Author: Deborah Sale-Butler

It was a great place to live. Tons of space to spin out a web. And the local food was spectacular. I mean, you could get anything in that neighborhood: dragonflies, blowflies, sometimes even a big, fat, juicy moth. De-lish! I can honestly say, up until Tuesday I was an arachnid with an attitude of gratitude.

Then things got weird.

It started with the ants. My whole web was covered with ants. I’m down for a little spicy snacking now and again, but generally, I like to keep my diet more on the alkaline side. And ants aren’t stupid—at least I assume they aren’t. I never talk to my dinner. But ants usually stay well clear of the web. So I had to wonder why those guys were running up the tree so fast that they didn’t even notice my dinner plate all spread out.

That’s when I saw it. The great big mountain way out past the jungle exploded. Like boom-pow-bam exploded. I’ve seen it leak before—hot, red lava burning trails through the forest. Any insects that made it out of the burnt parts had a savory, smoky taste.

On Tuesday though, the top third of the mountain was just gone. Well, not exactly gone. The rock had turned into dust and hung in the air like a big, angry cloud. The hairs on my legs stood up—went wild with electricity, like a hundred thunderstorms happening all at once. My booty auto jacked, ready to squirt silk and ride that electric wave.

It’s happened before—the tingly-hairs, booty in the air thing. The first time my butt shot up, I spun out some silk and let the negative charge catch the thread. Took me half a mile up and twenty miles away from where I started. I was just a spiderling then—young, dumb and up for anything. But the past few times I felt the urge, I managed to cool my spinnerets and keep my silk to myself. A negative ion trip could set you down anywhere. No thanks. I had everything I needed in the old ‘hood.

This time, I got a feeling I should grab an ion stream and fly as far away as possible. I was not wrong. And man, what a ride! That nasty mountain put out so much charge, I shot up two miles in like twenty seconds. I spun out a little extra silk to use as a sail and caught a breeze flowing towards the water. Looked left. Looked right. All I could see for miles were thousands of spiders riding currents in the sky.

And down below? Well, I guess that mountain had a bunch of pissed off friends, because it looked like a chain of sunsets behind killer storm clouds as far as my eight eyes could see. We all angled away from the flames until we wound up floating in our own dusky cloud of spider bodies.

We’ve been up here for about a week now. Watching the fires eat the forests makes me hungry. I dream of crunchy dragonfly legs and bee tongue with the tiniest hint of nectar. Looks like there won’t be much left when we land. The other spiders are probably thinking the same thing. I don’t really know, though. The group is pretty quiet. After all, we never talk to our dinner.