attack of the 1cm spider ·
12 September 04

I spent most of the very early hours morning listening to Godspeed, writing that review I couldn’t, editing files, trawling Internet forums, and submitting my CVs to various agencies where employers advertise.

Later hours of the early morning were spent fighting with a spider. I’m not scared of the spiders in the country I live. They’re not exactly paralyzingly dangerous, they don’t bite and if they do it’s not dangerous as the bite is actually an anesthetic, so it wouldn’t infect you. So many people, for whatever reason, are very, very scared of spiders. My friend is 27 and he hates them, as do most of the other guys. They end up running like little school girls fleeing from a war torn country, along with the whiny screeching of the other girls who shout out instructions on how to kill it. You wonder why they haven’t written a book and made millions with their absolute revelatory knowledge.

Still I’ve never fucked around with a tarantula, or a red back, or any other slightly more dangerous you-should-be-scared-now spiders. The spiders we have, well I can happily let them crawl on my hands. I pick them up, if they’re stuck on my wall running around, I tell them if they don’t fuck around with me, I won’t kill them. Mostly they don’t, and I tend to grab them and let them out of the window anyway. I’m not a fan of cobwebs, but if there are a few flies around, I let a spider crawl around and have its way before I let it back out.

Sometimes though, I revert back to the age of childhood that is missing from memory. I know kids used to get a dragon fly, or a daddylonglegs or whatever they were called. They’d put them on the pavement, and start picking away at their limbs or wings piece by piece, to see if they still remained alive. It’s a natural instinct to see how things work. You’d remove, let them go and they would limp. You removed a wing, and they’d try to fly and crash to the floor, but continue trying because that’s all they know. You laughed with your friends, and then took off its other wing, and as it tried to fly again, it wouldn’t be able to. So your fun was over, and you stepped on the bug with your shoe. Even as kids, humans are pretty evil.

You probably trapped a spider now and again, in a cup, or a box or something, and watched it run around in your private little zoo, and you’d show off to your friends. You’d scare the girls with it, but there was always that one girl who didn’t budge until you took the spider out and threw it down her back, and you end up having scarred her for life. Her arachnophobia would forever be your fault. If you met her again in 20 years, she wouldn’t have forgotten, and in revenge would probably stick a knife in your back seeing as you were never scared of spiders. But you were scared of knives, weren’t you?

I saw the spider, about 1cm in diameter, on my ceiling. I looked up, slightly annoyed that it was there. My room had been spider free as far as I was aware, and I didn’t want it falling on me while I watch a movie, or annoying me by making its way into my mouth. I think the statistic is that we eat at least 8 spiders in our lifetime. It’s all nutritious though I guess, if you think about it. Not a lot of nutrition, I admit, but good for you nonetheless, if not your first choice of a snack during your sleeping hours.I did the usual routine and told it not to bother me, and I won’t bother it.

The lights went off, and I watched my film, and everything was fine. As daylight shone through newly installed windows, covered in newspaper to block as much light as possible, as I am too lazy to install the vertical blinds, the spider had gone. I was content with this fact, and it never crossed my mind again.

The water soldiers would rush down, hitting the spider. Upon return they would attack the enemy again, and thus making it tired. This would be repeated several fold, each time, the attack distance from top to bottom would be reduced to slowly hit the enemy more immediately in quick succession.

But I was typing my angry rant, and I got a bit pissed off, when tired of writing in the dark, I turned on the light, to find the spider above my head. I was in a bitter mood, so I wondered whether I should kill it. I could just pick something and squash the annoying bastard on to the ceiling, stamping my own approval on its presence, forever. I decided not to kill it however. Instead, I chose to collect it, or at least trap it in that childhood zoo. I picked up an empty bottle of Evian, or at least as empty as it could be; it had traces of water in there, enough for a pool about an inch in diameter, with a depth of 0.5-1cm. I opened the top, and trapped the spider scuttling across the ceiling. It was trapped in the mouth piece of the bottle, so I dragged the bottle, going along with the wall, so that the spider would hit the edge and drop in. It did.

Immediately I fastened the top back on, just as I did, the spider leaped up and hit the inside of the top, and fell downwards, and latched itself to the inside of the empty bottle. I looked at the spider from outside of the bottle, and peered at it. I had trapped it, and my conscience said let it go, where as he said let’s have some fun with it. I just wanted to watch a film, but no one was agreeing with me.

So as I continued to write, continued to dance through the disco of the Internet, my mind returned to the bottle that lay on the floor with the trapped spider. Could, or should, I kill it within the bottle. How much punishment could it take before it died. I knew though, that there wasn’t enough water in there, or at least I thought so. Plus I didn’t know whether a spider could actually drown, although any arachnid that small or a bug would be killed by the impact of a rush water.

I picked up the bottle, and the spider sat where it was. I tapped the side and it dropped to what was now the bottom of the cylindrical shape of the bottle. The water, of what little there was, was trapped within the ridges of the shape, and the spider happened to be on one of these. I careful coordinated the water to touch the spider, watching it leap from one side to the other, running away from the water like a mouse chasing after cheese in a wheel. I kept turning the bottle faster and faster, gently tilting to chase the spider. The spider was pretty quick, bouncing and jumping around. I trapped it one of the ridges filled with most of the water, and it tried to move, but it’s front legs just paddled frantically in front of it, it’s rear legs seemed stuck in the ridge with other parts of water. Trapped I thought, but then it went side ways and got out. 1 – 0 to the spider.

Slightly miffed at being outwitted by the spider, I decided to play hardball. I had no gloves on, so I took my top off. I had to go with the whole angst thing you see. I held the bottle at a down ward angle, from the mouth piece. The water was trapped between the ridges, and the spider at the lower end, in the path of the trapped water. I shook the bottle downwards watching the water rush down, and hit the spider. The spider still moved out of the way and ran in that circular motion as before. Plan B I thought, as it was now 2 – 0 the annoying sod.

Plan B was to repeat the process with a series of coordinated attacks. The water soldiers would rush down, hitting the spider. Upon return they would attack the enemy again, and thus making it tired. This would be repeated several fold, each time, the attack distance from top to bottom would be reduced to slowly hit the enemy more immediately in quick succession. I would do this to the track Rocket Falls on Rocket Falls. Eventually the distance would be so small that the spider would be trapped by a kamikaze water attack, where the water would merge into one pool, small enough to trap the spider, and enough to cover it from feet (if it has any) to the furry bit at the top.

The plan was a complete success, and I had the spider trapped. Trapped, not moving and may be crying. Crying like a two year old that shit its pants and doesn’t quite know what to do. I could see little of the spider, except this ball curled up under the visual displacement of the water. I decided to make sure, I ordered the shake n attack, which is basically me shaking the bottle enough times with the curled up spider to ensure it hits enough ridges and sides, as well as being drowned in water.

It seemed to work great, I had my victory, I played out a childhood act I should have done all those years ago. But, hang on, what the heck is this? I decided to move the water away from the ball of arachnid. It looked dead enough, I even rushed the water over it to see if it moved. Nothing. I then tapped the bottom of the plastic, just below where the spider was, and fuck me! it unwrapped its buggering self and sat up again, crawling around like a two dollar whore at Kings Cross Station. Spider ahead, 2 – 0.

My last ditch effort was equally futile. I grabbed the bottle by its neck ans shook it vigorously, hoping that the water, the shaking, the sheer beyond-human-speed that I would shake the bottle, coming from the practice of wanking like an amateur, would bare fruit in its death. I shook, and shook until the ridges in the side of the cap started to cause the palms of my hands to start itching. And there it stood, on the inner nipple at the bottom of the blood bottle, standing on it like some King of the Jungle, like Bush conquering the Middle East, like me proving someone wrong, proudly showing itself alive. So I gave up, and throw the bottle in the bin.

Cocky fucking bastard.