Murder at Midnight

Once upon a time when I was five or so, my neighbor Joey brought me to a crack in the sidewalk. He reached down and pulled back the broken chunk of concrete to reveal a nest of ants swarming over one another. He raised his knee into the air and smashed his sneaker atop them. I followed suit. A massacre, an attempted genocide of sorts. The power to take small, little lives was in my shoes. Later that day when I came in for dinner, I told my mother all about my day with Joey. She hated Joey, still rolls her eyes to this day when his memory is brought up. He picked his nose and left little presents on her furniture. But, I loved him.

She told me that I had no idea what I had done and who I had smashed. I could have, for all I knew, killed a mama ant and now her baby ants were waiting in anticipation for their mother that would never return to them. Heavy shit for a kid, and needless to say, I never killed an insect since.

Especially not spiders. I wholeheartedly admire spiders. Eight legs? Awesome. Webs? Beautiful. I try to keep a healthy distance from them, and if one is in my apartment, I kindly explain (yes, aloud) to them that I don't think they belong in my space, and I free them outside. However, I am afraid word has gotten out, as over the last six months or so, I've noticed a shit ton of spiders congregating in my room. But I will not kill them. I fear their retaliation. They don't seem to be forgiving creatures by any means. Spiders are beings of a vengeful nature.

About a week ago, I saw a large bite on my ankle, not mosquito. It is clearly the work of a spider. I started to get nervous when I saw a monstrously large spider in my room. I took a picture and showed a friend of mine who is something of a spider expert. She told me it was a wolf spider who are venomous, not to a deadly degree, but she did say they are not spiders to fuck around with and that I should get them out of my apartment.

So last night, I saw one climbing along the wall, I freaked out, grabbed a sneaker from my closet and flung my arm back and hit the wall as hard as I could. The spider crinkled its legs into a ball and slowly fell down onto the carpet where I hit it some more.

I was alone at the time, so I quietly spoke to it. Something along the lines of, "I am so sorry, but you must understand that it's you or me and I hope you fare better in the next life. I guess you didn't deserve that."

I hardly slept that night. Tossing and turning. I could feel things on my legs. Every fifteen minutes or so I would turn my light on, flip off my covers and check all over for them. I was sure his buddies were coming for me. I had nightmares of being entangled in webs, being scolded by spiders.

Then, today, when I came home from errands, I saw two of the spiders crawling along the wall, behind my bed. I SWEAR TO GOD, they were taunting me.

But, I don't know how to atone for my crime.