In the cupboard below the stairs leading to my room lived two spiders. I first discovered them when I was searching for an old textbook of mine. I opened the chipboard door and found myself staring at 16 eyes (I assumed each of them had 8 eyes). They were both grey and even with their long, slim legs extended, they would have fit easily in my palm.
Not that I wanted to pick them up; there was something inherently unsettling about the way they were just there, not moving or making a sound. Just sitting in the far corner of the cupboard, watching me, daring me to look at them. Look into our eyes, they seemed to say. Look here and feel your suffering.
I asked the woman who cleaned our house to rid the cupboard of its eight-legged tenants. She looked at me for a second before saying, "I don't do spiders. They're your problem." I tried to argue with her but she wouldn't listen. My flatmate wasn't home and was probably high as a kite so there was no sense in trying to talk to him. So that night I didn't sleep alone in my room. The cupboard (which was to the left of my bed) was closed but I could imagine the spiders clawing against the door, snarling inaudibly and drooling at the thought of eating my raw flesh.
I had a nightmare that night. I was lying on my back, completely paralysed. The room was dark but there was an ambient glow, a grayish-white light that threw fuzzy shadows on the wall. I was confused for a second before I realised what the source of the glow was: it was the spiders.
That's when I realized, even without shifting my neck, that the cupboard door had opened and the spiders were out. But where were they? The question was answered soon enough when I felt something brush against my right leg. I managed to look down to see the two arachnids crawling towards my face. The worst part wasn't the unnerving speed and determination with which they crawled to my frozen face, or their ominous silhouettes. No, it was the fact that I couldn't panic. The fact that despite what was happening my heart beat didn't pick up, like I was Hannibal Lecter, or (even worse) that I had somehow consented to this, that I had somehow sold my will to resist.
The spiders completed their ascent and reached my face. In my state of calm panic, I felt one of them stick its legs in my left nostril while the other brushed my lips as it entered my mouth. I had no idea what to do but, in a strange sense, I actually did. As the spider touched my tongue, I began to close my mouth, mentally preparing to bite it.
I woke up at dawn with a dry throat and sweat-drenched forehead. Instinctively, I ran both hands over my face. No signs of any web residue. Of course there weren't. I gave a sigh of relief and ran over to the cupboard. There I knelt for about ten seconds, my hand hovering over the handle of the cupboard door and my heart pumping at a devilish speed.
I swallowed deeply and opened the door. I let out a tiny gasp. The spiders were gone. Panting as if I had run a marathon, I pulled put my phone and turned on its torch. I shone the bright light all over the dusty interior, waving my phone like a madman. They're gone.
"Guess what I found in that little cupboard last night," I began, stirring my bowl of cereal, trying my best to sound casual. Perhaps I had sounded too nonchalant, because my flatmate completely ignored what I said and started talking about a new hamburger joint that was the talk of the town. "It's pretty close to the campus so we wouldn't have to walk much," he was saying while wolfing down some leftover pizza.
We were sitting at a foldable coffee table having breakfast before we left for the day's classes. I sat with my right hand brushing the bottom of the table, feeling for any cobwebs. I was pretty sure there were no more spiders in the apartment, but you could never be sure.
"Today?"
What? I snapped my head up. "Wanna go to the joint today?" asked my flatmate.
"The joint?"
"The burger joint. The one I spent the past 2 minutes talking about. Fuck's sake, were you even listening?"
I sighed. Do I have to? I liked burgers, but was it necessary to go out? Why not just stay at home, where, if you wanted to, you could lose track of time altogether. I knew what would happen if I said no. He would rant about my laziness, that I have no direction but to go wherever my fate will take me. I have often thought about that. Maybe he was right: I never knew what I really wanted to do in my life and probably still don't. What I study, what I aim to become is of no importance. I just did what I did because I had a spare die and a lot of spare time on a particular day in high school. Since then, and perhaps even before that, I've just been going with the flow. I believe the scientific term is 'winging it'.
My sigh and the subsequent pause must have given the hint to my flatmate, because scratched his brow and wiped his fingers on a tissue paper. "Tell me something," he began. Here we go.
"Does anything feel important to you at all?"
I started. This is new.
"Do you look at something and think: 'This is essential to me. I need this'?" There was an audible empty space at the end of this question, that would be filled by, presumably, another question after I answered him.
On way to class, I thought about spiders. About my spiders. I wondered if they were back. Strangely, I welcomed the thought of them returning. Because they're important. There you go. I had my answer.
I was in my room, in complete darkness, save for the flashlight in my phone. I knelt in front of the cupboard. The spiders are important. I took a hard swallow and opened the cupboard. You are important.
I shone the light into the dark space.
Fuck. There were no spiders. I thought about turning on the light of the room (maybe I couldn't see them clearly?), but I knew they weren't there. I could feel the void they had left behind. It crept upwards to my face, creeping up my feet and filling my stomach. I couldn't let it reach my brain because I knew what it would do. It would remind me of everything I hadn't done, of everything I had done wrong. He would come to me and force me to see my life.
An idle mind is the devil's workshop. But he wasn't the devil. He came to remind. Like a toaster oven winding down, he would get ready and then pop out without any flair, reminding me. I could hear him. I could hear the rhythmic clicking as he approached me. The idle mind is the devil's workshop and the devil wants to remind.
I switched my flashlight off and sat still in the darkness, hearing the clicking get closer and closer. He has come to remind.
I closed my eyes, and I heard a breathing sound close to my ears. It wasn't me as I knelt on my knees with bated breath.
I thought about spiders. Come back. Make him go away. And then I heard the clicking go away. As the noise died down, I felt the air being evacuated from the cupboard. There was a familiar stillness in there. In the dark, kneeling on the floor in front of the cupboard below the stairs, I smiled. They were back.
I first saw her in the entrance corridor of my college campus, looking at a noticeboard. It was like glancing at a bright bulb: you look away but the light remains imprinted in your eyes. I walked to class that day feeling the familiar void creep up my legs, but this time I welcomed it. The void felt good. In this time, between seeing her and feeling the void, the spiders lost importance.
I knew this, however. I also knew that they could come back anytime. I didn't tell about her to my flatmate or even confessed to myself what I felt. All I knew is that I had perhaps found an alternative to winging it. She was the alternative.
I soon learnt her name, got a rough idea of what her daily timetable was and also found out what car she came and went in. I wondered if I should actually talk to her sometime. Maybe get to know her better or ask her out. But then I realised that I didn't need to complicate things. What if I would screw it up? No, it was best this way.
It was the last day of my second semester. I hadn't thought about spiders in a while. Today was going to be the day I planned on saying hello to her. Maybe. There are only bends in this road.
I walked into the main corridor, humming The Less I Know the Better, and saw her. At that moment, despite my insistence on keeping my feelings discrete, I stopped in my tracks. Well it is kind of chilly today, so that explains why they're holding hands. I watched them walk away together and ran away in the opposite direction, back to my flat.
Creeping out from the semi-darkness of my room, the spiders came. They had grown in the time they were grown. I could tell because only one of them could squeeze out the narrow doorway of my room at a time. There they stood, the midday sun beating down on their hairy bodies. They were completely motionless as they faced me. Their long, light brown legs barely twitched and their small black eyes stared dead ahead.
They didn't say anything. Of course they didn't. That's the point. At that moment, I was suddenly aware of myself, of what I had just seen and what I had done (and what I hadn't done). I was reminded. I realised that the coming and going of the spiders and me winging it were two actions that are not mutually exclusive. Above all, I realised what I had to do. I had to act.
