The Filtered Life (short fictional story)!

Maya had 248.000 followers. Her feed sparkled-

sunsets in Santorini, slow – motion twirls in designer dresses, captions that said “Be your own muse.” (Behind the screen she was two months behind her rent, editing photos in a one -bedroom apartment lit by the glow of her ring light.)Maya was WEBoogee- fluent in influence. Across town, Lena scrolled through Maya’s feed during her lunch break at the pharmacy. Her salad wilted while her sense of worth did the same. ” How is she always happy?” Lena thought pulling at the waistband of her scrubs. “Why does her skin look like that? Why does her life look like that?” She didn’t know Maya had spent 45 minutes Facetuning her smile that morning, trying to hide the fact that she’d cried the night before. Lena only saw the highlight reel- and like many others, she began scripting a duller version of her own story in response. Lena was a WEBoogie- not by choice, but by algorithm. By 7 pm, Maya posted another photo: her feet on a balcony, wine in her hand, captioned ” Breathe in success, exhale doubt.” Lena turned off her phone, sat on her couch, and wondered when her own breath stopped feeling like enough.

Don’t be disappointed : ” Not every light on a screen is a truth. Some are just filters with better timing”, “Don’t WEBoogie your life away chasing someone else’s fiction.”, “Behind every perfect photo might be a perfectly constructed lie.”, “You are individual worth having your own story, might be different and less extravagant than others- but its yours. And if your friends don’t support you in your choices, it might be a good time to change the venue, and find another friends.”