Long's Long Lost & Mini Mart

The setting was inspired by my visit to a convenience store in Little Saigon, CA, where I saw patrons drinking, smoking, and gambling while an inebriated Buddhist Monk flirted with the store owner. Separately, my father's death in hospice care left me pondering how we've commodified our most intimate experiences (caregiving, massage, therapy, sex work).

Somehow I combined these two inspirations, and my fantasy of reviving my dead dad was suddenly set in the back of a seedy liquor store. Through this surreal yet mundane environment where reunions with the dead are sold alongside booze and cigarettes, I discovered the exciting potential to depict grief as a vice: an addictive pursuit of closure and catharsis; set in a purgatory where, like lotto tickets, the outcome you seek may always be beyond your grasp.