I grew up in a house full of books. Mostly old, used, and weird. I don’t remember the first book I read in any language. I do remember being monolingual for most of my first half-decade, and what it felt like when the mysterious and exotic glyphs of English finally began to resolve into letters and words. Comic books were a big part of that, I think.

This story is about anger that corrodes. It came from a place of being angry for years and years, and asking myself, What do I do in this terrible world? How do I go on? And what good does it do to harden myself to the world—who does that serve? All of these questions feel more urgent today than ever. I’d like to think that this story presents one possible remedy, one option.

I wrote “We Came Home From Hunting Mushrooms” prior to the coronavirus pandemic, but the story has become more poignant for me over the last several months. It was informed by the same sense that we’re witnessing a systematic erasure of human beings on multiple fronts. I’m a paramedic serving a largely marginalized community, and I see patients every day who are treated like garbage by the US healthcare system. The Forgotten are deemed so unworthy that all evidence of their very existence is obliterated.

I didn’t entirely realize I was writing a story about domestic abuse until I was halfway through it, although I probably should have. This one actually began life as three wildly different story ideas. One was pretty much just the title, honestly, and a vague inclination to push back on the idea that California doesn’t have seasons. One was about a witch trying to get rid of ants in her home by reluctantly learning to communicate with them—and later being able to call on said ants when someone attacks her.