Johanne Brinchmann’s Reviews > Yesteryear > Status Update

“But the nausea wouldn't go away, and the pressure in my chest was unbearable. I was finding it hard to breathe.
Maybe it's just sickening, how perfect my life is.
I paused. The pressure in my chest lightened a bit. My Online Natalie sensors flickered green, and I pushed dizzyingly forward.
Sometimes it actually makes me nauseous, how satisfyingno, how perfect my life is, and how good I am at living it.”

“This was the strangeness of becoming famous online. I had a million followers, I could access more people in a single moment than any European king of the last thousand years, and then someone could effortlessly wipe my entire kingdom away with a single sentence: I don't have Instagram.”

“The woman in the videos, with her flipbook of smiles? That was Online Natalie, and she was designed to be good at being alive.

And she was right there, wasn't she? Standing, smiling, beckoning. Any day now, I would wrap my fingers around her neck and pull her forward. Let her topple into me.”

“Each sleepless night brought me closer to a full mastery of-myself, I supposed. The performance of me. Of her.”

Caleb was going to slip and fall and hit his head on the corner of the bed, my mother was going to suffer a fatal car accident on the way to the hospital. A trade must take place for this life to enter the world. As my body halved open like a peach, I realized it was me who was losing my life; me who would vanish from the world to make room for this new child.
I will never be Natalie again. I will only ever be Mama.