White sand was between my toes as I dangled my foot off the side of the sun lounger. A gentle tan covered my legs, torso, and other places that were hidden by my white bikini.
“God, you are beautiful, Jo.”
Chris Evans really did look good in a pair of swimming trunks. The cocktails he was carrying dripped with condensation, tracing water lines down his hands.
“You don’t look too bad yourself,” I replied, a coy smile slipped across my face. I could only hope that my sunglasses covered the mischief in my own eyes. He put the cocktails down as he sat beside me and began tracing a cold finger up my leg. As he reached my inner thigh, he stopped. With mischief in his own eyes, he stretched, flexing his muscles and giving me that boyish grin that is known around the world.
“Tease.”
He laughed gently. And then body slammed his elbow into my boob.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
“Mummy said a swear.”
The pain in my chest had me gasping for air as I took in my surroundings. I was not on a white beach, wearing a white bikini, Chris Evans was not bringing me cocktails and turning me on with one finger, and sunshine was nowhere to be found. I was in Northern Ireland, the rain was pissing down outside despite it being July, and my youngest had just woken me at an ungodly hour with a wrestling move she had been taught by her older brothers. I don’t like to be woken out of my sleep at the best of times, but to be woken at 3:30 am with a tiny elbow to my titty and being ripped from a fabulous dream, it was enough to make a person yeet their pet sperm out of the nearest window. But I won’t. That’s bad parenting.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
My husband, the real one that was responsible for the three crotch goblins that lived with us, appeared from behind the door of the en-suite bathroom.
“The fruit of your lions is awake,” I groaned as I rubbed my sore boob.
Terry lifted his little princess off the bed.
“Summer, you know you shouldn’t be up at this time,” he whispered to her.
“But you’re awake.”
“I have to go to work, I’m doing the early shift this week.”
Trying to explain shift work to a five year old was tough sometimes. I don’t know why she didn’t get it, Terry had been working shifts her whole life. The problem was that Summer was a light sleeper and didn’t sleep as much as the rest of us. She was fuelled by some unstoppable force, possibly the sun or witchcraft. Sometimes I wished I had called her Winter instead, maybe then she would sleep a bit longer.
Once she was tucked in again, Terry resumed getting ready for work before slipping quietly out the front door. I want to tell you that I stayed awake, gave him a kiss good-bye, and told him that I loved him. But that would be a lie. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow again.
“MUM!”
“JESUS CHRIST! I’M AWAKE!”
I was not awake. My state was closer to the walking dead. A zombie that was controlled by three mini masters, otherwise known as my children. Despite going back to sleep for several hours, I couldn’t get back to my Chris Evans dream, and I was still tired.
All three of my children were sitting on the sofa with monstrous bowls of cereal.
“Turn the volume down, that is too loud for this time of the morning.”
“But it’s after 10 am.”
“I don’t care, it’s too loud and… and… is that my mixing bowl?”
Miles, the oldest of my merry band of pint sized dictators who was the grand old of age of 13, was eating his cereal out of the large Mason Cash mixing bowl I had inherited from my mum.
“What? It’s a big bowl.”
“It’s for mixing cakes in! Not eating cereal!”
He gulped down another mouthful of cereal with a confused look on his face.
“Yeah, and when do we make cakes?”
It was too early for this bullshit. As I walked away, I could hear the volume dropping on the TV. It wasn’t much but I take my wins when I can. Especially when it looked like Miles had poured a full box of cereal and 2 litres of milk into a bowl that might be older than me. Moving at a penguin pace down the hall, I shuffled into the kitchen to boil the kettle. It had been over 6 hours since my left boob had been crushed by a tiny elbow and it still bloody hurt.
Having the kids to yourself and a mountain of free time during the summer holidays should be a good thing. For two months during the “good” weather, I was free from work. That is the beauty of being a classroom assistant that only works during term time. You get all of the holidays off to spend some quality time with your family. We were two weeks into the eight week holiday and I wanted to dropkick each one of my kids out of a window already. I wouldn’t… but the temptation was definitely there.
“He touched me!”
“Her foot was on my side of the sofa!”
“They keep licking their hands and touching the remote!”
“ENOUGH! I need more coffee before I have to deal with any of this!”
I ripped the remote out of the hands of my middle child and started streaming a movie for them.
“There! Now sit quietly and watch the movie. And for God’s sake, let me have a cup of coffee in peace!”
A sullen silence filled the room before the music of the opening scenes of the film rolled across the screen. It was highly unlikely that it would keep them quiet for long but a few moments of peace was better than nothing. I slipped away to the back of the living room, cup in hand, and out the double doors to the conservatory. Sipping the sweet, delicate, instant coffee, my shoulders relaxed a little. The ancient furniture creaked under my weight. Once I had taken my first sip, I pulled my phone out of my dressing gown pocket and opened TikTok. Mindless scrolling was one of the few joys in my life. I started flicking down the FYP. It was filled with the usual stuff. Cats being idiots, Reddit Minecraft stories, and #cleantok. I loved TikTok. There was many a day I had popped on there quickly with the intention of wasting a few minutes, only to surface after a few hours had slipped away. It didn’t take long for me to wander over to the weird side of TikTok. It happens sometimes. One minute you’re watching a woman organise her fridge with fancy glassware, then you have some guy with a pasta pot on his head, warning you that microwaves are communicating with demons and jelly babies are slowly consuming your soul every time you eat one. If you hit these videos, you have scrolled too far. But somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, you will find manifestation tok. A magical place on the internet where they believe that you can change your life if you think about it. This is where I found myself on this fateful morning.
“Let’s play a game!”
“Couldn’t have come up with a better opening, could ya?”
“Today, eight thousand pounds has hit your bank account, what are you going to spend it on? Remember, all of your bills have been paid, you can’t give any of it to charity. You must spend every penny before midnight. So what are you going to buy? Let me know in the comments. And if this is the first time you are seeing one of my videos, head over to my profile and check out day one of our manifestation game to play along. Good luck and I’ll see you all tomorrow with a new amount!”
I didn’t normally play these games. In fact, I thought manifestation was a load of shit. But still… this looked like fun. I clicked her profile and searched for day one.
“Good morning everyone! One thousand pounds just hit your bank account, what are you going to spend it on?”
That was easy. New school uniform. Mile’s blazer and shoes were going to cost me a small fortune, never mind his PE kit. The younger two were still in primary school but school supplies were easily £200 for the stationary they needed last year. Moving on…
“ Good morning, two thousand pounds just dropped…”
“Oh, so it doubles every day. Got it.”
I scrolled through each day, imagining spending my magical money. After a while, I started to depress myself. The house we lived in had been my mum’s and I had inherited it nearly 8 years ago. Looking around, very little had changed in that time. And getting 30-odd-grand magically dropped into my bank account wouldn’t change the fact that I couldn’t get rid of the hand-painted Italian tiles my mum had chosen 30 years ago for the kitchen. I sighed as I flicked past the videos on this guru’s profile until something else caught my eye.
“Let’s up spiral!”
Say what now?
The idea was beautiful. It was flawless. It. . . had probably been rehashed a million times before by other manifestation gurus but this time I gave a crap. Be the best version of yourself. I know I have heard this before. It’s what you are supposed to do. But, for some reason, when other people tell me to do this, my reaction is to tell them to do one. The idea was simple. Take a piece of paper and make a list of things that the Ideal You can do. I knew what would be on this list, everything I wasn’t. The ideal me can speak five languages, play several instruments, and possess a body shape that couldn’t be described as ‘brutally beaten bag of potatoes’. Now you have to work backwards, what did this version of you do to get this? Twenty minutes ago, I would have said, “No idea! Born into a blessed life!” The reality was simple; small steps everyday until you reached that version of yourself. It was genius! Yet so obvious. If I turned my list into a routine, breaking down each area so I could take baby steps. I would clean the house, cook healthy meals and bake everyday. I would exercise. I would crack open the books on the bookcase and allow the paper inside to see the light of day and read for fun. I had lost my fucking mind. At the back of the living room was a bookcase which was crammed with various self-help and self-improvement books. For years, since the death of my mother, I had picked up these books to help me cope with the challenges of life. I rarely read them. Pulling them out from the shelves, dust filled the air. Scanning the titles, I started searching for something to kick start my brain. ‘Bolt Up’, ‘Queen of Everything’, and ‘Fan the Flames of Your Feminine Energy’ were just some of the titles I had collected over the years. I began to stack them beside the bookcase, the spines facing out and on display. It was a sort of to be read pile. On the top sat a copy of ‘Early Bird‘. I had brought this one years ago after I had heard people raving about it online. Opening the front cover, my messy handwriting was visible:
“To mum, looks like you have been a trendy guru for years! LOL! Love, Jo xxx.”
Holding the book against my chest, I remembered her laughing at it. It was the last book I had brought her before she had died suddenly. If she could see me now, she would kick my ass.
For the rest of the day, I spent preparing shopping lists, to do lists, planners, organisers, schedules. . . the works. By dinnertime, I was exhausted despite doing nothing from my lists. By the time the kids were in bed, I thought I was going to keel over. Opening my phone, I began mindlessly scrolling, but then a thought occurred. What if I made my own videos? A mini vlog everyday. I could share how things were going, keep myself accountable. Besides, I only had 12 followers, it wasn’t as if anyone would really care. This was just for me.
“Hi, ummm, I don’t normally post on here, I prefer to watch you guys be funny and talented. But I’m trying something. I want to be a version of myself. No, actually, I want to be the best version of myself. So, I want to be held accountable. So, I will post a wee video everyday; just sharing my progress and what I have doing. I’m giving myself 30 days to change my life. Today is day zero, so I’ll be starting properly tomorrow with this. Today was a prep day, trying to get ready. So yeah, I’ll post again tomorrow night and let you know how I got on. Ok. Bye!”
A few moments and clicks later, my video was up. This was the start of something beautiful.
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“Downspiral” is subject to copyright laws and cannot be reproduced in any way, is owned in its entirety by The Wright Press LTD. This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The Wright Press LTD assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in the content or for any actions taken based on the information provided.