That plopping sound you hear is the apocalypse

Eleven seconds into watching "Two Girls, One Cup," I knew that the apocalypse was coming, knew that names would be read aloud and beasts would slouch toward Bethlehem, knew that what I had just seen was not only the precise opposite of civilization, but also the means by which civilization would be destroyed. I used to imagine the end of the world as a nuclear wasteland, red dirt extending to the horizon, nefarious trumpets blaring one note forever; but now, thanks to the internet, I know that mankind's ultimate destruction will be heralded by slow, earnest piano music, and we will look up to the sky, and the clouds will part, and lowering down from the heavens will be the unimaginably huge Butt Cheeks of Imminent Doom, hovering over us all, stretching across all latitudes, and then, without warning, the rest will be suffocating darkness.

But let me backtrack: For those of you fortunate enough to have missed "Two Girls, One Cup" — this internet phenomenon, this victory of Virality, this anal-launched avalanche of anal-lunch vigilance, this movement (and perhaps this is the best word for it) — you have missed what must be the first internet video that is truly "viral," in that it actually causes physical sickness as it is passed along. Decency policies prevent me from describing the video's content in too much detail; but to couch the work in literary terms, "Two Girls, One Cup" tells the story of two girls, one cup, and the ways in which those two girls fill, empty and refill that cup: a blunt exploration of acceptable female-female relationships, a starkly staged Existential parable-drama of pointless resilience in the face of cyclical vacuity, and, perhaps most explicitly, a visual representation of the blurred boundaries between interiority and exteriority (cf. Gulliver's Travels, Part I., Ch. V., Para. 10). To couch the work in less literary terms, two women poop into a plastic cup and then throw up all over each other. Either way, this is not your father's pornography (at least, Jesus, I hope not).

One Saturday night, in the game room of an eating club, a pair of sorority sisters played Beirut, just a shot away from defeat; it took all of the self-restraint I could muster to not to jump onto the table, grab the lone cup from the two girls and admonish them, screaming, "No! I will not let this happen! Not here!" The unforgettable images of "Two Girls, One Cup" had become lodged in my mind, unwanted houseguests doing unthinkable things in the guest bedroom. The echoes everywhere were sadly unavoidable, reminders popping up and thrusting me back to the video: Truly, in the sunset of defecation, everything was illuminated by the aura of proctalgia. I became enslaved by this strange video, this "Two Girls, One Cup," 2g1c, the DNA codon for the gag reflex; and perhaps I am not alone, for apparently last week at Charter Club, two girls became quite upset over one cup. Perhaps we can form a support chain for one another.

Eschatology, the study of the apocalypse, and scatology, the study of poop, are just an 'e' and an 'h' away, of course: and, desperate, I dove into the rear of the New Testament, dove into it in a way that no street-corner lunatic or Catholic girlfriend could ever make me dive, searching for scriptural precedent for this dreadfulness. And in the Book of Revelation, as the end of the world is being described in all of its horrors, I came across Revelation 17:6, which I swear I am not making up and which I will now reprint in its entirety: "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication." My mouth hung open; I reread the line once, twice, to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, wondering whether I was reading the Book of Revelation or the IMDB plot summary of "Two Girls, One Cup." I frantically searched more apocalyptic literature and found more and more evidence: The two unquenchable cup-bearers from Nostradamus; the union of drinking and fornication in the Islamic Signs of the Last Hour; the people of unclean lips from the Book of Isaiah. And as for the popular "Left Behind" series, one does not have to look very far; for one might remark that it is precisely the "left behind" that starts all the trouble in "Two Girls, One Cup."

And so when this Kingdom Come comes — and surely, I do not want to encounter anyone or anything that comes after "Two Girls, One Cup" — do not be surprised if that little concerto precedes and all seems innocuous, until the Deity lets loose the Day of Reckoning; for we all bore witness, made witnesses by a sports team listserv, a masochistic roommate or astounded dinner conversation, of the apocalypse at hand, that not all of the toilet paper in the world could save us from: Two Girls, One Cup, Zero Hour. I only hope there are showers in the afterlife. Jason Gilbert is an English major from Marietta, Ga. He can be reached at jogilber@princeton.edu.