What's New

Isaac squinted into the computer monitor, straining to read through the errors one more time. A brilliant arc blazed across the screen firing detonations of searing light behind his eyes. The sting from the cataract shot through him as he dragged the back of a hand across his eye, smearing water and tears around the side of his face. A clipped cry escaped his lips.

Isaac sat rigid in edged discomfort, his breath sunken within a heavy tomb at the bottom of his chest as he waited for his vision to return. Eventually, the light in his mind dimmed, retracting from his periphery and allowing inky darkness to swirl in its aftermath. It continued to diminish in size and brightness, but as it did, it fell back into a shape. Though its luminosity continued to fade, the shape itself became increasingly defined, forming the silhouette of someone very familiar.

Isaac gasped, sucking in air to replenish the breath he still held as he rediscovered his vision. The monitor hummed in front of him, the pattern of the dreaded application UI that haunted his dreams displayed on its face. But there was something else, too. Faint but perceptible, the same instantly recognizable figure seemed burnt into the screen.

“Mom?” He breathed the astonished question.

He covered his gaping mouth with his hand and kicked his rolling chair back from the desk.

How could he be seeing this? Was it somehow a manifestation from his mind? Isaac had neglected calling his mother again today. He pictured her awaiting his daily call from her hospital bed, waiting to tell him how it was the only thing she looked forward to. Of course, the ongoing problems with his work were significant, dire even. But how do you repeatedly issue those same pitiful excuses to your dying mother? She could be overbearing, sure, and he didn’t always look forward to their conversations. In fact, her uncanny knack for manipulating him pushed him to move away before he even turned eighteen. But she was still his mother.

The middle of the night, too late to call now. The air felt weighted above him, everything seemed to hurt. Isaac sagged over in the chair, pressing his face into his hands and holding tight against hot pressure pulsing in his head.

Then the harsh noise of his phone vibrating across his desk shocked him alert. Through a milky haze now swimming in his eyes he saw the word “Mom” in stiff, bold lettering at the top of his phone screen.

“Oh no,” he whispered. He waited through one more ring, steeling himself. “All right, that’s it. It’s time to man up,” he said aloud, surprising himself with the volume of his conviction. He knew that, with whatever time she had left, she needed him.

He thumbed the green answer button and spoke as soon as he heard the static from the call in his ear buds.

“Hey, Mom. What’s new?”

A silly way to start the call, he thought, realizing the more appropriate question would be to ask if she was all right or if something was wrong. Nevertheless, he started every call this way, always counting on her to lead the conversation, and she always did. She did this time, too.

“Isaac,” she said, her muffled voice in odd alignment with the amplitude of the static on the line. “I need you. I need you right now.”

“Yeah, I am so sorry I didn’t call today, Mom. It’s just that I’m really behind on this project and...”

“They’re coming for me, Isaac. I’m too weak and I’m afraid. What happens if they take me?”

“What? Who could be coming for you? You’re in a hospital.”

“No, I’m past that now. It’s dark here and they’re coming. I need you,” she pressed.

Isaac sat stunned, the ominous tone of her words settling over him like a shroud. A light pulsed in front of him and he looked up to see her fully illuminated image pulsing like a beating heart on the monitor.

“Where exactly are you, Mom?” he asked, his eyes transfixed.

“The same place you will go when everything you know ends.”

The pain of a glacial floe of ice pushing itself through his veins stole Isaac’s breath.

“I need you here now,” she continued. “Misery and pain fill your days, but I can free you from that. You can be strong here.”

Isaac’s mind raced, his twisted expression belying his struggle grasping any thought. His mother’s facade glared brightly before him. “But... you said you’re scared there,” he said finally.

“Yes, but only because I am weak. Together we are stronger. They can’t take us if we...” her voice trailed off. “We can be together forever.”

He puzzled over her words, searching for some thread of logic to cling to, but as always he failed. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“There’s no time! Do you really want to wake up tomorrow and fight through another miserable day knowing that you chose not to escape when you had the chance?”

The shining form of his mother moved on the screen, seeming to come closer.

“What do I do?” he asked.

She reached for him. “Come to me.”

Ropes of light spilled from her outstretched hand and webbed their way toward him. They reached his face, spreading warmth and sending a tingling energy coursing through his body. A deep comfort set in. Isaac straightened in his chair and touched his face with probing fingertips. The pressure in his head was gone. He pushed against his eyelid, recoiling as he anticipated the sharp pain from the cataract, but it did not come. Tears flooded his eyes and he wept, crying because he finally remembered what it felt like as a child: it felt like this.

He looked toward the light and saw that his mother now extended both arms and seemed closer still. “Please come now,” she said.

Isaac lunged from the chair and reached for her hands.