Chronic Wellness

Maybe there's nothing more depressing in the whole world than an English city on a dull, wet day in early February.

The sky heaves grey and bored. With nothing better to do, it acts like a sort of meteorological burger press. Londoners scurry beneath it, but they can't escape it's crushing inevitability.

The rain drips just as idle, just as rotten with ennui and February-ness. It cries because it never gets to go anywhere nice, and when it gets there, it finds that it's not so nice after all. It bangs on the windows like a lover too late to interrupt a wedding, and slides to the pavement in a soggy slump of despair.

Meera doesn't sit by the window, intent instead on the little glowing window in her hands. Her coffee is growing cold. What a delightful phrase, it almost makes it sound like it's growing mould.

The images are beautiful. Pale beaches. Sunsets. Lush trees. Verdant, even, some might say, if they knew how to say it. Artisanal drinks. Smiles. Bikinis just this side of slutty. Everything glows. Skin. Skies. All is art. The perch of the tiny umbrella, the smear of sun cream. Scatter of sand like heavenly crumbs.

Social media is the highlight reel, isn't that what they say? Meera is all thumbs and eyes. Is she hoping to book her own trip? Jealous.

Her eyes bite too intensely for that.

It's like panning for gold, this. Only in reverse.

See it: a grizzled chap in a wide-brimmed hat, hunting through dust and silt and pebbles for those shiny nuggets.

Meera is just as patient, though not quite as grizzled. Instead of sifting through a small ocean of grey and brown for a glittery speck, she wades through the an amorphous reel of impossible golden beaches and sunsets. Digging for shit. She knows it's there. She can smell it.

When she was growing up, her parents were adamant that animals belong outdoors. When Meera got her first flat, she was thrilled to share it with a girlfriend who had a two-year-old Pomeranian. The novelty wore off fast. The little dog was poorly house-trained, which is to say, he wasn't house-trained at all. Six months it lasted, and then Meera couldn't hack it anymore. That experience of knowing there was dog dirt somewhere... Being able to smell it, but not find it... She was reliving it now. She could almost hear Gizmo's yappy little bark, see those beetle-bright black eyes bugging out of that small, fox-like face.

She set her jaw and kept scrolling. Meticulous. Every detail. Each dull, fawning comment.

I will find it. I will.

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Scroll north. Further. All the way up to the Scottish borders. There's a little village along here somewhere. Nestled among empty fields. There's a tiny shop with apparently random opening hours. Drive in any direction and you get rugged and dramatic landscape. Go far enough this way or that way, and you get rocky and windswept coastline, or aching and misty woodlands, stuffed to the brim with pine martens and eagles. The kind of places poets get excited about.

In this tiny vortex of mundanity, in a draughty cottage, Isla is surrounded by the tools of her trade.

A tropical smoothie with slices of pineapple. A large beach towel, a paperback with a sun-faded cover. Lots of makeup. Backdrops, and partly used packets of blutac. An open laptop. A mobile phone.

The smoothie is lukewarm. That pineapple is from Tesco's. Isla has removed the label, folded it over and tucked it in the pages of the book. It gives the impression of having been read. This sits next to a ceramic mug on the windowsill.

A ring light bestows a soft glow on all of it. Isla has draped a sheer scarf over it to give the impression of early morning sun. With the right filter, no one will be able to tell that she is not, in fact, doing yoga at sunrise. Isla is the master, or even mistress, of faking it. She unrolls a yoga mat at a jaunty angle. Stills aren't enough. She can make a decent carousel, but it's reels that will really get the reach. This means playing ocean sounds on a loop in the background. As far as her followers are concerned she's on an exclusive coastal wellness retreat.

Isla thumbs through the pictures on her phone. She gazes at them as if she could sink into them. They look so much warmer than the grey room and chilly, gritty floorboards she's sitting on.

Post carefully curated, Isla types a caption.

When you wake with the tide, and your body opens to the sun. #Bodyinbloom #SoulCleanse #RadicalRest

It's a bubble. Gleaming and dreamlike, and if she is very careful, she can ease into it, and be inside it. Manifest... all this. Make it real.

Bubbles, though, are delicate. If she is not careful, it will pop.

She thumbs at her phone again, eyeing the follower count, watching the likes.

She doesn't want to pull the #ChronicIllnessWarrior tag again, but she will if she has to.

She opens ChatGPT and asks it to write a post for her, to maximise sympathy from her audience. She knows from experience that this will generate the most engagement.

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The hours spent wading through that bullshit have finally paid off, at least a little. Meera is on her way to interview Kiera Brady. Kiera had commented on some of Isla's posts back in 2015, although a lot of her comments seem to have been deleted. A few had been missed in the purge, and these alluded to "what really happened" and "what Isla is really like".

She's been a hard woman to track down, having disappeared from socials in 2018. Now she's teaching yoga in Bishop's Stortford, and holding workshops on trauma informed classes for neurodivergent people. It's a good hour's drive, and Meera finds her mind wandering. All the way back to

that retreat in Devon. A converted barn with exposed beams and overpriced herbal teas. The kind of place that called itself “sacred” and charged extra for gluten-free bread. Except that all the bread was gluten-free bread. The staff were the sort of people who said things like, "Wheat is poison," with a completely straight face.

She’d gone because Isla was going. Isla had posted about it weeks before: artfully asymmetrical pictures of her suitcase, shot in soft focus, with her journal balanced on top. The caption, of course, waxing lyrical about her “healing intentions.”

Meera had been following her for ages, and when she saw this, she booked impulsively, hoping proximity might translate into friendship. She'd maxed out her credit card to do it, but it was worth it. Or it felt like it, at the time. Isla had that kind of charisma, like gravity. She made you feel, from beyond the screen, that you knew her, or that she knew you. It felt so good to share in her good looks, her sparkle, her charm.

The first night, they sat cross-legged in a circle, their mentor exhorting them to "set their intention". Why have you come, is what she meant. What do you hope to get out of this?

Meera had no idea what she would say when her turn came. The moment dragged out, stillness settling in the room, pressure building. The longer it took, the better her little speech had to be. Her eyes fell on Isla, and the answer came to her in a flash. True as an arrow, and just as sharp.

"Connection," she said, beaming. The mentor smiled at her warmly, and moved on around the circle.

When it was Isla’s turn, her voice was low and tremulous, her eyes glassy. "My mum’s been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer," she said. "She’s refusing treatment. I just… I needed..." She tapered off, and stifled sobs.

There was a collective intake of breath. A few people reached out to touch her arm. Meera felt her own throat tighten. Isla’s mother. She’d seen pictures—smiling, silver-haired, always in the comments with hearts and praise. Meera had never met her, but she felt the grief like it was her own.

Later that night, Meera found Isla in the kitchen, alone, scrolling her phone. "I’m so sorry," she said, gently. "About your mum."

Isla looked up, blank for a moment. She smiled a perfunctory smile. "Oh. Yeah. Thanks." Then she was back to her phone (which she wasn't supposed to be using here) as if Meera didn't exist.

The next morning, Meera overheard Isla, on the phone (again) laughing. "What? Oh, god no, Mum's fine. Honestly, she’s just being dramatic about her hip again. I told her to stop Googling things."

Meera froze. Her stomach turned. Unwilling to think poorly of Isla, Meera told herself there might be an explanation. Maybe Isla lied for a good reason. To protect herself. Perhaps she’d meant someone else.

Isla looked round, saw Meera standing there, and smiled with a theatrical finger to her lips.

Later that day, Isla posted a photo of herself in a sun-drenched field, arms raised.

Grief is a teacher. I’m learning every day. #CancerAwareness #HealingJourney”

Nobody said anything about the fact she was using her phone, using social media. Because of her large and growing following? Or because of her dying mother?

Meera didn’t say a word. She didn’t tell the retreat leader. She didn’t challenge the lie. She just nodded when Isla cried during yoga, handed her tissues, and reposted her photo with a heart emoji.

She thought Isla might notice. Might thank her for her loyalty and support, and finally see her as a real friend.

Instead, Isla ignored her. She spent the rest of the retreat glued to a girl named Tamsin, who had a better camera on her phone, and an even bigger following...

Meera gripped the steering wheel, determined to find this Brady woman, and expose the lies. That first one, the first one Meera knew about anyway, was at the bottom of a tall, heavy stack of them.

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Thank you for reading! If you can't tell, this one was written for a recent challenge and never finished in time. I'm currently working on the second half of it.