I May Have Invented a New Art Form

You, the reader needs to know first that I am writing this against my better judgement. That half of my brain is screaming at me that this is a really stupid idea. Mostly, it is because the general arc of it, the kernel of the idea if you will, has already been done a million times over. And when I say it has been done a million times over I am not exaggerating. It goes back in time almost as far as storytelling itself, certainly at least as far as storytelling in the form of writing goes. The basic idea is that a thing (be it alien or spirit or terrestrial microorganism) somehow makes its way into a human host and changes it in some way, makes it do something or things it would not normally do. Often times the unfortunate human is turned into a zombie like being in the process. Slowly, or quickly, depending on the particulars of the story being told, that human changes. First it becomes a slave, then it loses its humanity, and then it becomes whatever that thing is that comes after humanity is lost. Basically just a body, a body still capable of doing all the terrible things a human can do, but bereft of any of the controls that normally prevent it from doing them. It is a terrifying idea to be sure, and thus the reason it has been fodder for so many horrifying tales over the millennia. In modern times the enslaving force has often been described as a fungus, typically a mold. Which brings me to the other major reason I hesitate to tell this story. I am a microbiologist in my non-writing "real" life. I have a bachelor's degree in microbiology and a PhD in microbiology and molecular biology. Currently there is nothing more played out then the zombie virus/mold story as told by a microbiologist. For whatever reason these days among the Creepypastas of the world it's a heavily overused story trope.

Fungi are highly complex microorganisms that also have macrobiotic forms which we encounter often as mushrooms or inhale as we breathe in the form of spores, the reproductive form of molds. The video game turned television series turned pop cultural phenomena The Last of Us is but only one example of this particular take on the genre. In the case of a fungus the idea makes a lot of sense since in the real world in which we (mostly) all live, there is significant precedence for it. First, fungi are very closely related to humans and all animals. Genetically they are more similar to animals than to plants, a thing with which they are often confused. Thus, they might be thought to be more capable of potentially possessing a form of animal like intelligence. Additionally, some fungi are known to invade the bodies and nervous systems (brains) of certain insects. Once in their brains the mold modifies the behavior of the infected host in ways that make it more advantageous for the mold, often times at the grisly expense of the host which tends to die early and painfully. In the process the mold gets a very nice meal and its gets a mobile mechanism for reproduction and geographical spread.

In support of the idea of fungal intelligence, the hallucinogenic nature of some fungi, specifically mushrooms, has been taken as a form of "communication" by some mushroom enthusiasts and ethnographers. Moreover, we know that molds can an do invade and colonize the brains of humans, and they are hypothesized as causative agents of, or strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. It is easy to see how one could combine the true facts about how some molds survive and reproduce with the hypothetical possibility of fungal intelligence to create the horrific idea of the intelligent mold invading the brains of humans in order to bend it to its awful will. Or, even in the absence of an intelligence simply as a means of reproduction and spread.

There is one particular group of fungi with which you are likely intimately familiar. They are highly complex molds known as Neurospora. One species, Neurospora sitophila is the common bread mold which you have almost certainly encountered as that orange fuzzy thing that grows on bread if you leave it out too long. Neurospora is one of the most common, robust and fastest growing of all fungi. And it grows very fast, under ideal conditions between 0.5 to 4 inches/day. They are known to grow on many food products other than bread and like most fungi, also on dead and decaying plant materials, especially wood. Though it is not known to cause disease or even allergies in humans or animals or plants, Neurospora is not totally innocuous and one species of it, Neurospora crassa does much economic damage. It happens to be a particularly aggressive wood eater and, in some areas, it is known as the house mold because of its penchant for inhabiting and eventually decaying and destroying wood framing in homes. It can do this incredibly quickly and it can be very painful and expensive to remediate once a home becomes infested with N. crassa.

I felt I needed to include all of the above as necessary background to provide context and as, I suppose you could say, an apology of sorts for what comes next. You see a few months back I discovered N. crassa was growing in the walls of my garage. Being a microbiologist and a research scientist I found this absolutely fascinating and decided to run a series of experiments to determine exactly how aggressive a wood eater it really was, and just how fast it could grow. During the course of my experiments I had the idea to try and see if I could "lead" it to grow in certain directions and into certain forms using burnt wood chips as "bait." To my great delight and amazement I found I could indeed do this and soon had grown a number of very interestingly shaped mold sculptures using my bait and lead technique. The more I worked with the mold the more I came to understand it, how it liked to grow, how it branched, and twisted and turned, how it responded to various different types and sizes of wood bait, etc. My mold sculptures rapidly increased in complexity and soon I was creating incredibly intricate designs with relative ease. The whole thing was a ton of fun and I was having great time with my new hobby and thinking that I had created an entirely new art form. Normally I was working on three or four pieces concurrently since they did take a bit of time to grow to completion, and, as of my writing this story, I still have a number of ongoing works. They range in size from about six inches in height to as large as about two feet, but anything bigger than that becomes just too difficult to handle for a number of technical reasons. However, about a month ago I was inspired to try and create a much larger sculpture. It just sort of hit me out of the blue. I was not even really sure exactly what I was aiming for, but somehow I knew what I needed to do to get there. An artists inspiration I guess you could call it. That piece is now almost complete and it is the inspiration for this story, and the reason for all of the above disclaimers and my hesitation with writing about it. The thing is, the other day I finally showed it to my wife and what she said immediately upon seeing it has me more than a bit worried. "It looks exactly like a coffin Dan." And as I sat and stared at it with her I had to agree. It did look like a coffin, and my great fear was and remains, that it is meant for me.