Ego: July 2003 Archives

Three feet to my left, a spider hangs, unmoving, upon a single thread of silk, six of her eight legs spread gracefully about her delicate body. A seventh rests tentatively upon the filament by which she is suspended, whilst the eighth, elegantly extended, tests the still air for artefacts beyond my senses. Her silk, diaphanous, emerges from nowhere to materialise within a soft shaft of sunlight, itself visible for the motes of dust that drift lazily past, to slow rhythms very much their own.

There are two of us here, you and I. Your stillness impresses upon me; you haven't stirred for minutes, tens of them; your manner is so refined, so tranquil. I wonder whether all that you do is instinctual by nature, whether you move through the governance of need, or whether conscious perception, and thoughts thereby derived, are your decision makers. Even as a child, I know better than to presume that the spaces we each inhabit could be perceived in any equivalent fashion. This room, your town, prison, or universe; I'm the one drawing comparisons. Fuck it, I'll never know; I don't speak spider.

Still, there's nothing here for you. I don't even know how you got in. There's barely gap enough in this window mount for air to pass through, let alone one of God's own. The door is flush with its frame; even when I brave the cold of the concrete against the side of my face, I can't see under it.

You came because you heard my cries. I just know it. We can all sense these things when we're sad. You put up with a great deal in remaining here; no food, just the sterile whiteness of the walls, the sound of my tired lungs drawing each half-hearted breath, one to the next. Ah, cherished companion, so very kind indeed. But so insubstantial; you'd go further with a little salt.