A Botanical Daughter

Sometimes busywork is the only thing holding back existential dread.

Gregor now knew in his soul that greatness came at a price, and true greatness is paid for by the hour.

She was a force of nature. When the moorland catches on fire, it burns on and on- the blaze spreading through the peat itself. She was like that, a beautiful tinderbox.

Revenge was a grisly business, but there was no reason not to be civil about it.

Changing times can be disquieting enough, but if our fears grow silent they become ever more monstrous.

Is this some bizarre other world where such strangeness could be so comfortable?

Simon, what do you understand to be the nature of a soul?" he said suddenly. Simon was staring darkly into the endless distance. He didn't refocus his gaze to reply. "That part of us which cannot be destroyed.

Grief can be a kind of exhaustion, after all.

You are a fool, Gregor Sandys. Quite possibly the most intelligent fool ever to have wielded a trowel. For a decade now I have shrunk back into the shadows, scared to damage the delicate balance of your ridiculous sense of self. Your pride is monstrously huge, yet your self-belief is laughably tiny.

Constance would not be brought back to life by their apt. But her body would be the host of this congregation of plants and fungi. It would be an abandoned cathedral, once more filled with spirit. The artistic process took on a religious significance for Simon. He swabbed the orifices of her face so they would not seize shut and found himself intoning the mass. This is her body, given for you. We are all one because we all share in one bread. A floral transubstantiation was taking place under his hands. He was a scientist priest, the workbench his altar, and the mycelium moved amongst them like the Holy Ghost.

A vibrant butterfly shines when stapled to plain card.

He had tried sculpting in other materials - in clay, marble, wood, and bronze - but corpses were the only medium that really sang under his fingers.