the beginning

    This happened 22 years ago, so I don't remember everything like one of those people I saw on sixty minutes who had complete sensory recall of everything they have ever done and can remember what day it was on and all that.  I don't have that power.  Anyway, I do remember it was a very windy day with the trees clicking their branches together in the wind and it was spring, late spring.  It was warm and the sun kept going behind clouds and then out and then behind again and the shadows of the clouds moved along the earth fast which gave a certain effect like the cosmic power was on the fritz.  I was around nineteen.  I can't remember my exact age and this may not seem important but later it figured into my delusion as to whether I was at the age of accountability yet.  I think I had just quit college and had returned to northeast Arkansas to where my parents lived.  I had gone outside and was kicking around the back yard.  There was a gray clapboard shed in the yard which was fenced in with your standard chain link fence.  It was one of those days where you seem to be in a different world.  Your mind is wandering and you have no where to go or nothing to do.  Anyway, I stepped up on the deck which used to be part of an above ground swimming pool which my father had removed several years previously.  I saw the spider immediately and it stopped me cold.  I don't know what it was but it's like one of those times when you know something weird is going on but you can't stop it and you can't think about it or anything.  My mind reeled and I went into the house into the utility room where the washer and dryer were and where a lot of odds and ends that a normal household has were:  old spray paint cans, plastic bowls full of old bolts and nails, an old beat up metal cabinet in which sat some flying insect killer.  I took the can and headed back outside to the deck.  I was on autopilot.  I took the can and sprayed the spider, one of those big yellow and black garden spiders with the poison for what seemed like a long time.  The spider didn't move.  I thought it was perhaps impervious to the poison but I gritted my teeth and sprayed some more.  At once, the spider fell from its large web, which was connected to the house and the deck.  I thought I had killed it.  To this day I don't know whether the spider died.  I certainly hope not at this point.  Anyway, I felt sick the rest of the day and I think I went in and took a nap.