Once I decided that this story would involve a corporation, I felt like attaching a corporate structure to the arc of the story would not only provide an annual report-style history of Headwater, but also reinforce the fact that Yoko’s life (and the life of the other employees and the customers) are very much woven into the fabric of Headwater (through addiction, through totalitarian company policy).

I think we all know Beautiful Boys. We probably knew them in high school, the ones who were in a band, and smoked during lunch period, and mothers warned their daughters about. There were certainly boys like that in my high school, and I dated several of them despite my mother’s warnings. And then you never hear about them again, unless it’s years later and they’re doing carpentry in Montana.

I also searched for blog posts from veterans and active duty soldiers about the experience of PTSD. Some of them are very frank, such as with that concept of never feeling safe, always thinking about the exits. I’m grateful that veterans and currently serving soldiers are being more open about their experiences; it’s important for civilians to understand these things, because we’ve frankly been failing pathetically when it comes to our responsibility to those who have served and are serving.

I was thinking about the nature of liars, how they often get away with it by spoon-feeding people stories a little at a time, and the lengths they’ll go to to preserve that fiction as truth. Some of the best liars use sweet words as a lure; they tell people what they want to hear and believe, and they do it in such a way that their sincerity is never doubted. (At least not until it begins to fall apart, as all lies eventually do.)

In the story, I got interested in trying to imagine a way of looking at the world that was different from my own, the result of the character’s early blindness and his highly developed internal labyrinth. In the real world, he is not interested in content, or cause and effect, but only form. In a way, this allows him to protect himself from the trauma of observing misery and violence, because he is able to stay resolutely on the surface.

Currently we take it for granted that science and technology must advance at the cost of the environment and the poor, to the point where we are hardly aware of these costs unless we hear about a sweatshop in China manufacturing parts for our gizmos, or some mining disaster in a conveniently remote part of the globe. To me, it is not progress if it destroys people, communities, and the environment. If development is achieved through destruction, as in the current model, shouldn’t we critique it and look for alternatives?