A Spiderless Tomorrow

There was a spider on the ceiling this morning. He was right above my head when I first woke up, and a little later, he was over the TV. At eight-fifteen, when I'd ordinarily have eaten my dinner, I noticed him again, this time in the kitchen. He was in the corner above the microwave, working on the ugliest web I'd ever seen. Honestly, with a web that bad, he should hang up his spinnerets and call himself a tick. I could spin a better one, given a very small loom.

I wasn't happy to see the web, or the spider. By tomorrow morning, or maybe the morning after, that spider's going to be dead and shrivelled, up there, and the web'll have gone all that velcroey way they do. I'll have a devil of a time scraping it loose, and the spider will fall down my sleeve. It always happens that way, every damn time. Spiders, they ought to be squashed right away, as soon as they're spotted, or they'll have webs over everything before you can say Jack Robinson. That's why basements are always so spidersome: it's too dark to separate the spiders from the shadows, and before you know where you are, they've got a whole colony built. If you could just get that first spider, get him before he whistled up all his wee friends, you'd...

...well, let's face it, you'd still have spiders, because basements are their natural habitat. They think you're the invader, when you go round with your hoover in the spring.

That spider, though, that spider on my ceiling, I've really got a hate-on for him. I can't get up there at the moment, to put an end to his shenanigans. He knows I can't, and he's rubbing my nose in it. Take his obnoxious dinner-time behaviour, for instance. He knew I wasn't up to cooking, so he established his presence in the very seat of cookery (or as close to it as you'll see round these parts). There he was, hung hanging above the microwave, thumbing his mandibles at me.

"I hate these snidey spider cunts," I groaned, except I hadn't spoken aloud in some days, so it came out more along these lines: "Yate ese sidyspider kkk."

I've got a great pile of plates in the sink, and a battalion of mugs round the couch. I've got clothes for the laundry, and dust for the bin. I've work to do, errands to run--ah, what a disaster it'll be, when I'm recalled to life at last. ("Recalled to life"--where'd that come from? A Tale of Two Cities--ah, for such an uneventful resurrection! Had I only revolutionaries to fear, indeed, and grave-robbers, and courtrooms! Oh, how will I ever catch up? The dishes alone will take a century!)

I was a bit premature, at any rate, when I said my health had improved. I mean, it had, but not as much as I'd hoped. I've been getting a few good hours in the afternoons lately, just these past few days. I have time to get out of bed, have a shower, get a little work done, and then my head starts to wobble. Or maybe it's the rest of me wobbling, and my head's the only bit staying still. Whatever the cause, the effect is that I have to lie down again, having scarcely embarked on my work-day.

I'd been eating better lately, too, and getting more exercise. All that, to have my flat taken over by spiders! Well, a spider (and I can't even see him right now).

I'm not sure which is more worrying: a spider I can see, or one I can't. As long as I can't see him, I can pretend he's not here. He's gone next door to web up their ceilings, or, hey, maybe Stella ate him. He's crawled under the oven and died, and is now happily mouldering away. He's somewhere else, is the thing, and I couldn't be happier.

Then again, it's quite possible that he is here, and the only reason I don't see him is that I'm not wearing my specs. While I'm not seeing him, he could be building webs under doorhandles, worming his filthy self through cabinets where food is stored, biting Stella, biting me, or even biting holes in the curtains. He could be standing on my head this very minute, plotting to web up my ear. Or, horror of horrors, he could be shacked up under the couch with another spider. A month from today, I could be up to my neck in spiders. I could drown in spiders, even.

Was it only two years ago when I rode my bike through the forest, when I walked fifteen blocks without (much) trouble? When did invading insects become noteworthy events? I've been eating better lately. Maybe in the spring, when the dampness rolls back out to sea, I'll reap some reward. (I'd bloody well better. There's got to be something more exciting in my future than a string of arachnid callers. I'm thinking strolls in Stanley Park, stone-skipping on the beach, people-watching at Metrotown--all those weird little expeditions I used to go on. Those days will come again. One sniff of those summer breezes, and I'll be right back to my old self. Not too much longer, now--

--fucking spider just showed up again, running under the fridge. I think it was the same one, anyhow. Hope this isn't the start of an infestation--

--not too much longer, now. Here's to a spiderless tomorrow.)