I spend about a third of my life in a fire station, which is about as close as I can imagine to a haunted house. It’s a lot like a home, with a kitchen and living space, except at unpredictable moments the peace is interrupted by noises and lights followed by experiences which can be genuinely ghastly. So, my real home is as different from that as I can manage. We grow veggies, we raise chickens, we cuddle with dogs. Nurturing other living things is the only bulwark I’ve found against real horror.

The kernels of this story began with a few interlinked ideas: capitalism as a devouring force; the commodification of identities and the commodification of trauma (especially as they manifest in publishing and entertainment industries as fads and trends); the physical and psychological cost on those who tell their stories; how we consume—and are encouraged to consume—these stories, often as a performative act.

At the heart of this story there’s a connection between flesh and flowers, which is an explicitly biblical notion. Indeed, the title of the piece comes directly from Psalm 106: “As for man, his days are like grass—he blooms like a flower of the field; when the wind passes over, it vanishes, and its place remembers it no more.” This same connection between flowers and mortality reappears in the floral still life arrangements of the Dutch Golden Age, which have been hugely influential on me as an artist.

This is one of the worlds I’ve spent numerous years crafting. I love worldbuilding and I wanted to create an intricate world where many different types of stories could reside. As a kid, I loved Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis’ Dragonlance universe, I loved the Forgotten Realms universe. Each time I read a new book set in those worlds, I knew I wanted to write something like that. I wanted a versatile world where the adventures that take place there could range from dark to lighthearted, from epic high fantasy to adrenaline-pumping sword and sorcery.