It hurts to get the phone. And half the time he can't even make it in time. The distance –the roaming gaping galaxy- between the couch and the phone is frightening, makes his gut burn with the fear. So he's afraid of pain. Who wouldn't be afraid of this pain?
It's ringing now. He's cursing. What he wants is to be without pain. What he wants is to be normal. What sort of sick, pitiful, crippled freak can't answer the phone because he's fucking afraid? He's so afraid of standing up –struggling up, he's coined it- that he does. He's sick of the fear. He's afraid of the fear. He's ashamed of the fear and the pain. He doesn't hoard any delusions of conquering the pain, rising from the ashes a triumphant victor, defeater of pain and fear. But it's a vicious cycle and the more he's afraid of the phone the more he has to answer it, and the more it hurts.
It rings again. He's made up his mind, he's grasping at the arm of the couch, he's digging nails bitten past the skin into the upholstery. His shoulders are stinging, they're trembling, right leg dangling like a fucking corpse glued to his hip. Swinging like hog meat in a van. Like so much fucking hog meat. There's a fast noise in his ear, it's echoing in his brain and distracting him, for which he's grateful and resentful, because it's something to think about, which maybe dampens the pain but also stretches out his task. The noise is his breath, he realizes when it synchronizes with a scratchy burn in his throat. It's the air whistling between lips clamped against his teeth. The arm of the couch is Everest and he's scaling –crawling- up it without air, slipping on the ice and sliced raw across his skin, all of it.
It rings again. He's off the couch. His left hand's on the peak of Everest, white-knuckled, his right's clamped around the corpse, strangling it, white-nailed. He's breathing slower but his heart is getting madder by the moment. Scared. He's afraid of the fear. He's sick of being stricken by pain. The corpse swings forward, and, ah, his breath is panicked again. Fire erupts, the corpse's bottom strikes the floor. The fire's in his lungs. In his heart because he's so afraid.
It rings again. Breathing stops at the critical moment, when the dangling, flaming corpse is left bearing the weight of his body (the hand splayed across Everest tries, but can't compete with the cadaver). This is why he's so afraid, this is why he's so ashamed. Bile's in his throat. It's an instant until his other foot has landed and the weight is off but it's the most infinite instant of his life, like falling down a chasm of acid, malicious acid streaking down the corpse's veins. If his breath didn't fill his head he knows he would hear a crash, a hospital imploding, when he shifts his weight off the corpse, back to the other.
It rings again. He starts over.
It rings again. He's wheezing and he's ready to accept the pain and embrace the fear. He's still ashamed.
It rings again and the fight is over, he's three feet out and the phone taunts him as the glow merrily dies. His fingers are trembling, his body is swaying in the middle of the room. The corpse is swinging noiselessly.
They're not leaving him a message.
Game over. He's turning around and it's back to Everest with his head hanging, corpse dangling. He's so damn scared of the pain and the shame because even when he tries, even when he fights it, he can't win.