The wolf sat down with the journalist to explain his side of the story. The grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood were in cahoots. They wanted to frame the wolf, get it hunted, and sell its pelt. Ask the wrinkled oak trees. Ask the owls hunting hours like harvest mice. Ask the moon narrating the night. Enough witnesses to outnumber a cornfield. Everyone needs a villain, the wolf went on to say, even if it’s not what or who you expect. The journalist agreed, put down her tape recorder, and pulled away her face, revealing a camera live streaming to the world.

A brown bear wandered onto a farm and immediately drank enough whisky to down a cow. It pilfered the peach trees, attempted to cleave the moon in half, and danced alongside wheat, swaying like a hula dancer in the breeze. It scarpered off in the morning, shouting obscenities at several deer, failed to raid a picnicking couple’s SUV, then barely escaped a police officer’s comet-tongued taser. Nobody saw the bear again, but everyone agreed it knew how to live, even if you didn’t agree with its methods.