He then looked behind the waterfall. “Um, dude, just so you know, your hand isn’t back there.” He then locked eyes with me, those stars going all supernova-like. “Your hand, Randy, your hand is in another universe, boldly going where no hand has gone before.”

  My gulp repeated. I wiggled my fingers. They, in fact, still wiggled. Meaning, my hand hadn’t, in fact, disintegrated. My hand was also not too cold or too hot, but, like the baby bear’s porridge, just right. And so, I moved my arm further into the water, and further it did go. Which is why, since the body goes where the hand leads, I found myself walking through the waterfall a split-second later, saying through the spray, “Well, here goes nothing.”

  Though, of course, here went everything.

  The very next moment, I was standing in an entirely different bedroom. I was wet. I was still in my jammies. And then, all of a sudden, Craig was standing next to me, also jammied and wet.

  “Little bro,” I said, “you followed.”

  “Yep,” he said, eyes moving around the rather sparse room we found ourselves in, a room we were more than capable of breathing in. Phew. “Because pretty isn’t going to rescue Milo; you need a bit of brains for this mission. Also, you’re not exactly our people’s best representative, so let me do all the talking, should it come to that.”

  “But you’re only eighteen,” I objected with.

  He pointed my way. “And you’re you.” He shivered. “Maybe, all things considered, we should have brought a spare set of clothes.” He turned to go back to our own bedroom, but the portal had already abruptly closed. “Oops.
My bad.”

  I walked around the room. It looked something like a typical bedroom, though with some noticeable differences: for one, the bed hovered; the carpet was some weird fiber that both emanated warmth and felt like silky cotton beneath my feet; Milo’s computer, or at least what he called a computer, or at least what I assumed was a computer, looked nothing like mine, the screen wide, maybe three feet, paper-thin, and just screen, no discernable electronics; oh, and the ceiling looked like the night sky, replete with actual twinkling stars and several moons glowing brightly above our heads. But that was it. No art. No pictures. No windows or doors. Nothing to indicate who or what lived there.

  “Pretty,” I made note, pointing upward. I looked over at my little brother, his face joyous as he stared into the sky above. Was it a real sky or simply an image of one? As to that, I hadn’t a clue. “You scared, Craig?”

  His neck went back to the starting position. He looked my way. “Scared, yep, but more excited than anything else. We’re like Neil Armstrong, dude. Only, we took way more than one step for mankind here.”

  I smiled. He was right, and, truth be told, I too was excited. Scared shitless, but excited. Still, we had little time to revel in either. Milo, presumably, had been missing for days now. There was no sign of a struggle, but his bed was still made and it was nighttime, based on the ceiling visuals. Plus, his watch, or what looked like a watch, was on a nightstand. His wallet, or what looked like a wallet, was next to his watch. In other words, he either left quickly or was taken quickly. Either way, he wasn’t there, nor had he made contact with me in all that time. When you put one and one together, you usually got two. I assumed the equation worked in this world as well.

  Shaking myself out of my revelry, I noticed Craig was rummaging around in the nightstand, which was a smallish, metal, boxlike structure, the handles digitally represented, so that all you had to do was touch them and the drawers silently opened.

  “Here,” he said. “Put these on.”

  He handed me some slacks and a shirt, the material smooth, like silk, but with a feeling of durability. They were Milo’s. I felt strangely weird taking them. Still, I was wet and in my jammies, which weren’t exactly rescue clothes. So, I put them on, and, wouldn’t you know it, they expanded to fit me like a T, as if they were tailored exactly to my measurements. A spare set of shoes and socks and undies all did the same miraculous trick. In other words, once we found an additional spare set of everything—which was basically the full extent of Milo’s limited wardrobe—Craig, too, was in a form-fitting ensemble.