He peeled back the fabric and observed her mottled face. Simon knew what the issue was: she was incomplete. It would take weeks for the plants to settle according to Gregor, and perhaps months for the mycelium to take. All the while Constance would remain in a state of unending becoming. That rankled Simon's perfectionism and occupational discipline. A wonderful thing about taxidermy is that it transforms the chaos of life and death into perfect stasis. When captured in art, the subject ceases to be a creature of unpredictability, of yearning to one day be. It becomes fixed and finite. Its 'becoming' is finally and permanently completed. Gregor's work in botany, by contrast, dwelt entirely in spurts and changes. The interminable adolescence of living things, variously bulging up and fading away. Gregor's masterpieces were never done, never whole, because they would always continue to change.