What I’d like readers to take away from this is that there’s value to art. That it is in fact an essential service that provides us with something that can improve our lives just by being exposed to it. To give an example from both film and real life, take the story depicted in Sing Sing.

I went with “tome” because it just has a more mysterious image and cadence to it, and also, I liked the idea of poor students lugging around a massive cursed book as opposed to something more mass market-sized.

Concrete is the most widely used human-made substance; it’s something most people have encountered in some form. And it isn’t biodegradable. I imagined concrete stifling the living, breathing earth beneath.