Snow White

Once upon a time there was a queen, and the queen said, “Hey Google, who’s the fairest one of all?” And her Nest Audio said, “Sorry, I didn’t understand.” So the queen tried again; she said: “Hey Google, who is the most attractive person in my geographic area?” and Google said, “Sorry, I don’t have any information about that.”

So the queen tried her phone; she said, “Hey Siri, top 10 most beautiful people in my kingdom,” but Siri didn’t answer, and the queen remembered she’d become annoyed and disabled Siri the night before.

The queen walked into her sitting room, where she had an Amazon Dot. “Alexa,” she said, “who’s the most beautiful person in the kingdom?” And Alexa said, “Sorry, I’m having trouble understanding right now,” which was a problem that had been going on awhile, and the queen had googled it and tried moving the Dot away from the wall and blowing out dust but nothing had helped.

The queen sighed and returned to her bedroom and opened Instagram on her phone. The queen had over two hundred million followers so her notifications were a nightmare, but she scrolled through search. Among the snaps of donkeys and farm workers was a reel of a young woman sweeping the front porch of a cottage in the forest. Maybe it was just the light, or filters, but she looked possibly even more beautiful than the queen.

The queen’s finger hovered over the clip. Normally, she would have looked up the account name, hired a hunter, and had the girl killed. But today she hesitated. She looked at the gorgeous outfits that had been laid out on the bed for the day’s photo shoot. “Why do I do this to myself?” she said. “It’s probably just filters.” Then she cast the phone onto the bed.

That day, the queen enjoyed the shoot for herself, living in the moment, unplugged, and felt happy and satisfied, and also like she was growing as a person. But when she posted her new set, among all the likes was the comment: “so beautiful xxx also love @snowwhite you 2 should pose together sometime.” The queen tapped through to see who @snowwhite was and fuck her if it wasn’t the sweeping girl from that morning.

“Hey Google,” said the queen, “Call Hunter.”