The Quiet Pull

Date: 11/13/2025

My phone is popping off like a firework in my hand — a staccato symphony of pings and vibrations. Texts are flooding in, relentless, multiplying like cells in a petri dish. I click one open. “You’ve got to see!” it says. Curiosity sparks. Turns out, our good friend Steve — Jenni’s husband — has been cast on a TV show. I scramble for the remote, the plastic cool and greasy in my grip. Flick on the TV. Sure enough, there he is — Steve —grinning like a Cheshire cat in a hot tub full of beautiful women. Steam fogs the screen, but his smugness cuts through it like a lighthouse beam. Only… they’re all speaking Norwegian. Including Steve. “For fuck’s sake,” I groan. “Aren’t there any subtitles?” There are — but I need to enter a five-digit code, and I haven’t the foggiest what it is. The group chat is still exploding, everyone dissecting the episode, emojis and exclamation marks firing like confetti cannons. But a hollow pit opens in my stomach — that sinking sadness that comes when you realise you’re not really part of something, only looking in through glass. Before I turn off the TV, I swear I see my husband in one of the scenes. Just in the background — barely noticeable —watching two girls kiss, their tongues twisting together like serpents. He walks into the room just then, casual as you like. I point at the screen. “Why are you on TV?” He laughs, shakes his head. “That’s not me.” Denies it flatly. Won’t have any of it. End of discussion. Doppelgänger, then. The screen flickers — static hisses — and suddenly we’re somewhere else. A woodland adventure park. The kind we used to take the kids to, back when they weren’t glued to their screens. The air smells of sap and damp bark. The laughter of unseen children echoes through the trees. The boys aren’t here. Only Mat and Phoebe. Phoebe’s a teenager again — fourteen, maybe — all eye rolls and sighs, her attitude trailing us like a swarm of midges. “Will you cut it out,” I snap. My patience frays. She storms off towards a towering log slide, rickety and dangerous. A small girl waits at the top, sugar-sweet and still. Phoebe climbs up, but when she gets there, she freezes. “I want to come down now!” she yells. Before she can, the little girl pushes her. Phoebe tumbles — bouncing from log to log with the elegance of a sack of sand — until she lies crumpled at the bottom. “Jesus Christ!” I scream. “She’s killed her!” My heart thunders against my ribs, like it’s trying to break free. Then — laughter. Phoebe’s laughter. Pealing, cruel, alive. She’s fine. Just another one of her twisted jokes. Mat isn’t amused. Never is. His fury burns hot and silent. She’s always been an attention seeker, even as a little girl; breaking into my makeup kit to craft black eyes and fake bruises, faking stomach aches like an Oscar-winning actress, cutting delicate scars into her arms and wearing them like jewellery. We move on to the pool. It’s chaos — a cacophony of shrieks and splashes, flumes curling overhead like veins of some great watery beast. Chlorine thick in my throat. It looks like an environmental hazard. Safety Steve would be having a heart attack right about now. “Shall we?” I ask, flirting with danger. “Yeah, together.” I sit on Mat’s lap. His arms wrap around me — loose, unreliable, like a seatbelt from the seventies. “Ready, set, GO!” he yells. We launch into the yellow tunnel, our screams swallowed by the rushing dark. Halfway down, I realize he’s not holding me anymore. “Mat?” I call, my voice snatched by the echo. “Just behind you!” he shouts — but it sounds far away. The slide spits me out violently. I hit the water hard, gasping. I wait for him, staring up the throat of the tube. But he never comes. “Mat?” I call again. Then — a shadow. A sound like thunder. A blobfish of a man rockets out of the chute, wobbling through the air like a gelatinous missile. He crashes into me, a tidal wave of blubber and momentum. I see my life flash before my eyes — all the stupid bits too, like wearing mismatched shoes on the school run and pretending I liked quinoa — and before the final curtain call… I’m gone. Blackout. When I open my eyes, I’m sitting on a bed. Mat’s pacing, wild-eyed, hands flexing like he’s trying to hold onto air. I ask what’s wrong, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. Invisible. So I start undressing — slowly, deliberately — letting my clothes fall around me like shed skin. Maybe that’ll get his attention. But his mind is elsewhere. He’s not here with me. Then I feel something warm between my legs. Fleshy. Wet. “Oh my god,” I whisper. He turns — and freezes. His face is pale, a ghost in shock. I look down. An umbilical cord is sliding out of me, slick and pulsing in the light. It snakes across the floor, glistening like an eel. I follow it — hand over hand — across the carpet, over discarded clothes, past the bed where we once made love. It stretches further, impossibly far —through the doorway, down the hall, curling towards the living room where the TV still hums faintly with static. The cord leads straight to the screen. And there — flickering behind the glass — is me. Standing in the same room. Watching myself. The me on the screen looks up, eyes wide, as though she’s just seen me too. Then she smiles — faintly, knowingly — and gives the cord a final tug. I feel the pull in my stomach — sharp, inevitable — and before I can scream, I’m yanked forwards. The TV swallows me whole. Static fills the room. The quiet pull.