Imagine being one of your ancestors—one of your ancestors millions of years ago, I mean. An early primate; a smallish prehistoric monkey. You're in a steaming primeval jungle, trying not to get stepped on by the snorting megatherium as you gather a few rather old, souring berries near the base of a tree, when you see something—fresh new berries?—glittering at the back of a cave of white gossamer. You enter, and suddenly find it's not something delicious you've seen, but the eyes of something that thinks you are delicious, the giant, dog-sized spider of this prehistoric era. You scream and try to flee but you're caught in its surprisingly strong web. It begins wrapping you further with surprisingly delicate movements, and the terror builds and just won't end…not for a long time, for it takes its time, in gripping you with its forelegs, and draining your interior substance away, through a juncture of unspeakable pain. After awhile you look forward to its satiation, so you can die and end this horror…

Do you believe in ancestral memories? That scenario could be the origin of the fear of spiders. Arachnophobia.

(George W Bush conferred with his cronies in Big Oil, and assured them that the opportunity to deregulate further, to provide more nourishment for their industry, would come along once he was elected…)

I suffer a mild form of arachnophobia myself, and very much dislike the sight of hairy spiders, bulbous spiders, and especially very large spiders. No doubt a tingle of affinity with my ancient ancestors.

And when I was a kid, the movie The Fly, with Vincent Price, truly horrified me. Especially the part where the little half-fly/half-man was caught in a spider's web screaming, "Help me, help meeeee!" as the spider crept closer. Gave me nightmares. And—I admit it, me a horror writer—that's why I never saw the Cronenborg remake.

But those slim, long-legged arachnids we call "Daddy Long Legs" don't frighten me so very much. I wouldn't want one to take a stroll on me, but I don't find them horrifying to look at. They don't look as spidery to me as some; their long legs are fragile-looking, graceful; somewhat comical. Their bodies are sleek and—to me—non-threatening. So in trying to edge away from my arachnophobia, a little at a time (and perhaps in unconscious recollection of my childhood paradoxical liking for Charlotte's Web) I adopted a Daddy Long Legs, which has spun a rather jumbled-looking web over my toilet.

(Republican insiders today agreed that a plan for an expansion of the industrial economy has been 'well-woven…and we believe it will work')

Actually, I've adopted two of them. The first, whom I named Scott because it was the first name that popped into my head (and because it's a ridiculous name for a spider), I watched, and spoke to, and occasionally fed. We have a problem—like almost everyone else in California—with invasions of house ants. Individual ants don't annoy me, but ant-lines, which seem to have a collective mind of their own, are as intrusive as alien invaders. So before wiping out these rapacious conga-lines, I occasionally harvested a few ants from them for Scott. I'd drop them into his web, and he'd move in and start wrapping them up in preparation for the feast. I couldn't watch this much—I'm not the kind of guy who'd enjoy feeding mice to snakes, either—but I did admire his decisive movements, his economy of motion. His brain is so tiny—but efficient as a Rolex.

Then, Scott vanished. My wife, Micky, denies doing away with him. She may be merely acting innocent. Or perhaps ants don't agree with Daddy Long Legs. But in his place a smaller one later appeared—a hatchling, I supposed, so Scott had been an even more inappropriate name. This newer one I've stubbornly named Scott Jr. He hangs about upside down in his web, all day and night, stolidly waiting for something juicy to blunder in…

(George W is today advised by the Vice President to start small, repealing specific programs, before pushing to repeal the Clean Air Act and other major environmental milestones..."It's a question of strategy" he said)

Scott Jr., I noted, was not doing so very well. He might not survive—many were the empty spider webs, closed down for lack of business, in our house. Location, location, location. So I thought, I'll catch something for little Scott Jr. and it won't be ants. I know flies agree with them. Out on the deck today I noticed a dozy fly on a post. I caught him in a handy plastic cup and took him in, dropped him in Scott's web…

('The Alaskan Wildlife Refuge should be opened to oil exploration…"the opportunity is there," President GW Bush said today…)

The fly at first struggled only fitfully—but it was enough to attract Scott Jr. And as Scott the younger approached, the fly's struggle became frantic. Wincing, I thought, "Help me, help meeee!" and shuddered. Morbid curiosity kept me there, and a sort of sense of duty—like Judge Parker, in the Old West, who didn't like hanging men but had to hang a lot of them and insisted on watching the hanging from his porch out of his sense of duty—as the fly redoubled its resistance…

(Environmentalists continued their struggle against the forces closing in on the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge today…Pundits, citing the Republican-dominated Congress and administration, saw Big Oil's assault on the Refuge as "coming inexorably".)

The fly buzzed so loudly it sounded like screaming, though I knew that was only the furious sound of its wings beating. Well, I mused, trying to comfort myself, I'm a meat eater myself. I'd lay a trap for a small animal and eat it, if I was starving in the wilderness.

Still, I couldn't bear it. It did seem so terrified. Doubtless his brain is too small for actual terror—it's only instinctive escape reaction I'm seeing, I thought—but it seemed like terror to me anyway. I didn't want to take him out of the web. Poor frustrated, hungry Scott Jr., if I did that! Instead I decided to try and shorten the process, so at least the fly's apparent terror wouldn't have to be protracted. Meanwhile, Scott Jr. was darting in, avoiding the fly's desperately flailing legs, and delicately, expertly weaving strands of web around the fly. Scott Jr. wasn't about to lunge at the thing head-on yet—the fly outweighed him by three or four times. He was extremely circumspect in his approach; he took his time, because of the dangers. But he kept his eyes on the prize.

(Despite outcries from conservation groups and Democratic Senators, the Bush administration moved to outline plans for opening up the Wildlife Refuge, offering carefully woven explanations to detractors how drilling might be accomplished with a minimum of damage to the fragile Arctic habitat…)

Seeing the fly's efforts at escape apparently becoming more and more frantic, and wanting to end the horror without dropping a rock on it a la the Vincent Price movie, I found a pair of manicure scissors and after one or two tries—Scott Jr. seeming to hang back in abeyance, as if acknowledging my assistance—I snipped the wings off the fly, so it wouldn't be able to go on thrashing so much—and so that Scott Jr. could move in and put it out of its misery…

(Republicans today vowed to support the Bush administration's plans to expand oil drilling and mining on public lands…)

I also tried to snip the fly's thorax, to put him out of his misery, myself…but I couldn't do this without knocking him from the web. Scott Jr. was understanding.

Realizing I was standing at a spider web, snipping the wings off a fly with tiny little scissors, and fearing this some incipient symptom of insanity, I backed off, and went downstairs. A little later, I checked on the two. They were now cozy, Scott Jr. having bound the fly sufficiently to arrest his thrashing, and having begun his feast.

Soon he'll be hanging upside down, awaiting his next thrashing nodule of succulence.

(The Bush administration today vowed to roll back Clinton regulations cutting arsenic—resulting from mining operations—that has made its way into the American water supply. Plans to allow more mining on public land were disclosed…Administration officials await the right moment for the full implementation of…)

Copyright © 2001 John Shirley. All Rights Reserved.

John Shirley is the author of the Bram Stoker award-winning book Black Butterflies, and numerous other novels and screenplays. The authorized website is www.darkecho.com/johnshirley