Logging Off

by Nick Spalding

Sitting on the long sofa is a woman wearing a see-through shower curtain. Sitting next to her is a cowboy. Look, I’m sorry, but I’m not making this stuff up. That is a shower curtain she’s wearing. I can see little plastic ducks on it. The ducks are multicoloured, so they’re very on-brand for Fluidity. The cowboy . . . is a bloody cowboy. What more do you need?

‘Please feel free to run your hand across the wall on your way,’ Winery Smalls tells me. ‘The tactile sensation should calm your second soul.’ Second soul? I’m not entirely sure I have a first one, and now this shower-curtain-clad woman is telling me I have a second one?

I’d always known that social media was a place of exaggeration and falsehood, but never actually thought I’d be the kind of person taken in by it . . . not to that extent, anyway. And yet, there we have it.

OK . . . so I’m not having coffee with a hardened criminal, it appears, just someone who’s clearly a conspiracy theorist of the highest order. Joy of Illuminati joys.

‘My brain is always buzzing, you know?’ she says. ‘Fizzing. I never seem to relax. Can’t sleep most nights. Does that go away?’ ‘Yeah. It does.’ And that’s the truth. I do sleep better. My brain does feel calmer.

Grace now looks confused. ‘I think so . . . I’m not sure. On the one hand, I’m desperate to be away from my house, but on the other, I’m terrified of going out . . . thanks to being such a shut-in over the past few years.’ I nod my head. ‘I can understand that. Doing a digital detox is something that comes with both its good points and bad. I’ve learned that fast. It forces you to confront things about yourself that can be . . . challenging.’

Obviously, she also wants to find out how well she can cope with being out and about in a busy city, instead of being parked at home in front of a screen. And I have to confess, I’m interested to see how I get on with it, as well.