Immaculate Conception

by Ling Ling Huang

Is there anyone who knows a young woman’s body better than her closest friends? By way of love or comparison or some combination of the two?

and I remembered the satisfaction of being frustrated in the pursuit of an artistic ideal.

Maybe it had been better when we were just trying to outdo one another. We had a chance then, at least. Now we had to constantly prove our exceptionalism, racing ahead of technology’s ever-reaching grasp.

There was a cultural obsession with the possibility of multiverses, but to me, social media was proof enough of their existence. With a flick of a finger, you could see every life you could have had if only you’d been born smarter or luckier, or made better choices.

Now, with the ongoing collapse of the internet brought on by the invisible buffers and the transition of everyone living in their own virtual reality bubbles, it would be futile to try to make art for a collective public. Humanity had chosen individualization.