mistergardner

There is half a spider on my desk. Encased in resin.  Right next to a picture of my grandmother.  Somehow this feel inappropriate.  It's macabre and terrible, the chambers of its abdomen laid bare like some unlocked diary.  I am ashamed every time I look at it. 

It talks to me: "This is your fault,"  it says.  "I'd be skittering about a desert floor somewhere, smashin' crickets and spinnin webs like spider man, cuz I'm a spider, man." 
"You're kinda corny"  I tell it.  "Corny?" It retorts, "You have me here, flayed on your countertop, my heart leeching into this plastic dome... for what?  To hold down this paper?   Why don't you just let me go?"

Of course it doesn't say this, but half of its eight eyes accusingly stare it right into my brain.  Sometimes I daydream about hurling it into the ocean, but that's no place for half a spider.  Sometimes I think about burying it in the backyard, but that feels so formal, and we've gone way past formality at this point.

The truth is, there is no spider inside that resin dome.  There is exoskeleton and bristles, that is all.  The spider is sitting on a faded bench on a cliff somewhere, watching the ocean with my grandmother. She is wearing white sweatpants and a crocheted sweater with a scottish terrier on it. The spider is holding her hand while the sun slides into the water like a goodnight kiss. It is so appropriate.  It is so alive.