I don’t exactly remember when I decided not to leave my bed. I stopped caring about work, and my family, and my boyfriend. I remember hearing the phone ringing all day. The messages would play from the other room.

“Hey, you didn’t call in this morning. We were wondering if everything was okay…”

“…Give me a call back as soon as you can, we need to have a meeting…”

“...You’ll be receiving your final paycheck in the mail...”

I couldn’t even say if I received it. I could imagine the mailbox, gorged with papers, bills, and letters that would eventually spill over onto the floor. It didn’t really seem to bother me. I was just in a funk, and when I was out of it, I’d look at my mail, among other things.

My boyfriend started to come around when I stopped returning messages. I stopped leaving my bed while he was out of town. Normally, we would talk on the phone every night, but suddenly I stopped picking up the phone, too. I heard his sweet messages from the other room, rife with concern. I did feel bad, in a way. But not enough to pick up the phone.

When he got back, he came around almost every day, I think. I’m not sure because days began to run together, and I could no longer sleep. At first he asked me why I didn’t pick up, and I lied and said my phone calls were going straight to the machine. I know he wanted to ask why I wasn’t checking messages for a month and a half, or why my sheets smelled so bad. I saw it in his face. It crinkled up with concern, in that cute way. When somehow I convinced him that I was okay, he started to talk about his trip. I managed to sustain the conversation through indifferent noises. He cuddled up next to me, and he started to kiss me.

I felt my lips, dry and unmoving, in between his. He pulled away with that same concerned look, and said he had to go.

I would explain everything to him once I was out of this strange phase.

Feelings would pass through this vague filter of indifference. I would have to pee, but I would hold it, and then the urge would dissolve. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t piss myself or anything, but about what I assume to be two or three months in, I started feeling these really sharp pains in my abdomen. I should’ve tried to go to the bathroom.

I was horny. One afternoon, I was just really horny. This had to have been the most energy I exerted since the beginning of my exile. I strained to pick my arm up, pausing to study the mottled brown and red colors on my skin where it rested on the mattress. I believe I spent a few minutes trying to masturbate, and then I just got tired of it. My arm felt exhausted. I returned it to its prior position, and I noticed my fingers were covered with flakes of dried blood. I couldn’t remember if I had tampons or not. I idly wondered if my boyfriend even found me attractive anymore.

At some point he stopped showing up. And after a while I stopped seeing my roommate, too. I never saw her much to begin with, but now that I wasn’t sleeping, I had seen her more when she got home from work late at night. But lately, I haven’t seen her. From what I can see of the living room from here, her pictures are gone from the mantle.

I think it was a few weeks ago that there began a regular banging on the door every afternoon. Naturally I assumed it was my landlord. Taking a guess, I’m pretty sure that now I was a good six months behind on rent. Rent that I was now expected to pay all by myself. I’ll find another job soon. I should start looking.

I felt like once I began to get hungry, I’d get out of bed and resume my life. But the hunger came and left in waves, and I just dealt with it. I would love food, though. I would love a hamburger with sweet potato fries, a plate of chow mein with dumplings on the side, tandoori chicken and crackers with a few Amstel Lights to wash it all down. At first, I missed cooking. I loved cooking. Gradually, the very idea seemed so cumbersome. Why would anyone ever want to cook a meal?

The last set of banging at the front door didn’t sound like fists. If I had to imagine, the door was being boarded up. Our landlord was always so strange. So what if I wasn’t paying rent? This is still a perfectly habitable apartment. I wonder how my neighbors are these days.

I started to get chest pains. I was so used to the abdominal pain by then that it didn’t even seem to warrant concern anymore. But the chest pains were intense. They would come on slowly, and I’d have a hard time breathing. I would draw raspy, shallow breaths, and I absolutely hated the sound. At a certain point, my chest and lungs felt like this all the time. I wanted to try and talk, to see if I could, but I guess there was little point. I wasn’t the type to just talk to myself.

I think my parents came by a few times. I heard somebody fighting with the landlord in the hallway about a missing person. I was prompted to yell and let them know that I was still here, but I guess they’d figure it out eventually. I did kind of miss talking to my mom, though.

I’m not sure how to keep track of time anymore. I’ve noticed the mattress has sunken in a considerable amount around my body. I figured that this would ultimately make it too hard to pry myself from it, so why bother? I’ve stopped smoking, though. This isn’t all bad. I stopped wanting to go out for a cigarette after a few days. At this point, I am truly indifferent. I don’t have a job, a roommate, a boyfriend or parents that even know I am alive anymore. I’ve managed to amputate myself from my own life, in a relatively painless manner. What reason did I have to get out of bed anymore?