As I gardened, gazing towards the autumnal

As I gardened, gazing towards the autumnal sky, I longed to run my finger through the trail of mucus left by a single speckled slug – innocuously thrusting past my rhododendrons –

but if you ruin a slug's slime trail, it can't find its way home. I instead became more in touch with nature by entangling myself in a garden spider's web. Oh to catch a fly twould

be so tasty a retort to those school bullies who said I was weird. If only they could see me now: naked save Gaia's spider silk, enveloped in the natural world, ready to pounce

on the next furry thing with a pulse, I salivated. But being wrapped in Gaia's silk I realized I was on a giant web. Stuck. I looked up and saw a 10,000 pound black widow creeping

on all of her exes on Facebook. "Y' know, that's really bad for you. You're just going to make yourself upset." The 10,000 pound black widow looked at me with pain in her many eyes

"I do not take orders from a human!" The hug spider reared up on her back legs and all I could think was 'This is what I get for trying to help'. She jumped forward and

then jumped back. Then she lifted her left legs, & after that her right legs- a spider can do that. Then she began to tap dance. "Wow, great quadruple tap" I said. Her bulky mass

shook the bow of the ship back and forth as I desperately planned my escape- perhaps out the porthole? Then I looked again. She was beautiful, and terrible. I opened the window and

jumped out into the Blue Sea and flagged a ship, which let me on board. The captain was my uncle's tenth cousin. I had only heard stories about him from my mum. She knew all about