ROCKFORD, IL–Downloading Winamp from the Internet, local woman Ashley Sampson (No Relation) had just finished watching Matrix: Resurrections. She said that had nothing to do with her decision to search through totes of clothes in hopes of finding something shiny. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no way I’m going back to 1999,” she said. She was a teenager when saw the first movie and fell immediately in love with the intellectual-adjacent ideas, the fighting, and especially the outfits.

“I’m not saying that The Matrix made me trans,” Sampson (No Relation) said, “But I will say that it certainly didn’t stop that process. But this movie I totally got the whole, ‘Not feeling like myself’ thing.” She laughed a little and looked up and to the left to ponder the time before she came out and transitioned in a mix of terror and nostalgia.

“No!” Sampson (No Relation)’s roommate, Dash, said. “You’re missing the point. It is about art and the pressures to create more and better art when you might not be able to. Sometimes people peak early or late and that’s fine.” Dash was not in any way thinking about their college writing days when professors were quietly impressed and how they haven’t been barely able to finish reading a book much less writing one, but also before they came out.

“Listen, I guess that’s art, having different views of a piece of content,” Sampson (No Relation) said, thinking that calling it “content” made her sound impressive but instead she just seemed cynical. “But what I will say is that I am not reliving the past,” she said, searching for “PVC clothing” on DuckDuckGo.

Dash agreed, then started playing Propellerheads on their laptop.