Of Spiders and Mosquitoes
To the Wolf Spider Living in my Bathroom:
At the dawn of time humans and spiders struck an accord of
which you are currently breaking. Our
ancestors swore oaths that we are expected to uphold. I have kept my end of the bargain and do well
to ignore you and your kind when I encounter you outdoors. Even when one of you
grows to the size of a small plate and I find you in my canoe. You greatly hastened our approach to land,
and I appreciate that you were so gracious as to hide under the seat and scurried
away so quickly the moment we hit dry land.
It was an accident on both our parts. The accords make room for
mistakes.
Yet here you are, in my home and clearly in my line of
sight. You flaunt yourself and your size
intimidates me. You are far too large
for a paper towel even if I could reach you.
So here I sit wrapped in a bath towel trying to negotiate with an
eight-legged terrorist.
“Please,” I beg “if only you would move behind the dryer
where I could not see you, I could take a shower and pretend you are not here.”
You, arachnid asshole, instead move to a more centralized location
on the ceiling. All but guaranteeing my
wailing and screaming as I dig you out of my hair should I try to scrape you
from my domain.
“Fine,” I acquiesce,” just stay out of the shower please.”
I take your lack of movement as an agreement.
Minutes later I step out of the shower and see no signs of
the multi-eyed interloper but shake out my towel just in case. I take the absence as sacrosanct. The treaty will not be enforced on this day.
Midnight finds me laying wide-eyed in my bed, my slumber disturbed
by the buzzing of the springs first mosquito.
You, oh bloodsucking fiend, are assured death whenever I can get my
hands on you. Which will not be tonight,
because I am wrapped warmly in my quilts.
The silver of moonlight filters through my window and I can
see a small black spot landing lightly on the wall next to my feet. Since the winged parasite has offered itself
so freely, I attempt to unwrap and arm from my warm cocoon, but before I can
untangle my limbs another contender has arrived.
Quickly the spider from the bathroom ascends the wall and
captures the mosquito. Finally, free
from my self made prison, I grab the flashlight on my nightstand. The wolf spider has the mosquito trapped tightly
in its jaw, front legs slowly wrapping its prey in webbing for a later meal.
I sigh deeply.
“Fine, you can stay, my friend.”
I fall back asleep quickly, knowing that no small creature
will leave me itching in the morning.
Just know I will still light your ass on fire if you try to have babies in my home.
I really enjoyed - and empathized with! - the first half of your essay where you were addressing the spider directly. The one-sided negotiation is so telling and familiar. The POV change (from addressing the spider to relating the events), however, was a little jarring, even though you came back to it at the end. I would have loved to see you carry the original POV through the whole piece.
ReplyDeleteOh, I see what I did there. Hello random POV switch. I see how that could be jarring.
DeleteGreat advice!
I don't know much about wolf spiders but I share your sentiment in how creepy spiders are especially since we have some doozies Down Under. I like how you addressed the spider and wondered if you could have carried that throughout as opposed to changing the POV in between.
ReplyDeleteWolf spiders are harmless, but they are quite scary looking and can get very large. This one is about the size of a quarter, but some species can be the size of tarantulas.
DeleteAnd thank you for pointing out the change of POV. That and random tense switches are my kryptonite.
I agree with Christine. The first part was great, but the hold on me faded a little in the second half.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feed back.
DeleteThis made my skin crawl, I loved it!
ReplyDelete