I’m home watching a movie, making the regular trek back and forth from kitchen to living room to hunt down and kill icebox quarry that goes with my entertainment.  I notice this giant, black spider trying to make its way up my pale wall.  Now in the old days I’d have smashed the bugger on the spot.  But my first cat has taught me to appreciate the wee living.  They’re just frightened little creatures, trying to hang on by a thread, like we are.  They deserve life no less than a child I would call my own. It’s pretty arrogant of me to think that my life – or any other life I deem valuable – is worthier than my own.

I’m not squeamish except for two, maybe three things:  centipedes, a hysteria I inherited from my mother; scorpions, which I never see because scorpions don’t like the greater Chicago area; and really big spiders.  Small spiders are OK.  But this one was on the margin of the category I call Size of the Small Hand.  So, I stand there and watch the guy slither up the wall, slip a little, crawl up the wall, fall back a little.  First, I determine to leave it be.  It’s far enough away from my couch, so we’ll probably never meet again.  But I start thinking it is really big and gross and it may choose to nest in my groin hairs.  I toy with the idea of smashing it, which I’ll occasionally do to a big one.  But then I know I’ll feel guilty. I remember an old Night Gallery episode where this guy flushes a spider down his sink and it keeps crawling back up, getting bigger each time, until finally it’s the size of a dog and it eats him.  I do believe in karma, so I don’t want to be eaten, not before the basketball game’s over.

Then the idea hits me:  I’ll solve both of our troubles and take it outside.  It’ll be better for it out there anyway.  There are other spiders that have been kicked out of other houses for it to commiserate with.  And much more fast food, I’m sure, than a 165-pound man.  So, I stand around and stare at it and decide how I want to do this.  I definitely don’t want it overreacting if I get too close.  Spiders have this way of disappearing when you get too close. They’re escape artists. When they disappear on me, I always get paranoid and imagine they’ve gone up my pant leg.  And that they’ll bite me in the wrong place and I’ll have some kind of weird toxic reaction and never be able to have sex again.  Not like the sex life of the world would be dented by the loss of my contribution.  I mean, the male black widow who gets lucky his average once in a lifetime is a lady’s man compared to me.  But it’s my special and private area, right?  I just want to have the potential to mate. At least once.

I decide to do something novel.  I’ll trap it in an empty bottle of Gatorade.  I stand there with this empty bottle, and I stare at it.  And I wait and wait and wait, as if my opportunities will get any better.  In fact, they’re getting worse, because it’s crawling down to the floor now.  Eventually, it’s on the baseboard.  Aha!  I know what I’ll do.  I’ll put the mouth of the bottle along the baseboard, right its path!  And i’ll just walk right in.

I lay the bottle along the baseboard, slightly tapping it accidentally on the wall.  The spider stops dead in its tracks.  These things got real good vibratory sensors, in case you haven’t noticed.  Which is important because they can’t see worth shit.  So now it’s a waiting game.  Who has more patience?  Will I give up and go watch basketball?  Or will it start moving again soon? It’s a pretty patient spider and makes me wait a long time before it starts moving again.  But eventually it does.  This teaches me that I may be impatient, but I can outwait a spider.  But of course, instead of wandering into my plastic jug, it goes around it. Now my patience is at an end.  I know what I’ll do.  I’ll just slam the mouth of the bottle over it.  It’ll have to crawl inside then.

So I do it and smash a couple of its legs off.  It lays all crumpled on the carpet.  And I decide it’s best for it not to suffer and I mercy kill him.  And I don’t feel all that good about it.  I figure it had a right to live and I took it from itself.  It taught me that my impatience can, besides obviously hurting me, damage somebody or something else.  I could’ve just let it wander my walls.  But this master plan I had to enrich its life by sending it on an external vacation ended up killing it.  Sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing.

So, I go upstairs to my office and I write all this down.  I head back downstairs.  Guess what?  On the same spot of the same wall was a small spider of the same species as the one I killed.  I’d like to think it was the universe’s way of saying there’s often a second chance.  That ways to make amends will be provided.  By the way, this one lived.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within