“What are you doing?”

I glanced up to see Richard had just entered the living room, an incredulous look on his face. I grimaced at him. “Doomscrolling. Don’t judge me.”

You guys don’t judge me either. We live in a crazy world right now, and social media’s one of the best ways to keep up. Besides, it was Sunday afternoon and I was bored. Richard had been scriptwriting, Danielle had done some cleaning and tidying earlier when she had the wheel, and Jelly Doll was having some freeze time in its display case. Which left me at a loose end, and thus I got sucked into a news spiral, which is not the most fun spiral to be sucked into.

“I’m not judging,” he said, and then corrected himself with a grin, “Well, I am a bit. But regardless, wouldn’t it be easier to do that with a phone?”

It was my turn to look perplexed. “What d’you think this thing in my hand is?” I asked, waving it at him.

He arched an eyebrow. “Well, that is the point I’m trying to make, love. You’re holding a shoe.”

I blinked, absorbing his words, and then stared at the object in my hand, my mouth dropping open in astonishment. “What the fuck? Why - why was I -” Groaning, I shook my head as if hoping some of my confusion would fall out of my ears or something. “Dude, you’ve broken my brain! Now I’m getting shit mixed up just on my own...”

“It does seem like one of those unintended consequences,” he said with a wry grin, leaning against the door frame.

Sighing, I sat up and reached for the coffee table, setting down the plastic-and-glass rectangle that now couldn’t have seemed less like a phone to me. Never mind that I’d just spent forty minutes staring at it, scrolling through Instagram and the Cursed Bird App (again, don’t judge). Now that Richard had pointed it out to me, this was obviously a shoe.

This feels like the right time for my regular mid-chapter pause so you can all point and laugh at me. Go ahead, get it out of your system.

“So where the hell is my phone?” I muttered, scratching my head.

“Well, if you’re getting it muddled up with a shoe, maybe it’s on the shoe rack?” Fuck Hawk suggested, already turning in that direction.

“Gotta be worth a look.”

I got to my feet and followed him, but he’d already reached the front door and crouched down by the wooden rack. “Found it!” he called out, straightening up and brandishing what looked like one of my favourite brown leather boots, but was clearly my phone, definitely. Master said it was my phone, after all, and he wouldn’t lie to me, or play any tricks on my poor gullible brain and make me look like a fucking moron, just to entertain himself. No way, not him.

Letting out a sigh of relief, I marched over and took my chunky brown phone from him. “Thanks. Dunno what the hell happened there. I don’t even remember putting it there...” I chewed my lip. “Maybe Dani did it earlier, when I was napping in the back seat. Yeah. Yeah, it must’ve been her, she’s the only one dumb enough to get them confused.” Seeing Richard raise his eyebrow at me again, I waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, yes, I know, I gottem confused too. That’s her stupidity infecting me. I’m good now.”

I’m gonna take this opportunity to apologise to Danielle, because clearly she had nothing to do with any of this. Sorry girl, you just caught some shrapnel. (Aww it’s OK Alyssa, I don’t mind! I am really stupid, it doesn’t bother me if you say so. Besides, Master made you look so stupid, I think we’re even!) ... ’K, great. Didn’t realise she could add her own comments and responses. Guess I’ve got a cowriter now, that’s fun.

Anywho. ‘Phone’ in hand, I sauntered back to the sofa, my deceitful dick of a boyfriend following close behind. “You might find the news is a little nicer on your real phone,” he remarked, sitting down heavily in the armchair and picking up the TV remote.

“Hope so,” I muttered, sprawling on the sofa again and raising my boot towards my face. Pressing the heel to switch on the home screen, I began tapping on the rubbery sole, reopening Instagram and scrolling through it. Images of my friends, and of certain celebrities I follow (and being an actress, there’s a little bit of overlap there), flashed through my mind, most of which I’d seen earlier on my real phone - although it was as if I was seeing them for the first time now.

I gotta tell you, looking through the fake news on my shoe was a more pleasant experience than reading it for real on my actual phone. I was a lot more relaxed, my mind sinking into tranquility as I gazed intently at the bottom of my boot. I must’ve looked super dumb, tapping away on the sole with a dumb smile on my face, giggling occasionally at a meme I’d remembered. (In fact I know I looked dumb - between each act in the new Crowd Control, Richard took a sneaky photo of me.)

At length, he called over, “Hey, I just messaged you, let me know when you get it.” At once, a notification flashed up from Discord: ‘Fuck Hawk Sent a GIF’. That should’ve set off alarm bells in my brain, but clearly they’d been muted, along with my ability to tell a Samsung Galaxy from a Mayfair and Finch boot. So I went ahead and opened the imaginary message.

A whirling iridescent vortex filled the ‘screen’, capturing my mind completely as soon as I ‘saw’ it. I let out a feeble little ‘huh’ sound and slumped in my seat, enthralled by the glittering GIF that my subconscious had selected, prompted by Richard in an earlier trance I’d totally forgotten. My eyes went glassy. My mouth hung open, letting saliva stream onto my sweater. My limbs went limp, aside from my right arm, which remained bent upwards so my hand could continue holding up my boot, allowing me to keep staring at the shining, spellbinding spiral I could see on its sole.

Which was, I’ll admit, a much nicer spiral to get sucked into.