Up

Do you know what a Cordyceps is? I didn’t either until 20 minutes ago.

It’s a family of thousands of different types of fungus, grows all

around the word in various rainforests and jungles. The awful thing

about them is they’re parasitic, they grow on other animals. An ant

happens to run into some spores, and then it starts to colonize his

insides, starting with his brain. At some point, the ant starts to

act visibly ill; standing in place and shivering, or walking in

circles. If a fellow colony member sees him in this condition, he

will be dragged to the border of the colony and exiled.

Then, when it’s almost over, the ant weakly climbs as high as he can

up the vines, and locks his body on tight. Finally, he dies, and the

fungus emerges from the back of his head, bursting forth like a long

and foul fruit. After a short time, the little stalk spews forth its

own spores, leaving the mummified and broken ant clinging to the

stalk, his eye cavities filled with drying fungus.

I mention this because last night, when I was up on the roof of my

apartment complex, I found my brother’s body. He’s been back from 18

months on duty in the Philippines for less than three days. This was

the first I’d seen him. My parents called me up the day before

yesterday to tell me that he was on his way up. They told me he’d

stayed in his room since he got home, and then suddenly got up and

announced he was on his way to see me. They thought he was drunk, 

I thought he’d never made it.

He must have come straight up to the roof and died, by the smell of

it. I was just finishing a cigarette, all torn up with anxiety and

head throbbing, and when the acrid smoke vanished I caught a whiff

of rot on the hot wind. It took me just a few minutes before I’d

found him; face down behind the vents and fans. A slimy gray column

rose up obscenely from the base of his skull, and a frozen waterfall

of roots and tendrils was dangling from his eye sockets and mouth.

At the top of stalk was small arrangement of feathery wisps, a white

powder drifting idly from it tips.

The spores must have drifting over the north side of the building

all day. My side of the building. I came down to my apartment to

try to call up the police, and my headache was rising to a feverish

throb. I got through the door, and the moment I reached for the

phone, pain flared in my head, so bad I almost passed out. I’ve

since tried three times and I can never get my hand up on it.

The same thing happens when I try to get up and leave the room; I

feel spines of ice tunneling up into my skull and my limbs lock up

and shudder.

The ants, in their last moments crawl as high up the vines as he

can climb. This is so the spore will spread over more of the colony

below. In the end, the parasite controls the ant with an almost

intelligent drive. God help me.

The pain is almost blinding now, and a new thought has been rising

up rhythmically in my head, like a record skipping. Up. Up. Up.

It’s joined by an image of my office tower. It’s taller than my

apartment, the tallest place I can think off and although the bulge

on the back of my neck is the size of a peach, the skin stretched

shiny, and I’m dizzy and my eyes are cloudy, I think I can make it

there. Up.

No. I’m sick. I need help.

The building pulses again in my mind. The cold wind. The roof and

the sky. These images and concepts dull the pain momentarily as

they pass through my mind. I think I can get there. Up. Up.

If you live in downtown New York, I would get the fuck out.