THE QUEEN OF INSTAGRAM

Fame goes to everyone’s head. It’s human nature.

We’re social creatures. We crave attention and praise, from the crappy crayon drawings our parents hang proudly on the fridge, to the medals we covet and the success we desire—life is a constant battle for attention. We want to be the best sibling; the best pupil; the best employee. We want to be of the few, not the many. And when we get the attention, when that spotlight shines down upon us and bathes us in the masturbatory glow of self-satisfaction, we stop trying. We stop pandering to the needs of others because we no longer need them to get where we want to be.

Some see themselves as godlike figures, above everyone else, to be revered and respected; others shirk from the spotlight, realizing that the dream is better than the reality. In the end, they all end up the same way—their brains disconnected from reality by way of extreme narcissism, dissociation, or double-barrel shotgun blast.

The Queen of Instagram had all the hallmarks of a narcissistic diva. She saw herself as more important than others; spent her days appealing to her fanbase and her nights proclaiming her greatness to whoever would listen. In her mind, she was a superstar, the most famous person to come out of her small and insignificant town since Scott Johnson, a notorious local pervert caught with his dick in Mrs. White’s Jack Russell. The deeply disturbed individual’s exploits were the stuff of urban legend, even though he was very much real and very much alive.

Unlike Mrs. White’s dog.

She referred to herself as the Queen of Instagram, a title she had given herself after her very first post—a blurry selfie taken in her parents’ bathroom, her pouty lips and glossy skin doing little to detract from the grime-covered walls or the hair-matted soap on the sink—had attracted modest attention from local perverts.

It wasn’t very regal, but it was enough to launch her mediocre career. In two years, she gained over five thousand followers, at which point she celebrated with a professional photo shoot and turned her delusions of grandeur up to eleven. Months later, she was into double figures—her ego growing along with her follower count.

A product of the Instagram generation, as well as the public-school system; drinking vodka and sucking off local drug dealers around the back of the local co-op, before being promoted to local royalty when she discovered the combined virtues of a front-facing camera, duck-face, and a push-up bra. She spent all her free time on her phone, her eyes glued to the screen at every opportunity, obsessing over how many likes she was getting, how many comments she had received, and whether any actual celebrities were responding to her messages.

The Queen of Instagram was hunched over her phone when she left her place of work, her eyes fixed on the screen even before the glass door swung shut behind her. The heat of the morning had been cleansed by a heavy storm, the streets rich with the fragrance of ozone, the pavements slick with rainwater. She wore a sleeveless top and a short skirt that exposed her tanned legs and arms to the elements, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her steps were brisk, as if on autopilot, going about her usual daily activities while still absorbed in her social media exploits.

I followed close behind, close enough to smell her—coconut-scented shampoo, cheap perfume, stale coffee, cigarettes—and close enough to arouse suspicion if she saw me. But she wasn’t turning around, didn’t care what other people were doing unless they were doing it on Instagram, and unless it benefited or entertained her in some way.

The streets began to steadily empty, the afternoon turning into evening as I tracked her hasty, robotic steps. She passed at least half a dozen people on her way through the winding streets, over the boundary of the park and through a small clearing, but she didn’t acknowledge any of them. She stopped momentarily to snap a quick selfie, putting two fingers up to the camera in a meaningless gesture she no doubt thought was cute, but she barely broke stride and remained oblivious of my presence.

The walk from her place of work to her home took just over twenty-five minutes. It was longer than I had expected, but I was relieved to see that the evening had set in fully, the last dregs of sunshine drained from the skies, the streetlights firing sporadically, illuminating our journey and giving her just enough light for a couple more selfies.

The Queen of Instagram didn’t live in a palace. It wasn’t even a house. She lived on the ground floor flat of a converted terrace, accessed via an alleyway that ran down the side of the flat and wrapped around the back—tucked away, out of sight.

I waited until I heard the door close and then entered the alleyway, moving into the shadows and out of sight. The alleyway was littered with cigarette butts, broken glass, and the remnants of a homemade pipe. It stank like a public toilet and was likely being used as one.

The Queen of Instagram had only been home for a few minutes, but already she was talking to her subjects, telling them how stressful her day had been before announcing she was going to take a hot bath. She finished with a few product plugs, a kiss, a wink, and a wave.

As one of her newest followers, subject number 10,052, I was able to watch every second on my phone. She invited me into her life and I gladly obliged, making my way into her home and preparing for the VIP treatment.

—

The Queen of Instagram lived in a home fit for a servant. The back door opened into her kitchen; a cramped musty hovel tucked away at the back of the house. Unlike Neckbeard, who had been one of her followers, the Queen could and did cook. There were sauce-stained pans in the sink, a dusting of flour on the countertop.

A light from the connected dining room lit my way as I glanced over the pictures on her fridge. Unlike the images on her Instagram account, these hadn’t been carefully curated, but just like those Instagram snaps, her half-naked form and duck-faced pout was the focal point in all of them. She had a way of drawing your eye, even when she was with friends, from the muscled-torsos of ex-boyfriends and one-night stands to a leggy brunette who appeared in most of the images.

One photo depicted her poolside next to half a dozen girls, all stacked in a neat, orchestrated line, like a synchronized swimming team preparing for a performance. There were girls taller than her and fitter than her, but she still stood out.

The Queen turned on the hot water in the upstairs bathroom, the pipes grumbling like some massive, motorized stomach. The house seemed to shudder momentarily, as if waking from a long slumber before its mechanical machinations were drowned out by the sound of pop music blasting in all directions and from all rooms.

One of the speakers was in the living room, just a few steps away from me. Its size belied its power as the noise reverberated throughout the first floor and carried upstairs, where it joined at least one other speaker.

I hurried through the dining room, where a small wooden table rested unused against the outside wall, and into the open-plan living room, where she kept her computer and spent most of her time.

The computer was tucked away in the corner, placed in a way that prevented any webcam watchers from seeing the living room or the rest of the house. The machine had been left on; its secrets hidden by a screensaver. A collage of visual effects danced from edge to edge on the flat-screen monitor as the annoyingly addictive melodies of Katy Perry echoed throughout.

I turned from the computer to the stairs, eager to see what she had been doing, to hack into her virtual life as I had hacked into her real one, but the music drowned out her approach and dampened my confidence.

The first song stopped and the noise transitioned to a deathly silence. I waited, still, in the open, and listened for any signs of life. Initially, my own heartbeat was the only sound that greeted me, but interminable moments later, the noise of the running water filtered through, accompanied by the sound of angelic humming.

Another song began, the noise returned, and I ran to the kitchen to prepare. The second song was much shorter, but I had everything that I needed. I was breathless when it droned into its final chorus, but I was also excited. I was eager.

The second song finished, fading to silence once more. I waited at the foot of the stairs. My eyes and ears focused on the speaker, waiting for the silence to end and the noise to commence, praying that it wasn’t a ballad.

Seconds passed without a sound before a bass guitar eased its way slowly in. I turned back to the stairs, ready to ascend, knowing that my approach would be drowned out by the sound of the music. Then I saw her. She was standing at the top of the stairs, naked from head to toe, her hair tied behind her head, a look of horror on her face. In one hand, she held a fluffy white towel, in the other a bottle of shampoo.

In any other circumstance, I might have admired her figure. I had seen hundreds of pictures of her in a bikini and tight-fitting clothing, and all had stirred the same reaction in me. Her beauty and her body were the things that earned her fame, mainly from perverted old men who wanted to fuck her and desperate young girls who wanted to be her. In that moment, I was in a position that only a handful of her followers—and no doubt half the male population of the town—had been in.

But this wasn’t the time for admiration.

I reacted before she did, taking advantage of the fear that seemed to freeze her to the spot. I cleared four or five steps before she threw the bottle and the towel at me, the first missing my head by an inch, the second landing at my feet and causing me to stumble. She yelled something and then ran in the opposite direction, her words drowned out by the music as the bass gave way to electronic beats and the house filled with noise once more.

The Queen sprinted into the bathroom just as I stumbled to the top of the stairs and grabbed the banister to steady myself. The water was still running, the music still playing—both noises interspersed by screams from the town’s biggest Instagram whore.

She made it into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, but I was close, knowing she was only a few steps from her phone. I threw myself at the door, my shoulder clattering into the hardwood, cracking the lock and forcing it open. The Queen rebounded under the force, her head bouncing back off the tiled floor, her body skidding clumsily on the slick surface.

Even in her weakened state, her head no doubt spinning, a trickle of blood tracing a line from her skull to her buttocks, she reached for her phone. She was quick, acting on instinct, and in a split second she had activated the device and loaded an app.

I jumped to my feet and dove for her, prying it out of her weakening grasp.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she said, dragging herself backward to rest against the bathtub, now close to overfilling.

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?” I laughed. Her eyes locked onto mine, forcing me to turn my attention away from her questioning stare and onto the phone.

I assumed that she would have tried to phone the police or, at the very least, a friend she kept on speed dial. Instead, she had opened one of her favorite apps and was in the process of doing something she did every day.

“You tried to Livestream me?” I asked, baffled. “You get attacked by a crazy person in your own home and your first response is to Livestream me to your followers?”

She didn’t answer, she just stared, her breathing labored and heavy, her eyes focused, unblinking. I didn’t know if she was dead, dying, or brain-damaged, but it didn’t matter—she had given me an idea that would make my night complete, an idea that excited me even more than ripping her limb from limb.

“I think you may be onto something.” I grinned, dropped to my haunches to meet her at eye level. “After all, you always wanted to be a star, didn’t you?”

I met her stare for several moments, and just as I prepared to tease her some more, to suggest that her dead-eye stare meant her brain had already departed this world, her expression changed. A realization slowly dawned on her; a quizzical look filled her eyes. There was even a smile curling the corners of her lips.

“Don’t I know you?” she asked.