Disconnected

A sinking feeling crept into Jerry’s bed sheets and straight into his very chest. His heart stopped for a beat, and he saw her again. Purple veins streaming down her neck, eyes closed, as if she had drifted peacefully to the other side in her sleep. Jerry tries to open his mouth, to scream, to yell for help, to wake her up from her never-ending slumber, but before he can do anything, a large thudding explodes in his ears. As he reaches up to block out the sound, the women’s eyes pop open, breaking open a greyish brown ooze that had begun to crust her eyelids shut. The undead women stares straight into Jerry’s soul, forcing tears to swell in his unbreaking gaze. He desperately wants to look away, but finds himself completely captivated. Maybe this is all a dream.

Her mouth begins to open as if to speak, but instead a gush of dark red blood runs down her chin and all down her nightgown, even dripping down to the freshly washed sheets. Before Jerry can scream, he is transported back to his bed in the dark of night, alone, clutching his chest, as he attempts to catch his breath and slow his beating heart, which had sped up immensely to make up for the recently missed beat. He still felt it, like a sudden hole had been ripped in his chest, and he gasped repeatedly trying to find some way to close it with the crisp night air.

Jerry tosses the covers off his sweaty body, which often caused him to overheat in his sleep. He wasn’t sure if his body would ever calm down enough to stop sweating, or if he was doomed for eternity to wake up clammy from PTSD nightmares. Either way, he found he had woken up in yet another sweaty pool of his own making. It was the third set of sheets he would have to wash this week due to the night terrors Jerry kept having about his mother. He had found his mother's cold body in her bed, dead from a supposed “accidental overdose”: a toxic mixture of fentanyl and oxycontin, rolled on her side as she took her daily nap. Jerry knew it was no accident; no doctor “accidentally” prescribes a deadly cocktail of painkillers unless someone was profiting off her chronic life-altering pain. She wouldn’t live to see her 55th birthday, which was rapidly approaching, yet Jerry could hardly see any worth in celebrating. Her murderer was alive and free, moving on to his next victim/patient, while her misery lived on in the heart of her only son.

Once upon a time, Jerry could have counted on his friends to cheer him up on the now cursed day, friends who had once made a lot of promises at his mother’s funeral about how they were just a phone call or text away. After two or three months however, everyone moved on with their lives, as Jerry felt he should. He had loved his mother deeply, one could even say they were best friends, but everyone’s mother dies. He needed to pull himself together and be an adult already. At 24, he should have it all figured out, with multiple degrees, his dream job, and the perfect dream man to settle down with and start a family: the good ol’ American dream.

Except none of those things were true for Jerry, a standard gay millennial. Jerry hated his minimum wage job that barely paid enough to cover his rent, and he certainly did not have enough sitting around to finish his degree and better his life at fancy university or liberal arts school. Even if he could scrape up enough coins from waiting tables at a chain burger joint in his hometown, school now felt like a distant dream. Jerry felt next to nothing since his mother’s passing, and choosing a career path without a shred of advice or guidance from the one person he trusted without question made him feel as if his lungs were shrinking, becoming so tiny he couldn’t get any air in or out at all. What scared Jerry the most was it was happening now even as he slept, unable to breathe or make decisions in his own dreams.

“Fuck, it’s just a dream. It’s just... a dream.” Jerry repeats this several times to himself under his breath (until he starts to believe it). He sits up in bed, and turns on the bedside lamp that stands straight from the ceiling to the floor by his bed. Two of the three lights turn on, one of which shine right in Jerry’s face, forcing him to block his eyes as he winces and turns the light knob a second time, switching on only the top light on, illuminating most of the room in a dark yellow.

Heart pumping, Jerry reaches for his phone, checking to see if anyone has texted him, or tried to reach out in any way. He had gotten use to the words of comfort that always found their way through text or social media. Not many of his “friends” actually asked to see him in person, as a simple “thinking of you and praying for you and your family,” was usually sufficient enough for most people nowadays to maintain a relationship. However, Jerry had been missing the outside world and had found himself at home alone more and more often, usually emptying bottles of various alcohol and ordering in to avoid crowds.

Despite it being 10 p.m. on a Friday night, he was still hopeful maybe one friend had forgotten about him and would send a last minute invite to a club or movie night or game night or even a book club. Jerry was sure none of his friends were a part of a book club, but if they were, he would be there. He was sure one of these days they would remember him on a Friday night, but tonight was not that night.

Jerry instead turns to Instagram, to see where his friends are tonight. He couldn’t just show up at those places, he knew, but how great to see all the wonderful things his friends were doing, and live vicariously through them, if only for a few moments. Anything to get his mother’s lifeless face and burning eyes out of his head. As he slowly scrolls through the endless sea of carefully curated photos, he selects with care which photos actually were worthy of liking (Jerry wouldn’t just like your photo because he followed you, you had to earn it). Before Jerry can double tap his approval, something scarier than a friend’s engagement photos pop up on his feed, making him throw his phone across the room, bouncing off his beanie bag chair and plopping down on pile of dirty underwear.

Any calmness that may have been achieved in those blissful moments of alternate online reality were shattered by the image now pulsing in Jerry’s head. Body trembling, hyperventilating, and toes curled, Jerry stays frozen in bed, sweat returning to his palms and forehead. He can’t believe what he has just seen. How many nights since she passed had he seen her in his dreams; breathing stopped, arm standing straight up from rigor mortis. The 911 dispatcher had advised him to turn her on her back to administer CPR, revealing purple patches covering her chest. Jerry heard an almost animal-like scream echo through the room and reverberate through his cell phone as he dropped the device to the floor and ran out, as far as he could before falling to his knees, unaware of his surroundings. It was his own scream, almost like a realization her death wasn’t much different than killing an irreplaceable part of his own soul.

Jerry begins his breathing exercises as he returns to the present (or at least he tries too): slowly in for 8 counts, holding for 3, and out for another 8, as he bends his chest over his knees and runs his hands through his hair. As his breathing slowly returns to normal, Jerry looks up for his phone, which is no longer where he had seen it fall. In fact, it appeared to have vanished from the room completely.

“What the hell? It was just there!” Jerry yells as he stands up and starts digging through his dirty briefs. After moving the whole pile across the room, his phone is still missing. Puzzled, Jerry readjusts the briefs he’s wearing (as they had begun to ride up a bit in the back) and thinks for a moment. Had he really seen the phone fall there, or had it fallen in a crevice of the bean bag chair, or behind it even?

Before he could could rise from his crouched position, a loud ringing noise knocks Jerry off his feet and fully to the ground. Peering across the room, he can barely see the top of his bed, the source of the sound. He gets on his hands and knees and slowly rises back on his two feet, all the while staring at where the loud ringing is still emanating. Jerry can barely believe his eyes. His phone had ended up back on his bed, as well as his sheets carefully folded as if no one had been sleeping in them. Like his mother used to do for him.

Suddenly Jerry has the urge to pee his pants, but he squeezes his bladder and stumbles over to the phone. He grabs it, his fingers barely strong enough to hold a grip on it. He turns it over to see who is calling him, but when he sees the name lighting up the screen, he feels the vibration of the phone throughout his entire body. He feels it down to his very bones, as a chill sweeps through him, goosebumps crawling all over the back of his neck and over his arms.

It was his mother. Or as he had saved in his contacts, “Mommy.”

With barely a moment of hesitation, Jerry swipes to answer the phone, out of sheer curiosity or dizzying fear.

“Mom? Mommy?”

Silence echoes through the bedroom, as Jerry listens for even the slightest sound to give him hope, or a final sign to let go. He would believe anything at this point, his endless nights of insomnia slowly blending the real world into something beyond his comprehension.

“Hello? Anyone? Is anyone there? Is anyone there? Please? Please be there!”

Jerry begins sobbing, falling to his knees, much like he had outside his mother’s apartment, moments after seeing her stiffening body slide off her bed, completely unresponsive to any touch or screams. He wasn’t sure if he was crying because he missed her so, or because she haunted every corner of his dreams- and often now his waking moment as well. Or maybe he was crying because once again, no one was there. Jerry picks up the phone from his side, where it had fallen out of his limp hand, but as he presses it to his ear again, no sound comes from the other end. Not even his own mother.

He was spiraling, he could tell, but what could he do? His psychiatrist had taken away his emergency anxiety pills after she found him abusing them (he was taking sometimes up to ten pills a day just to survive the miserable “real world”). That was when Jerry remembered he still had a bottle of vodka hidden underneath his bed behind a huge pile of new books he had meant to start reading (if only he could calm his mind long enough to concentrate and not have to reread the same paragraph over and over just because flashes of his mother kept showing up in between every line on the page). It was "hidden" because Jerry had been drinking too much since his mother’s passing, especially alone, and he wanted to be as sober as possible. That was, unless he really needed it.

He had several glasses lined up along his desk next to his bed, all half empty with remnants of cocktails of days past. Jerry pours one of the less full ones into a larger glass with some dark brown liquid, together mixing into the color of really unhealthy dark pee, as he wipes down the edge of the now-emptied glass on the t-shirt he was wearing. Wasting no time, vodka soon fills the glass to the brim, and Jerry chugs half of it down before his nose can get a whiff. He pauses, almost vomiting it up as quickly as he had guzzled it down. The burn filled not just his throat and mouth, but he felt it instantly throughout his entire body, like a revival of sorts. The liquid fire was bringing him back to life, sparking the flame that had been extinguished by his mother’s devastating sudden death, while also numbing the constant blame he felt in every corner of his heart.

Had he been there enough for her? Had he been there enough for anyone? Was that why he was so alone? Had he alienated every relationship in his life by making everything about him and his own problems, never truly interested in being there for others?

But that wasn’t true! He was always there for his friends! For his family! They were never there for him!

But that’s a lie too.

What’s true anymore?

“Jerry… love yourself, and nothing else matters.”

Jerry had never hung up the phone, and somehow the speaker had turned on. Without a doubt, that was Jerry’s mother’s voice.

Jerry felt numb from the vodka, but he knew that voice anywhere. Jerry jumps to grab the phone, thinking maybe somehow it had started playing an old voicemail. He had saved several from his mother, although he was still far too fragile to try and listen to one just yet. Her voice alone would draw him under and he knew it, which is why he had stayed away from her as much as he could the past couple months. Maybe keeping her at bay had somehow turned him into a desolate island, severing him from all ties with friends- and human connection.

Jerry hangs up, fumbling with the phone, and tries calling a guy he had been seeing for a few weeks now. Nothing numbs the pain like a man between his legs and strong arms gripping him through the night, tethering him to some semblance of the real world. Maybe calling this guy wasn’t the best decision, as they hadn’t made anything official quite yet, but Jerry needed someone. Someone to make him feel real. To make him feel like he really existed on this Earth, and hadn’t yet slipped into an eternal hell of suffering, damned to relive the most painful moment of his life over and over, like he had almost every lonely night.

No answer. Typical. More than likely he was out at a bar, getting blackout drunk himself, and finding some other guy who also wasn’t ready for commitment to hook up with. Great.

Scrolling through his contacts, Jerry realizes he has texted almost all of his “close” friends in the past week or two, and almost all of them still hadn’t responded. If they had, it was only a brief “sorry, doing things with other friends” text. It’s always other friends. When will that friend be me, Jerry thought, as he struggled to find even one friend he thought might pick up right now. Even just a short phone call might help erase all these… things I keep seeing, Jerry thinks to himself, as he finally finds a friend he thinks will pick up. His best friend since high school. Ten plus years of friendship can be trusted, Jerry knows this much.

Jerry dials her number, and puts the phone to his ear. He paces the length of his bed, expecting a ringtone, but hears nothing. Confused, he checks the screen, double checking he dialed the right person. The name appears to be right, but nothing. He hangs up, and tries the next number. The same thing. Jerry finishes the vodka in his glass, and frustratingly pours himself more, spilling some down the side of the glass and all over his desk. In his drunken stupor, he barely notices, tossing back at least another two shots in one swig. All he wants is to feel something, with someone, or not feel anything at all. Either would be fine with him, and the latter was rapidly becoming the winner of tonight’s solo drinking contest.

How many times had he gone out of his way to be there for his friends? He wasn’t perfect, no one was, but how was it that no one had checked up on him in weeks or even responded to his desperate attempts to hang out, when only months ago they had promised to be there for him “anytime”? Well right now would be a great fucking time, thought Jerry, who was ready to throw his phone again, this time in an outburst of rage. Loneliness was killing him from the inside out, and no one cared. Maybe not even Jerry.

Before he could explode (and maybe leave some nasty voicemails he would later have to apologize for), Jerry made the adult decision to walk it off and get a breath of fresh air. That was what his therapist had always advised him to do, “Just walk it off.” So tonight Jerry was going to “walk it off” until he forgot about his mom’s death. The image of her deoxygenated jaundiced face kept flashing through his head at a rate that felt ever increasing, as if it was all he would see if he didn’t do something to stop it. And soon.

Jerry would walk off his failed friendships, and find the blame within himself to know he hadn’t really done all the work needed to maintain those friendships either. Maybe he had spent too much time feeling sorry for himself, but everyone had told him that was normal. Normal now felt like fantasy, and ghosts were becoming more real by the second. Death has an odd way of redefining every single aspect of normality, as reality slips further away the more one grips trying to make sense of it all.

Shoes tied and sweater zipped, Jerry puts his headphones in his ears, hoping to drown out the voices in his head telling him that everyone hates him, that no one wanted to be his friend anymore. He reaches his arm out to turn the knob to the front door, right next to the other end of his desk, but for some reason, it stays firmly in place. Confused, Jerry tries again, but nothing.

“Damn, I must be really drunk…” Jerry surmises as he scratches his forehead. He goes to push the door open, but it won’t budge. He double checks the locks, but no matter which way he turns them, the door won’t open. Panicking, he starts to call his friend again, the one he had called earlier, the one he trusted the most. Still nothing. He looks down to try another number, but realizes all of his contacts have suddenly disappeared from his phone.

“What the hell is going on? I can’t…” he tries to restart his phone, but it won’t turn off, no matter how many times he tries. He opens Instagram, thinking maybe he can contact a friend through there. The screen pauses for a moment, loading, loading….

When the app finally loads, Jerry finds himself signed out. Too drunk to try and remember his password, Jerry gives up and begins crying again, falling to the ground, his phone encased in his grip. Trembling to his very core, Jerry gives into the pain he has been so desperately trying to hold back. Paralyzed by the pain, Jerry lays on the floor, curled in a ball, tears now flowing from his sunken eyes. Unintelligible shrieks of agony squeak out of his clenched jaw. Drool begins oozing out, as his eyes glaze over from either the tears or the vodka.

His phone rings again. Jerry can barely move, frozen from the fear and the pain of being completely and utterly alone. Without his friends, without an escape door out of his apartment or his own trauma-filled head, Jerry is ready for it all to end. Clinging to the small hope that ring might save his life, he peers over through his puffy red eyes, and once again sees a name that couldn’t possibly be calling him.

“You’re not my fucking mom! She’s gone, so stop tormenting me! Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!” Jerry screams into the phone, drunk, but still aware of how much anger he has been holding in since mother’s death, and how in that single outburst, he had expelled any energy he had left to give to his own misery.

His heart, which had been trembling and skipping beats every night since her death, paused once more. He saw her, right in front of him, but this time, not like he had seen her that very final time, but as he wanted to remember her. As she was when he was five years old, playing with him around in the backyard, running after him in the sprinklers. He turned around to look at her shining face full of life, as she picked him up and lifted him off the Earth. Jerry swung through the air in his mother’s arms, once again with a body and heart as light as when he was a child, before darkness had spread through his mind like a disease. Both mirrors of light to each other, sharing the sun.

His heart beat once more, but this time, not in this world, but beyond the grave, taking Jerry to his long-awaited homecoming.

Jerry was not found in his bachelor pad for two months, as none of his friends called or checked on him. Their lives had gotten so full and so busy and so wonderful. Jerry's landlord discovered his withering rotting body only because his automated credit card payment for rent had been declined, and the man needed to be paid. Lifeless, he was to be evicted from his final place of rest, as new tenants moved in, hearing only whispers of a sad man who killed himself from utter loneliness.