I think Big Spid must be dead. He or she hasn't been seen for a month now. In his place, in the corner of the living room, we now have Medium Spid. As the windows are closed against the nippy weather, he was in danger of starvation so I broke my Buddist(ish) vow never to harm a living creature and caught him a daddy-longlegs.
I thought it would be a quick death. Inject the fangs, death, munch. But no. I had forgotten about spiders' fetish for mummification. Spindly legs threshing feebly, the creature I had condemned to death was rapidly cocooned in web and immobilised, whereupon the vicious arachnid sucked out its vital juices WHILE IT WAS STILL ALIVE! I can't describe the guilt I suffered.
When I was a toddler, if I stamped on an ant with great relish, or squashed a beetle, my mother would announce, "The king of the ants (or beetles) will get you for that." She would direct her attention to the skies, point to an oddly shaped cloud and declare, "Look, there he is!" and we would cower, convinced that the cumulo-nimbus had sprouted legs, thorax, abdomen and antennae (or even chitin) and was all set to fall on us from above and eat us up. Quite cruel, my mum, looking back now. Fortunately, it's hard for a cloud to form the shape of a daddy-longlegs. Or is it? Still, it's dark now. I'm safe till tomorrow.
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