This Anonymous Caller Is Not a Metaphor for Her Despair

“Going Up” by Chris Vanjonack

It’s the middle of the night when the Speaker first calls, and the timing is awful.

It’s nearly 2:00 a.m., for one thing, and Kate teaches first thing in the morning, but what’s worse is that Tom’s neighbor—her neighbor, now, she keeps reminding herself—didn’t wear himself out from all the screaming until like half an hour ago, and so when Kate’s phone rings, she was just, finally, maybe, starting to lose consciousness. The neighbor shouts like this every few days or so. Last week he wouldn’t stop moaning about how there’s no such thing as the self, and earlier tonight he was inconsolable about his own mortality. “Oh God!” he began shouting through the too-­thin drywall, just a few minutes after midnight. “I’m gonna die! Everybody I know is gonna die! What the fuck.”

They figure that whatever’s going on with him is some sort of night terrors situation, but in, like, “an existential way,” is how Tom puts it. Kate doesn’t understand how her boyfriend has put up with this for so long, although, to his credit, he really did try to warn her about it ...