The Fairy Fly

By Lori R. Lopez

Transported out of his element into a realm of dangers and foes, Spider is aided by the insects and arachnids he befriends, but only he can see the Fairy Fly. Is she real or imagined? This whimsical novel about finding oneself while feeling small in a big world takes a step back and several steps downward to peep at humanity from below. At the same time, the story is an allegory of the human condition: life and death matters, war and peace, our everyday struggles on a tiny scale. Part humorous, part philosophical, at times poetic . . . it celebrates a love for animals, books and words. View the planet from a different angle as you take a spiderwalk through the door to adventure.

This Illustrated Edition of THE FAIRY FLY featuring artwork by the author.

THE FAIRY FLY won Best Published Y.A. SciFi/Fantasy for 2013 at the San Diego Book Awards and was the Young Adult Winner in the 2014 Great Southwest Book Festival. The book received Second Place in Humor from the 2015 Royal Dragonfly Book Awards, among other honors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lori R. Lopez
• Release date: Aug 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301320028

Lori R. Lopez

Lori R. Lopez wears many hats as an Author and Speculative Poet of Horror, Fantasy, Suspense, Humor and more. She illustrates her books and has written songs, while being an Activist for animals and children. Growing up, Lori roamed graveyards and conducted funerals for dead birds, squirrels, insects and spiders. Her offbeat books include The Dark Mister Snark, Leery Lane, An Ill Wind Blows, Darkverse: The Shadow Hours, Odds & Ends, and The Fairy Fly. In 2023 Lori won Third Place in the Long Category for the SFPA Poetry Contest for "Wake Unto Death". Her Poetry Collection Darkverse was nominated for an Elgin Award and a Finalist in the Kindle Book Awards. Her poems "Crop Circles" and "Nocturnal Embers" were nominated for the Rhysling Award in 2020, "Social Graces" and "The Whistle Stop" in 2021, "Biting Sarcasm" in 2022, "The Whippoorwill" and "If Houses Could Talk" in 2023. Poems "The Maw" and "creatures of the macabre" received Editor's Choice Awards among other honors. Stories and verse have appeared in The Sirens Call, The Horror Zine, Space & Time, Spectral Realms, JOURN-E, Weirdbook, Bewildering Stories, Dreams & Nightmares, Impspired, Altered Reality, Aphelion, and anthologies such as California Screamin' (the Foreword Poem), HWA Poetry Showcases II, III, V, VI, and IX, Journals Of Horror, Grey Matter Monsters, Dead Harvest, Fearful Fathoms I, Terror Train I and II, Trickster's Treats #3, Speculations III (Weird Poets Society), and In Darkness We Play. A member of the Horror Writers Association, Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and Lewis Carroll Society Of North America. Visit the Fairy Fly Entertainment Website Lori shares with her two talented sons, and their YouTube Channel @FairyFly. They have a Folk Band called The Fairyflies.

Book preview

The Fairy Fly

Written and illustrated by

Lori R. Lopez

Fairy Fly Entertainment

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any

media without written permission from the author, except

brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles.

This is a work of fiction. Any and all references to real persons, events, and places are used fictitiously. Other characters, names, places, events and details are fabrications of the author’s imagination; any such resemblance to actual places, events or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Lori R. Lopez

Artwork by Lori R. Lopez

Cover Design by Fairy Fly Entertainment

Author Photos by Fairy Fly Entertainment

Illustrated E-Book Edition (EPUB)

Table Of Contents

The Fairy Fly

Table Of Contents

A Word Of Caution

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

eighteen: The Girl And The Spider

nineteen

twenty

twenty-one

twenty-two

twenty-three

twenty-four

twenty-five

twenty-six

twenty-seven

denouement

The story behind the story

About the author and artist

More works by Lori R. Lopez

A Black Widow queen, a big bad Wolf Spider, and a Hit-Mantis are but a few of the obstacles for a spunky little spider who must find his way home through a strange land of giants in this witty fairytale fantasy for kids and adults.

Transported out of his element into a realm of dangers and foes, Spider is aided by the insects and arachnids he befriends, but only he can see the Fairy Fly. Is she real or imagined? This whimsical novel about finding oneself while feeling small in a big world takes a step back and several steps downward to peep at humanity from below. At the same time, the story is an allegory of the human condition: life and death matters, war and peace, our everyday struggles on a tiny scale. Part humorous, part philosophical, at times poetic . . . it celebrates a love for animals, books and words. View the planet from a different angle as you take a spiderwalk through the door to adventure.

for creatures great and small

Excuse me, broached the spider, but why do you use such biggish words when you’re so small?

Well, my dear, even a tiny world is too amazing to describe in monosyllables, and even the teeniest voice can utter grand thoughts. I always try to use the best word, whatever its size as long as it fits just right on my tongue, whether it’s already a word or not. The Fairy Fly hovered before his precocious sets of eyes. You ask big questions for such a small spider.

I could tell you my adventures — beginning from this morning, said Alice a little timidly; but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.

~ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat.

I don’t much care where — said Alice.

Then it doesn’t matter which way you go, said the Cat.

— so long as I get SOMEWHERE, Alice added as an explanation.

Oh, you’re sure to do that, said the Cat, if you only walk long enough.

~ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

‘Well, now that we have seen each other,’ said the Unicorn, ‘if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.’

~ Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll

But real life is only one kind of life — there is also the life of the imagination. And although my stories are imaginary, I like to think that there is some truth in them, too — truth about the way people and animals feel and think and act.

~ Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White

You have been my friend, replied Charlotte. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.

~ Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White

Personally, I demand imperfection! It saves me a lot of time and trouble. Trying to be perfect in an imperfect world is like swimming against a Tsunami. You really shouldn’t try that!

~ Poetic Reflections: Imperfect, Lori R. Lopez

Without love, companionship, or the possibility of such, everyday life had little value. And the Future was a blank indefinable vacuum that could suck out one’s soul. It was the lack of expectation. The lack of hope.

~ Fossil, Lori R. Lopez

Words are my strength, but they are also my weakness; my Achille’s Heel; my Kryptonite. I am vulnerable to their impact, their weight, their significance. To their points or edges or bluntness. They can be my downfall. And ultimately, my demise. I may even be slain by my own tongue — slipping up, saying the wrong thing, or gleefully using uncommon (some might say extravagant) ones. The greatest power of words is that whether used well or wielded as a weapon, they can make you feel. And that is a double-sided sword.

~ Herstory, Lori R. Lopez

A Word Of Caution

Watch your step. There is a world around us that is entirely wondrous, majestic, breathtaking, arcane, wild, frightful, perilous, and unbelievably fragile. A fantastic world which exists in a parallel sense from machines and manmade boundaries, from rules and perpendicularities. A realm we tend to ignore except when it overlaps and invades our comfort zones. Yet we affect that world, aware of it or not, however careless or intentional.

I wrote this tale for the young and old, and everyone in between, to make people mindful of the perspectives and feelings of others with whom we share the planet. It is their world too.

Although the story might be fictional and funny and only half-serious, everything large and small has a life with a purpose and is going about it the same as us.

So tread lightly in the world, for your sake and the sake of others. We are not alone. And that is a very wonderful thing.

one

Some days are flawless. Perfect. Nothing can go wrong. The Sun shines, birds sing, and flies buzz thicker than the hairs on a spider’s back.

But there are some truly rotten, totally disastrous, terribly miserable days that you wish — with every teeny, atomic, microscopic fiber of your being — had never begun.

Which is exactly how Spider felt this cursed and dismal day after being jerked from a peaceful doze by a rude volcanic squall.

HEY MOM! WHERE’S MY FAVORITE SWEATER? THE RED ONE! a voice erupted.

Such a jarring conclusion to a lovely nap must foreshadow the end of the world, the jumper interpreted. To a conservative sort of fellow it resounded like a major catastrophe. Hunkering down, the spiderling trembled. He had no idea what a sweater was, or for that matter a red sweater, or he might have chosen to flee. The cute arachnid was busy minding his own business, perhaps his own beeswax too were he of the winged yellow and black persuasion. Instead he was black and white and earthbound, not to mention ignorant of the fact that the snug pocket he discovered the night before was red, and attached to the sweater in question. Until his cozy haven was abruptly snatched from its hanging place — upending Spider groggily on his noodle, hair and limbs askew. It was most unsettling.

He adjusted his position within a silkspun sleeping-bag. Two circular glossy green orbs gawped unblinking, flanked by smaller lenses. Above on a square crown with a dorky hairdo were four modest eyes. Vertical jaws — between tuft-like Pedipalps (feelers) — protruded tuskishly from his mouth behind white and gray whiskers, hooks (his real teeth) jutting from the tips.

The spiderling’s siblings had blue eyes and called him a Green-Eyed Freak when he came out of his egg in the sac. They called him other names because he was smaller. As a result, he had stayed in the egg long after they left.

"It’s in your closet!" answered a remote voice.

YEAH, I FOUND IT! the proximate voice blared.

The pocket bounced, jostling Spider, who flopped and groaned, snared in his own thread. An eternity of bucking halted. He slid to the base of his den grumbling about knots and sticky situations.

It reminded him of a hair-raising experience prior to locating this supposed sanctuary. The spider was roving in his wide-eyed fashion, using furry feet to amble up an incline. A mound led to a tunnel where he yodeled experimentally. His voice echoed, startling him. He yelped and scooted backwards to crawl into a humid cave. As a Jumping Spider, he loved to you-know-what so he hopped repeatedly on the damp spongy floor. The arachnid giggled. A massive snore ensued, and the gust blew him in a ball onto a stubbled cliff. The cavemouth disappeared. He hiked to a pair of tinier shafts. Which should he choose? While debating this it became clear that he stood on the face of a sleeping giant, and he had heard in a fairytale being read by this giant to a much littler giant that one should never bother a sleeping giant. Oh no!

It was harder to see something big when you were too close, he ascertained. The pensive creature was cuffed off by a flinging gesture, forced to seek another lair. And that, obviously, hadn’t turned out so great.

Jangling set his hairs on end.

Shockwaves of boisterous shouts and chit-chat disquieted him.

An offensive slamming made him duck.

Spider’s haven jolted then swept low, coming to rest inside a dim muffled enclosure. The arachnid wormed out of his wrappings and picked himself from his face, scrabbling crookedly to the mouth of the pouch. Could this day possibly get worse?

Strips of light pierced the gloom. Spider dizzily wished he was one of those lazy webspinners so he could construct a bridge to the opposite side of a chasm where light beamed enticingly through a row of fissures.

The critter shook his brain to rid it of the notion. A webwatcher! How dull and adventureless. Waiting, always waiting. Who could live like that? It would be boring, humdrum, an absolute bummer.

He could do this. He was a jumper! Anchoring his dragline, he poised himself then sprang over the divide, sailing into emptiness, belly inflated, wind whipping his smug countenance. He was a hunter, a brave and daring stalker! He was clever and —

Splat! He had neglected to land on his feet. Slowly the bruised arachnid swung, visage burning with humiliation and pain.

He smacked the first wall then gathered momentum, sinewy forelegs outstretched. It took some arcs to achieve a foothold. He needed to work on his agility.

Arriving at a crevice he cautiously peeked through, detaching his line. Wow. A gulf of oddness greeted him. A habitat completely unlike any he had known since leaving the egg-sac.

He was lost.

And not just a trifle lost. Oh no, this was lost on a grand mind-bending scope of losticity. A vastness so tremendous that it almost defied reason!

And that was actually, extremely, very lost.

The Locker

two

Life could be an uphill battle when the way ahead was immense and you were a mere speck. Fortunately, spiders didn’t think in terms of feet and inches (to them the equivalent of miles and yards). Nor did they calculate intervals in hours and minutes. They just took a step or two or three at a time.

He recalled his mother’s advice before kissing him goodbye, sending him off into the world: Put your best foot forward. Confused, he pondered what that meant till he forgot about it and began to roam, not paying much heed because thinking what foot to put made him trip over his feet and fall flat on his face. Eventually the young arachnid deduced she was telling him to do his best.

That harsh clanging rang out. A herd of hulks stampeded from both directions. Having rappelled to the ground to examine his surroundings, Spider dodged and dove to avoid the thunderous multitude.

He lay panting in their wake, his body quaking with relief. This is a nightmare! he thought.

An oblong crusher bashed beside him for proof. The dinky arachnid was all but squashed like a bug.

Nerves on edge, the little guy skittered to a wall wishing he could shut his eyes, and accompanied it toward a broad short threshold. Hesitant he tiptoed forth, legs braced for a hasty reversal.

Past the entrance a lighted parameter loomed, crowded with bulky objects and giants. Exhibiting a shy disposition but brimming with wonder, the explorer tapped his feelers together in meditation. Were he human he might’ve muttered Hmmmm . . . In spider-speak it was more of an Eeeeeeee . . .

The prowler sprinted to the shade beneath a large box perched on trunks. Peeping out, he made a dash for a wall and commenced to climb.

The world was a danger zone. The enormity of it could be intimidating, as well as hazardous, and yet so exhilarating too!

A dinful voice approached. Trouble! Spider reached a shelf and submersed himself in a layer of white soot. The stuff adhered to his black body, causing him to wheeze. He wobbled across the ledge, four pairs of feet kicking puffs of powder. He no longer had stripes; he looked albino.

His vision clarified. Swerving, the ghost spider scudded up a steep rise, trying to outrun the dust. He soon realized the green vertical plain was filmed with white residue.

A curdled shriek split the air.

Spider stopped in his tracks as something cracked the wall before him. Squealing, he scurried in terror.

A subsequent blow crashed behind him, missing its mark, vibrating the sheer facade. Spider toppled to the ledge in a flurry of white. He spiralled off. Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! Thud.

He dreamed of the red pocket, and his mother, and the placid ambiance of Home. He was flying, awed by a sedate vista. The dream fizzled, and he lay immobile as a bitten bug. Shaking off the pall in a cloud of chalk, the arachnid dragged his stunned battered body to grayness below the box on peg-legs.

Folding jointed limbs he hugged himself, crouched wretchedly in a tenuous asylum, and wished he were anywhere but this precarious environment as a gale of voices howled.

Spider brooded over his next course of action. He peered at an arcane forest of legs that teemed with mysteries. Unfamiliar, uninviting, it seemed the securest route. He wasn’t the type to fear what he didn’t know. He liked to scout and snoop and wanted to know more.

Hurtling himself, he burst from hiding.

The clanging resumed. The jungle came alive. A tempest of commotion raged. Whap! Spider was booted aloft, rebounding to something coarse and resilient. The anxious critter desperately latched on. When would he learn? That reckless streak was how he had gotten into this mess, by being too curious!

He recalled his mother singing while she rocked her eggs . . .

"Dream, little dears,

But don’t dream your fears.

And never leap blind

For the world is unkind.

Soon you’ll be grown,

Meeting life on your own.

Giving butterflies kisses

And frightening young misses.

Curiosity kills the spider

Who sits down beside her.

Stay out of the whey,

Or you’ll not last the day."

The song hadn’t quelled an adventurous spirit; it hadn’t soothed his qualms. If anything, it made him procrastinate about setting foot outside.

Scowling with anticipation, he bobbed on a giant’s limb as if riding a leaf on a rainstream — like an ancient mariner’s tale he had heard recited from a corner while drinking his first swig of independence, walking a thin line between wonder and worry.

"The day was grayer than the night,

When his ship bobbed out to sea,

And the crew was all of one;

Such a lonely soul was he.

From a bank of stone he launched

With no shelter from the storm

In the greenness of his craft;

A flotsam leaf did he conform.

Eight strong legs upon its deck,

He raced the rapids to a dam;

A solid wall his vessel met

Of tree discards, the prow did ram . . .

Mud and timber, weed and rot,

The barrier solid as a berm,

And it stove the leafen bow

Yet the mariner stood firm.

Emerging from the wreck,

He abandoned his