40 These are true stories.

Mark Fisher defined “ontological hesitation” as “that moment when one is asked to decide if this is real or not real.” If it’s not real, can it at least be considered as an aesthetic transposition of the real, as in a Gothic colonnade or a cocktail party? Time travel conceits often rely on this ontological hesitation to build dynamic tension into the work.

Tristan Todorov called “the fantastic” that which waivers between the uncanny, which can only be explained naturalistically, and the marvelous, which can only be explained supernaturally.

Imagine a book in which plants communicated their trauma to a scientist, who then took their ability to register trauma as a sign of sentience. The trauma of others impacted plants, or they served as witnesses to it. The plant could testify to the murder of its owner, even though the plant technically lacks testes. Surely there is something marvelous in this.