Under the Juniper Tree: Fabulist Fictions
Forthcoming in 2028 from Cornerstone Press!
Pulling herself through water, space shifts, time falls away. Even in rest, fins sway, gills open and close, water passes through. Water moves her. Water gives her something to move against.
Catch her if you must. She will slip away.
Try to keep her all to yourself, and you will fail. If she ceases to move she will be used. Pinned down. Gutted. Filleted.Lost to herself. Lost to you.
So just let her be. Slip her back inside the water. Let her swim.Call her Fish, for that is who she is.
“Swim: A Story in Three Parts,” Under the Juniper Tree
Art by Julia Brown. Used with permission
A girl catches–and must slowly lose–a fish.
A Dirt Devil vacuums up a televangelist.
A stranger enters a town called Clockwork and upsets time and order.
A huckster sells Baby Bone Head dolls made from human knuckle bones at an evangelical college.
A doctor with a relish tray treats a man with an edible ear infection.
A pizza delivery driver picks up cosmic hitchhikers as he travels across the desert in search of the Yeast of Eden.
Under the Juniper Tree: Fabulist Fictions is born out of dreams, fairy tales, “What if?” questions, childhood half-remembrances, and more.
While several stories have been published previously, only two (“Of Roaring and Wonder Bread” and “Santa Fe“) can still be found online.
