“Oh! Spider! Oh! Oh!” squealed my beautiful girlfriend as we smoked our before bed cigarettes on the porch stoop. I watched her squirm for a few seconds before I smashed the spider with the palm of my hand. Her relief was palpable. She loves me for my mad spider killing skills.
***
The spider sat in the bottom corner of her web as it shook violently. She sat quietly, and instead of running to see what she had caught. She sat quietly. She wasn’t hungry. She was dead, but a minuscule copy of her ran out from below the web. The baby knew instinctually to run at the intruder, wrap it up, and save it to share with the other babies hatching from the egg sack down below.
***
“Mommy, why do spiders have so many legs?”
“To make you ask questions, honey. Why do you ask?”
The little boy shook his head, and sat silently in his car seat. His mother glanced back at her son. She could only spare a glance, as she was preoccupied with the traffic on their drive home. She didn’t notice the small black and red spider sitting cupped in her son’s small hands.
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