The Spider or the Fly?

I have this feeling that I can’t shake. It nags me while I’m washing dishes, stocking shelves, or shooting shit with my friends—while I’m sitting here at this table drinking my Dr. Pepper at half past eleven with my dog’s head resting on my knee. I have this thought that it’s all connected, and I don’t know how or why because I’ve never been big on God or destiny or things happening for a reason when there’s a great, big world of chaos and murder and starving children out there. But I’m sitting here at this table looking out at the darkness through a crack in my blind, and I think I can see the web—the places where the silk strands connect and veer off out of sight. I can see the webbing behind me, glinting silver in the light from my back porch, all these separate paths and situations and lives meeting here in this place inevitably like they never had a say in it. Like it would always happen this way no matter what job I took or city I lived in, like it had to in order to maintain the shape and structure. I can see the web behind me, but, try as I might, I can’t see where it leads or the spider spinning away as I type out these words; though, I know the intricacy of such a design demand both an agenda and an architect.

I think if I could just find one tendril—maybe a soft, delicate one outside of my bedroom window where my forwarded mail sits unopened next to a pot of basil—I could follow it to another vertex until the scheme for the future reveals itself, but there’s none to be found. I’m out of Doritos and Dr. Pepper, so the only place for me now is atop my new(ish) mattress, next to my boyfriend, who is snoring too loudly, sleeping too soundly. My thoughts chase me, though, and I can’t bring myself to slide in between my sheets with this question haunting me. If I can’t find my clear path ahead, am I the spider or the fly caught in the web? The porch light flickers outside; it needs a new bulb, and I need a drink.