Fabulist at Large

  THE SPIRIT OF THE STACK    - By Jennifer J. Clark You are a rare, giant Pacific Northwest salamander. You live in a rotting log at the very bottom of a pile of firewood. Your favorite foods are Jerusalem Crickets and Harvestmen. Your name is Gretchen. The stack of firewood that you live in is mostly covered by a lean-to and sits up off the ground on pallets so that it is protected from the rain. The edge of the stack, however, is just out of range of the lean-to and pallets, and is exposed to the mud below and the elements above. The wood is soggy here, especially at the bottom of the pile, and rests rotting in the mud. A log at the very bottom of the stack, hollow and half-buried in sludge, is where you live. This section of the wood pile is a haven for maggots, crickets, and slugs – your staple foods. You are ravenously carnivorous. You eat centipedes, banana slug larvae, banana slugs, redwood spiders, harvestmen, crickets, maggots, gr...

  NETTLEWYFE TEA By Jennifer J. Clark        In the early spring, Trudy had stumbled upon a just-sprouted patch of wild heartsbane growing not 200 cubits from her cabin. It was a miracle that the tender shoots had not been eaten by elk or rabbits, and she had worked quickly to construct a thick and sturdy willow fence to surround and protect the patch. All summer long she worked the patch, staking plants up, trimming them back, and trellising the flowers to reach out for the sun. When the scorching summer days were at their hottest, she carried water by the bucketful to the patch, and on nights with a full moon, she slept in the patch naked and peed at the roots of every plant so all the other creatures in the forest and mountains knew that this patch was hers and to leave it alone.      But now it was autumn, she had harvested the patch, and every inch of space in her cabin was filled with freshly-cut heartsbane. There was heartsbane on all of th...