Fabulous narrative, Rob. The information you provide is invaluable to me. A that's quite the novel and imaginative title.
Seriously, I'm not sure how you do this. It might be some sort of artistic setting or you playing with layers again. You did a series last year with images placed on top of different textures which I really enjoyed. I really like the way you interspersed graytones in the background and retained the color in the large flower in the upper left. Very imaginative and eye catching imagery.
Rob, I'd like to agree with Roger but then he'd get a swelled head. :) A beautiful job on this image and great manipulation work. Love the textured look of the photo and the shadows in the image. Very nicely done.