The Rendering

By Jaxon Reid

For readers of Emily St. John Mandel and Ling Ma who like their pandemics uncanny, their buildings hungry, and their realities slipping sideways.

In a locked-down Toronto COVID hotel, former zookeeper Sydney Giles discovers the pandemic isn't the only thing dismantling people; the building itself has started to take them apart. Once a Senior Primate Keeper with a uniform, a husband, and a life of feeding schedules, she's now a number on a shelter intake list-until the city moves her into a requisitioned hotel on the Esplanade.

There, reality glitches. The smell of bleach turns to jasmine and wet earth. Security guards shimmer into saffron-robed monks. In the basement laundry, a dehydrated elephant waits for rain. As lockdown tightens and residents begin to starve, Sydney realizes she isn't just losing her mind-she's remembering someone else's life, a prince who left his palace to understand suffering.

Guided by an eccentric conspiracy theorist and hunted by a bureaucrat who might be a demon, Sydney must use her keeper's training to survive a new kind of enclosure. The hotel isn't just a shelter; it's a pressure cooker for the soul.

A haunting, lyrical pandemic novella for readers of quiet, character-driven speculative fiction like Station Eleven and The Employees.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GP8JJSY5
• ISBN13: 9798248750191
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.0" x 8.0"