Tall and young and lovely in the way classical beauties walk the Louvre, lonely Lisa with her black cape hair positions herself just beyond the crowds around Da Vinci’s masterpiece. She dreams of the camera’s eye. Draped in the best. Dior, Chanel, Gaultier. Lisa sees a resemblance or, if not that, proximity to Leonardo’s Mona. She extends her arm and phone and composes the photo. She—and Mona. Forever in tandem. As she composes, another contemporary spitting image of the original Mona moves into position so she can take a selfie including Lisa and Mona. She is admiring her Hall-of-Monas composition when a willowy angel with beguiling and enigmatic smile slips to the head of the queue, impaling the others in the composition, unable to move or leave because all the others and those yet to come feel an adhesive need to remain, arms extended, cameras aimed to the rear in fealty to the photo. Be here. Be an element in the Mona Lisa continuum. The line grows, departs the gallery, transects other galleries, exits the Louvre, departs Paris. On and on, beautiful women, taking photos of themselves with a queue of beautiful women behind them, eager to share proof of their similarity to what came before, to post proof, to reap likes. The line lives, like a serpent. News outlets celebrate the echo equator. As stars slice the sky, restless sleepers hear the many Monas moanin’. Stretching back to antiquity, stretching forward to infinity. Each new Mona takes a little more from the original, pushes the line a bit farther from her stoic, ineffable gaze. Mona’s smile has been drained dry. To cheap imitation, Mona gives her all.

Stuart Watson

worked at newspapers in Anchorage, Seattle, and Portland. Second-place honoree in the 2025 Cambridge Short Story Prize, Watson has literary work in Barzakh, Bending Genres (Best Microfiction nominee), The Broadkill Review, BULL, Does It Have Pockets?, MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Muleskinner Journal, Rattle, Reckon Review, Sensitive Skin, Stanchion, and The Writing Disorder, among others. He lives in Oregon.

Author’s digital self resides at: https://chiselchips.com/