Spun

I was chiseling near-petrified matter from a skillet the other night, mentally bitching about cat hair on the counter and in my eye. I was doing what I often do in these moments of pet-owner outrage: plot out my revenge against her (Winnie, cat) and imagine the feel of squirt bottle in hand, finger on trigger, locked and loaded. (I do this, true story.)

Noises all around. GLEE on the kitchen tube -- (warning: unintentional rhyming ahead) -- Atmosphere rapping in the living room... my next-door neighborhood hacking up a loogie and ejecting it somewhere (sorry, it happens).

Life in the city ain't always sex-in-the-city pretty, my friend. (Whaddaya gonna do?)

Somehow, cutting through and above this cacophony of sound, I hear: CLICK......CLICK...

I can't immediately identify the source of the sounds, so I do what any 47.5 year old girl raised on Nancy Drew would do: I investigate.

Crouching low to the ground, I creep cautiously toward a lime-green canvas-covered folding chair propped unsteadily in a corner (I really did this). In its semi-folded state, I theorize that the CLICK......CLICK's may simply be the result of it incrementally unfolding due to the gravitational pull of the Earth's core. (I thought I was so sci-smart, I really did.)

CLICK......CLICK...

Clearly, wrong. My investigation continues. I snap my head approx. 45 degrees to redirect my focus, and this time, I find it. "It" plural.

CLICK......CLICK... These were the sounds of a single insect putting every ounce of its waning energy into a futile series of exoskeleton-contorting SOS's.

It's un-doer, a perfectly round-bellied spider, was deftly spinning the bug around and around, weaving its filament-of-death tighter and tighter with every rotation.

CLICK......CLICK... Help!
CLICK......CLICK... I've been captured!
CLICK......CLICK... Losing all circulation, can't move....
CLICK......CLICK... Fucking spider. (final words)

Silence.

I watched all of this with a slack-jawed horror. I was mesmerized, even slightly terrorized. Since, I've wondered and worried when this will show up in a future nightmare -- me, the bug, spun.