I often draw from the Russian folklore I grew up hearing, and with this particular story wanted to try working with an invented myth rather than an established one. Lake Baikal is of course a real place, and one that’s special and fascinating to me, as I have family living in the nearby city of Irkutsk and visited occasionally as a child. The seals, or nerpa, endemic to the lake are real as well, and though some mystery surrounds them—like how they came to be there in the first place—the queen and her mythology aren’t part of that mystery (not in our world anyway).

I am a multi-instrumentalist (acoustic and electric guitar, keys, drums and bass). I’m also trying to learn the saxophone. I used to make beats but haven’t had time for that in a while. I’m one of those outlier writers who can never write to music because then my music brain kicks in and I’ll spend the session analysing the vocal harmonies, chord progressions, and key changes that I won’t be able to focus on writing. So I write in silence.

In the months before drafting “SyncALife,” I experienced a loss that made me think about how easy it is to fondly remember a loved one, but miles more difficult to discuss the harm they might have caused in their lifetimes. This felt especially true of men—and paternal figures—who seem to receive more grace when it comes to their shortcomings. This story was a way of exploring the long-term effects of hypermasculinity.

I was playing Skyrim again and having fun reading all the books. It sort of clicked in my head that maybe what this story was lacking was the “in world” texts . . . so I started with one, and then it just expanded wildly from there and the connected narratives of identity and representation and connection all gelled in my head. Also, I have always wanted an excuse to write a video game cut scene.

Alas, this story originated with life and death. You can see that I am the viewpoint character, and that the drama taking place in the foreground is the events concurrent with the sudden illness and untimely death of my wife Judi. I wish the story hadn’t originated, but we can’t always get what we want. It is the second, and I hope final, story specifically driven by this loss.