A spider lives just outside the window. It is suspended between a cactus and rosemary bush each morning, but is always hidden from the summer sun by midday. In the last few weeks it has grown from the size of a dime to more than a silver dollar. It has eight spindly legs with sharp ends like daggers for feet and a plump body with black and yellow markings like those of a cheetah, and her entire body is coated with a kind of natural, lacquer finish. There is a big red, swollen ring on her underside, right in the middle of her abdomen. She is the first highlight of my mornings lately: still in my underwear I crouch before the closed Venetian blinds, slowly turn them open, and peek outside through the glass. And there she is, suspended between a cactus and a rosemary bush, softly lit up in the early glow of pink and yellow pastels only Southwest desert sunrises offer.
"When are you going to kill that spider, or do I have to do it?"
"Why kill her?"
"Her? Yes, HER. That will be the problem. SHE will have a thousand babies soon and I don't want them in the house."
About a week ago a grasshopper landed in her web. Trapped in the very center of her net, the insect wiggled for about two days, but he couldn't break free. Mercilessly, she grabbed hold of him and started wrapping him up, spitting endless strands from her abdomen, busily working her spindly legs, tirelessly, not stopping until his entire body was encased in silk. While he was still kicking and convulsing from inside his cocoon, she sank her fangs through the silk and straight into him, started sucking the life from his body. Sucked and sucked until his desperate movements waned to barely perceptible tremors and finally became motionless, death. For several days, fangs still bit in deep, she carried her silk-wrapped catch with her everywhere she went. In the mornings, while perched in the center of her web, she kept him tightly embraced, her eight spindly legs wrapped around him, still drinking from his body, but to me it appeared she was now kissing him through the silk that covered his carcass. In the evenings when I came home from work I couldn't find her, or him, in the web. She was hidden from sight, but the cocoon was low to the ground and shaded among the rosemary. Each morning the lovers were back again, in the web, basking in the early sunshine glow, pink and yellow pastels, intertwined, inseparable.
When I was a boy, whenever I'd find a grasshopper trapped in a spider's web, I'd free it if it were still alive, knock down the web, and kill the spider responsible for the atrocity. I don't come to the rescue anymore. The older I've become, the less I've interfered with things: I just let shit happen in its natural course and observe what happens. Being a spectator is enough. Maybe I'm resigned to wishing to learn something about the mechanics of the universe if I just sit back and watch. Don't get involved in the workings of the Grand Design? Finally, I'm seeking the secrets of the gods and respecting their methods, rhythms, trusting that their actions are holy, though their purposes exceed mortal understanding. Stand back and don't interfere. Allow the gods to do their necessary and proper work. It may all seem arbitrary and cruel, but maybe it is not? Just watch as the spider does what she is meant to do. Perhaps the gods enjoy watching me play out my short, brutal life, just as I enjoy watching the spider playing out hers? Do the gods look up into the heavens above their heads for their gods as I look up to find them?
This morning before getting in my car and driving to work, I went outside to say goodbye to her, face to face and not through the Venetian blinds and glass. I sprayed her and the cocoon she was embracing down with insecticide. She didn't flinch, as if nothing had happened. She just sat there, suspended, lover in arms, kissing him, basking in the pastel morning glow as the poison, reflecting sunshine, dripped from her polished, lacquer body.
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