Spider Web

I used to bury myself in my garage late at night, well after the rest of my family had fallen asleep. As a child, I had an intense constant desire to be left alone. Being alone was a feeling I used to enjoy. It would allow me to contemplate whatever multitude of confusing and frustrating factors I had in my life. Though I find it hard to recall any of those stressful factors, there was one night in particular I will always remember. It's amazing how, in a world as large as the one we live in, a single wish for solitude will never be spent fully alone.
It was the summer before my first year of high school. Even in the middle of the night, the air was deathly warm. The light breeze circulating around me was dust-filled and hardly helped against the heat. I kept my nose covered with a shirt to try to keep it from bleeding. The concrete was cooler than the entire garage, but not by much. I lay there on the ground, thinking of some random meaning to the universe; what, specifically, I cannot remember. In my immaturity, it most likely had something to do with suicide. I’m sure I meant to fall asleep there, on the ground, in the garage, but a marvelous display of nature kept me far too enthralled to feel even slightly exhausted.
A stinger-bug slid his way across my path, clearly minding his own business as I attempted to mind mine. His miniscule legs carried him quickly towards me. Rather than scream in fright, I became mesmerized by the
creature’s shiny black body and his determination to meet whatever destination he sought. I watched his paper-thin self hurry across the concrete into the wild unknown. All of my focus I had just moments ago placed on my own worldly dilemmas now found itself centered upon this tiny being. To an onlooker, it would seem amusing that a being with as much evolutionary superiority as myself could become so absorbed by something so small, so insignificant. I’m sure now that whatever thoughts my mind had been picking apart earlier were, in a broader spectrum, small and insignificant.
I watched the stinger bug intensely, not wanting to even blink for fear that I may miss an important part of his journey. I did, however, make the mistake of blinking, and whatever trance the stinger bug held me in immediately faded away. When my eyes readjusted themselves to the dull light of the garage, I realized my insect companion had stopped moving. His journey ceased next to the back wheel of my roller blades. It seemed hardly the place for such a motivated soul to find his personal interlude. I waited, partially in hopes to find this would not be the place he had so urgently been seeking out. To my dismay, though this was to be his ending point, it was not of his own accord. Instead, the poor creature had managed to stumble into a trap.
I remained lying on the concrete, with my perfect bug’s-eye view, as the stinger-bug started squirming about frantically, much like any other frightened animal. The shine of his black body gleamed in the orange light as he shook from side to side. His stick-figure body began, ever so slightly, to levitate into mid-air. As he twisted about, I noticed another object reflecting the light: the faint string of a spider web.
I wanted to intervene and help my poor little companion in loneliness set himself free, but I thought better of it when I saw a mature black widow come out from behind the roller blade. The arachnid had felt the tug of the struggling creature and was steadily making her way to the catch. She moved slowly, mockingly across my roller blade. Her demeanor, much like that of a slick English spy, was smooth and precise. She was sure to take caution, as each of her eight legs strode closer to the bug she had caught in her web. When she reached the edge of her web, she perched her body delicately on the end wheel of my roller blade and stared at the stinger-bug. She appeared to be laughing at the creature’s pathetic attempts to escape.
"My darling Love," she breathed, "My silly Fool, how dare you believe the lies you told yourself through so many years of dreams. However invincible you pride yourself in being, you are, indeed, wrong."
The widow lifted her black abdomen with a pristine air of femininity, showing off her beautiful red strip and its representation of her high standing in the insect kingdom. She moved closer to the creature and slid her feet onto the closest part of her web, gently testing the waters made up of fine string. Gaining balance, she slipped deep down into the woven nest. Her massive body lay upon the silky thread in absolute comfort; the stinger-bug’s body, now limp with exhaustion, was elevated higher into the web by the weight of her. Each of her eyes remained fixated on her company.
"Silly little Love," she said, "You've walked along this road, the world around you crumbling, yet, in your naïveté, you still wander out into the darkness, into the unknown. Here I am, your Fear, here before you and you can no longer do anything but watch me smile."
The widow rose from her bed and moved closer to the bug. She set to her long awaited task of wrapping him in a blanket of silk. She worked delicately, as a female should, though not carelessly. Her legs possessed the skill of an old seamstress. She probably had years of practice, maybe even on a husband or two. She appeared completely absorbed by her work.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a homely cockroach approach from the shadows. The roach drew near the scene, on legs that possessed the grace of a drunk. The light in his eyes made him near oblivious to his surroundings. The widow heard the rustling of the roach’s legs and stopped her task, leaving half of the stinger-bug’s body exposed. She watched as the lazy bug crawled closer to her web, sizing him up for her next meal. By some strange insect sense, the bug woke from his prior stupor and realized he had nearly fallen into the same trap as the stinger-bug. At witnessing the macabre event, the roach merely turned without a sound, or looking back.
Once she made sure the roach staggered far from her sight, the widow carried on with wrapping the stinger-bug. She performed faster than before, as if trying to meet a deadline. Clearly she was a woman with priorities. When her task was completed, and the stinger-bug lay dead in his tomb of web, the widow sat back and admired her work. "My darling Fool," she moaned, part in pride and part in fatigue, "Though in your ignorance you met an undesired end, you leave now with the knowledge that most remain blinded to: in this world, anything and everything is to be considered dangerous."
With my newfound knowledge, I left. I’ve never been alone in the garage since.