Read a short story by Isabel J. Kim, author of new literary sci-fi novel, Sublimation

I’ve always been preoccupied by what could have been. The road not taken. The person you could have been, in another life. 

Both my debut novel, Sublimation, and this story, You, Me, Her, You, Her, I are about that concept and how it might feel to be given the opportunity to experience the interiority of someone else’s existence. You, Me, Her, You, Her, I follows an AI inhabiting an art student’s body, and the experience it has while discovering the act of artistic creation for the first time. 

For most of my adolescence and university years, I had assumed that I would get an MFA and that my future would be a studio that smelled like linseed oil, would be carrying canvases across the city, would be wall texts and galleries and teaching. There’s another world where I became an artist. 

You, Me, Her, You, Her, I was originally written a year after I had given up on that dream and decided to go to law school instead. It was the practical choice, and one that I’m still happy I made. Yet, I’ve always wondered what would have happened, had my desire to be an artist been strong enough to send me to art school. 

You, Me, Her, You, Her, I isn't exactly about my experience. But it, and Sublimation, are both about how we end up caring about the things that carry us into the future. I hope you enjoy reading.