I sat squatting in the far corner of my apartment and bit my nails. It’s a bad habit I’ve never had the desire to quit.
There is some masochistic pleasure in being able to rip up a piece of your body painlessly. To investigate the ridges of the tears. To see how much farther you can go until you feel it. And sometimes even more.
Clipping my nails has only ever given me mild pleasure at best. The sound of the sharp snap is a satisfaction which dissipates quickly. My throbbing fingertips, however, last for days.
The simple grey light of the early morning hung in heavy silence. It had not yet reached my toes, and I watched it indifferently.
And then something peculiar happened. A silver sliver caught my eye, reflecting what little light protruded the room. My eyes followed it to the wooden floor, upon which a small green spider stalked.
Its legs emerged like antennae. They rose to a peak twice its height. The lanky legs moved quickly, precisely. It reminded me, for some odd reason, of a ballerina. Pointy toes moving just gracefully so.
It scuttled about my room, investigating various discarded items. A half-finished puzzle depicting the oil on canvas “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” by Jacques-Louis David. An empty bag of Calbee wasabi mayo flavored potato chips. My La Vie en Rose DVD case. A pocket-sized packet of tissues.
Then it turned toward me and froze. It seemed to regard me in a curious fashion from its 8 protruding eyeballs. I felt judged and momentarily looked away. When our eyes met again, it immediately started toward me in a menacing way.
It tilted its head toward the floor as if charging. I noticed a horn protruding from its forehead complete with about a dozen sharp hooks growing from it like little hairs. Its glossy shell seemed impenetrable.
As is possible in dreams, my room possessed an oddly warped angle. My presence seemed to weigh down the corner I had claimed so that everything else appeared insignificant. As a result, the approaching spider grew in size as it charged.
Although the spider had proved to be nearly the size of a golfball in all actuality. I wasted little breath in a quick uptake of the knee followed by a most satisfactory thud to the ground. I promptly squashed it with the heel of my foot.
The outer membrane resisted my weight at first, only to give in to an irresistible POP! Mmm, I sighed. Finger biting ain’t got nothing on this. I relished in my newfound guilty pleasure, then investigated the results. Its legs, somewhat crumpled, twitched amid a small puddle of what resembled green applesauce.
However, my moment of zen quickly vanished. As if awakened by my actions, two more spiders slightly larger than the first appeared. They didn’t give me any dirty looks, but I squashed them for good measure, too.
In retrospect, I have to admit, it was a mistake. The room suddenly darkened, and I glanced at my balcony window. I was shocked to find that the entire window was enveloped in web.
What must have been thousands of spiders moved about, spinning, clipping, sucking the blood from helpless victims of fate. Simultaneously, they paused. The web jostled in the breeze, and they clung tightly to it.
At first, I could only see the sharp tips of the large hairs. Then as it lowered itself, the beastly legs came into clear vision. This spider must have been the size of a small car.
I hunched motionless in the corner. Nervously, I began to bite my nails.
As if on cue, the choir of spiders spun single strands of silk and dropped from the web like parachutes. The army of legs tap tap tapping my wooden floor filled the room with a horrid sound much like scratches on an old record playing.
My hands became clammy, and I swallowed a lump welling in my throat. I began grabbing the spiders, now the size of fists, and popping them. At first, I was almost welcoming the opportunity of poppage.
But as they kept coming, I couldn’t keep up. An endless sea of green abdomens and spindly legs. They tickled my skin as they crawled up my arms like grape-sized goosebumps.
And as the stories always go, I woke up.
