Skinner Box

A woman sprouting branches from her head and vines from her feet is encased in a glass curio cabinet. Above her, hangs a picture of a man in a hazmat suit.
Out the window is an ashen landscape. Everything is bleached and smothered.

A glass garden grows plants from legs hanging from a chain. A cat emerges from a moth cocoon while a man in glasses watches from an acid yellow pillow.

I had Lyme disease for years but didn’t know it. It bred a constant sense of dread.

I realized later that my body was a science experiment: what happens when a complex system, a higher life form, becomes hijacked by a microscopic foreign invader. The invader takes over the control center, the brain, along with every system, the organs, hormones, etc. The body’s primary purpose becomes supporting the colony of invaders.

Thus the desire to create closed and regulated environments. Control is essential. Control over food, air, water, noise, people.

It’s what I’ve done with my life, it’s what I imagined as the end of the world, like living in a post-nuclear armageddon world.

The only safe place is an enclosed space. It’s airless and controlled, but there, one can survive.