Immaculate Conception

by Ling Ling Huang

Invisible buffers had been established on the internet so that websites were either enclave or fringe. Algorithms were no longer even vaguely related to our choices—they now corresponded to our IP addresses. I watched the possibilities of my life and self shrink to fit the algorithms, governed by these new limitations. The internet stopped being a place to connect to others or to exchange knowledge, and became a way to perform belonging in the world you had inherited.

Everything I’ve achieved has been from trying to keep up with her, and I only know who I am in relation to her. What do I do if she’s really gone? Will I also cease to exist?

Italian voices fizzed around her in our tenuous mobile connection, and I imagined her as one of many bubbles effervescing in a bottle of champagne.

I think a lot of people would insist that trauma is what makes me an artist. Or that the filter of trauma through which I make art is what makes it mine.”

All my life, I’ve choked on the bitterness of having a mind that doesn’t feel equipped to do what my soul wants. I was driven by the distance between what I could imagine and what I could put on paper. Eventually, I realized that what I lack isn’t skill but imagination itself.

On the screen, I especially love remembering our past together, realizing that every memory I have is only half remembered.

I had believed a lie I told myself, which was that I have always been my best, my most fulfilled, when I was envious. Really, it was love that has always made me my best. It has been my love for her that has most fulfilled, most fed me. The SCAFFOLD, like everything new, promised I would know her completely, but to know is to cease wondering. If jealousy was like a well, I’d never reached the bottom, hadn’t realized the well was a tunnel to the mother of envy, which is awe.