![Everywhere You Go...There They Are (Image by By tom burke from Morgan Hill, CA, USA [Flickr] [CC BY 2.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Web.jpg)
What is it about spiders that gives people the heebie-jeebies?
Yeah, their bodies.
It’s what they look like. Talk about judging a book by its cover!
They’re creepy.
And they hide in the smallest of places—
Well, everywhere.
And to think about how many of them exist and where they exist…well, that’s what brought about this prose poem, below. It’s not much, but I like it. Short, sweet, right to the point.
And you thought clowns were creepy!
This has never been published.
Spiders
© F. P. Dorchak, 1992
They’re everywhere
You can’t get rid of them
They’re in places you can’t imagine
And places you can
Spiders
Related Articles
- Links to all my posted short stories are here.
- In Which My Tarantulas And I… (accidentalspacegirl.com)
I was talking to a reporter from BBC Radio Four the other day (I’m still being contacted by the press, it’s bizarre!) and I was saying that I think what scares people about spiders is the fact that they’re so alien. They have all those legs, they have that certain way of moving (scuttling) and even just appearing out of nowhere. Also, they don’t have a limbic system – their movements are pretty much controlled hydraulically – and a ganglia, but no actual brain. You could be forgiven for thinking that they’re from a different planet or related to the Elder Gods lol (they’re utterly ancient and have survived every world-changing event, including the Ice Age and the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs).
I still love them though 🙂
“Love” is such a strong word. 😛
But, yes, they are so cool looking, so alien, so different from most everything else we see in daily life! Yes, I do feel spiders originate from The AnCiEnT OnEs….
Well, you know me – I’m the local eccentric spider lady lol. So “love” sums it up for me. One of my big girls moulted the other day and hubby straightened it out for framing. I should post it next time I update 😀
I’ve added your recent tarantula post to this post, Gemma! Great article!
https://accidentalspacegirl.com/2016/07/07/in-which-my-tarantulas-and-i-accidentally-become-famous/
Always ready to pop out when we least expect it … O_O
…yes…watching us…tracking us…following us from room to room…timing their appearances just perfectly so….
Spiders.
……….
Are you TRYING to give me nightmares, Frank…?
Oh, Wendy, like Spacegirl says, those legs–OMG, those LEGS! And how they USE them!
And “scuttling!” Always appearing out of nowhere…like when you’re kicking back in the ol easy chair, peacefully snoring away…mouth open…drooling…so blissfully snoozing…mouth open (did I mention that?)…and something—yea, SOMETHING!—comes all Navy-SEAL-ops down from above…stealthily…those alien, flexing legs wiggling all the way down…targeting…targeting its landing zone (that’s “LZ” in Navy-SEAL-ops lingo)…closing in…mouth drooling…open…Navy SEAL spider descending…huge inhale…more drool…spec ops spider adjusting landing for exhalations and snores…waiting, adjusting…then comes the Big Inhale for the next snore…the spider goes in for the landing—
You wake up after having felt just the SLIGHTEST of contact from SOMETHING FROM ABOVE!
WHAT “above”?!
WHAT “contact”?!
WHAT—?!
You leap to your feet, madly, insanely wringing your hands and stomping your feet (madly, oh-so-very-madly swiping your arms, your torso, your legs, everywhere!) like a two-year-old…uttering loud, weird, two-year-old noises from your profaned mouth (“GET OFF OF ME! GET OFF OF ME!”)…clawing at your mouth, spitting and spitting and spitting like no tomorrow…like you’ve never done so in your life before, because you KNOW something CAME FROM ABOVE and TOUCHED YOU…and we ALL KNOW there should be no COMING FROM ABOVE AND TOUCHING YOU at all…and that only one thing AND ONE THING ONLY “comes from above and touches”!
You strip all your clothing right then and there, still spitting and spitting, still clawing at your mouth, your hair, all your dark, dank places…and five minutes later you stop. Breathing heavy…naked, as near certain as you can be that NOTHING FROM ABOVE got anywhere INSIDE YOU…ON YOU…anywhere. Slowly…the smile forms…ear to ear…hair disheveled…hands splayed out before you, your crazy eyes slowly, gradually coming into better focus of your surroundings—
And you realize it’s Thanksgiving and you’re standing naked and crazy in the middle of the living room, all eyes of your family focused intently upon you.
You mean like that, Wendy? Yes, this time I honestly WAS going for that. :-]
LOL, love this, Frank! You just perfectly described my “Spider Dance”. xD