This story started with the title. It was just a phrase that popped into my head one day and became a brain worm of sorts. I had no story, no character, and no setting for it, but those two words felt like they had a lot of potential. It was also around this time that my mom was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and her condition made apparent to me the connection between our memories and how they coalesce to create who we are. Anything affecting these memories fundamentally alters the self, however the “self” might be conceived.

My ideal reader, for short stories at least, has always been someone who is willing to take a journey blind without advance promises of specific story elements, to wit: “This story is about a heroic quest and there is at least one elf in it.” My ideal reader is someone who won’t complain afterward that they only like stories if the main character is “likeable,” if it takes place in a world where they would like to live. And I fortunately meet this kind of reader all the time. I think I’m talking to one now.

The entire story also started with another image (years back—I’m a slow writer!): the opening image of the trees that were constantly dropping their leaves in the perpetual autumn of this planet, creating huge piles of dead leaves that never disappear. It’s an image that I find both beautiful and chilling, and that is the tone I hoped to set for the story.

I think I was surprised by how quickly I came to love this lady I had invented. When we think about these kinds of societies, be it Stalinist Russia or North Korea, they are abstractions, with comic book villains at the helm and huddled faceless masses suffering in obscurity. But of course the people that live in these states are real people, living real lives, trying to find joy, like everyone. So although this idea really was kind of a joke, a bit, for it to work Janet had to be real, to be human and honest in her enthusiasms and her fears. So I fell in love with her, as we do with all of our protagonists.