Get Up
Vivi Nguyen
The flash of the screen temporarily blinded her face. She couldn’t help but blink at the rude interruption to her bleak, lightless routine of lying in bed in the dark. Fearing the worst, she clicked on the little notification alerting her of a new text message. Oh wait, it wasn’t even a human interaction, just a spam alert from some brand of skincare she thought about buying once but reluctantly decided not to. She sighed at that, then sighed a little more at the cold sensation of her foot peeking from her blanket that decided at that very moment it needed to shift to expose her to cold air. The grouchiness of her being was not an uncommon one during the times when her menstrual cramps combined with her headaches to form an ultra mega monster that took over.
Another flash alerted her to an actual human being wanting contact, a text from her dear friend. They had met years and years ago, seemingly on the way to becoming platonic soulmates one step away from fusing together into one person. That was, before she had to move away, and their relationship suddenly became electronic, barren, infrequent, and quiet. But hey, a text message!
“LOL,” it read. Was there something funny she’d said prior to elicit such a reaction? Not that she knew of.
Another flashing notification—bless her inability to turn down her brightness no matter what environment she existed in—revealed an apologetic “sorry that was for someone else” message.
In the depths of her insecurities and lack of consideration, she wanted to angrily respond something cruel and malicious. In the outer layers of her rationality and self-awareness, she chose to instead thumbs up the message.
She quickly switched to the photo app, swiping through all the pictures they had taken in their adolescence. It stopped there, and the rest of her camera roll was filled with food pictures and memes only she found funny.
They had chosen to share locations with each other despite the distance for the hell of it a long time ago. She never paid it any mind nor actively checked for it, since it had seemingly always been the same. Thousands of miles of distance away, a sad fact that she didn’t need to be constantly reminded of. She already felt it in her heart and soul every day she opened her eyes.
She should have checked this time around.
It was like a flash of a too bright screen because a notification popped up in a dark room, except the human version. The hallway lights flashed the pitch-black room, stunning a currently grouchy woman on her bed under her sheets as she was met with the real-life appearance of her long-distance friend that now was nary a distance away and running into her for a bear hug.
Her friend probably spoke many words and said many things but to her there was only buzzing in her ear. Her heartbeat was so quick and strong it pounded against every part of her body, a pure joy that shook her. She grew mortified at the realization that she was also shaking due to heavy tears enveloping and wetting her face to the point it felt like she got caught in the rain.
Her friend grabbed for her shoulders and slowly rocked her with comfort like a mother would to her cherished child. They weren’t mother and daughter, but a love so similar to it.
She felt a sudden coldness sweeping over her then, like a sheet of ice was dropped on her head. Eyes squeezed shut, she didn’t want to open them back up. But she did anyway.
Her eyes opened to a familiar pitch black. Her foot once again was exposed to cold air by her faulty blanket. Like the popping of a bubble, the realization of a friend in front of her no longer sank in.
The tough part about her imagination was recovering from it. She knew the distance, the longing, and the feeling like experiencing a drought would never fade even for a second. But her mind wanted to dream and stray far away anyway.
It was like going back for seconds even though you knew your stomach was already hurting. Wanting something you desperately could not have, chasing after it so roughly and aimlessly all you end up doing is falling down. She knew that she knew it with her entire being.
Checking her phone with a preinstalled doubt, she clicked on the location tracker for her friend who was undoubtedly far far away. It read 4,397 miles. She sighed and clicked the off button. Her phone was hotter than an Arizona sidewalk in the summer at that point, an overworked soldier with the task of occupying the time of a depressed woman in bed.
She felt her cheeks blush at the notification that her phone could not continue charging until it was less overheated. She shuddered at the feeling of her body starting to form an imprint on the mattress. It was enough to get her up, to get her to turn on a lamp, to get her out of her room.
To her surprise, the hallway was beautifully lit with the natural lighting of a sunny day from the nearby windows, windows opened and blowing perfectly warm air inside.
The clock on the wall read 3:30 p.m. She stopped for a second to appreciate the way it ticked every second.
Continuing downstairs, she gasped at the sweet smell of a late breakfast. Steam rose from her plate on the table, a comforting assortment of pancakes and fruits and bacon she knew was prepared by her father based on the knowing grin he showed for a second after noticing her descend from the staircase.
She hastily sat down, a fork becoming well acquainted with her mouth.
He turned his head slightly to make sure the sight of his daughter eating happily wasn’t a dream.The open windows of the house allowed for the birds chirping outside to echo in. They must have been eating too… they sounded so chipper.