I was in my shower pondering how I just about got a full 8 hours of sleep, and it’s time to start a trend and do that every night… to find the discipline to get my ass in bed on time.
I was thinking how awake I felt, and that I was “ready to conquer the day.” And all I needed to do was not spend all morning in the shower because then I wouldn’t be on time. Time always gets away from me in the shower. The shower is a great thinking spot.
Then I noticed it trying to climb up the back wall of the bathtub… the huge dark brown spider with giant things that the venom comes out of (what these things are called escapes me at present).
I shrieked and got out of the bathtub at once so I could stare at it and think. I was safe, because it a) isn’t bent on biting humans (most spiders like to avoid humans) and b) was having a hard time moving up the slick walls of the bath tub.
Normally I capture spiders and throw them outside. But I felt more afraid of this one than most, because it was so huge, and its dark brown color was unnerving. I thought that it was very possibly a brown recluse. I decided to kill it, and pondered which method I would go with while I still debated with myself if I should try to capture it instead.
I went with the easiest method and turned the shower head to that setting where it unleashes a strong narrow beam of water. The added vibration from the water sent the spider into what my mind perceived as a panic. It began moving very quickly trying to get away from the vibration caused by the water hitting the tub surface.
I said, “I’m sorry, but I have to kill you.” Then I pointed the water at it, hoping the force was strong enough to kill it on impact. I didn’t want it to suffer, but I didn’t want to move anywhere near it because it was too fast. After concentrating the beam on it, uncertain if it was alive or not, I washed it down the drain, feeling a mixture of remorse, relief, disgust, and concern that it wasn’t dead and would crawl back up the drain (actually it probably got caught in my hair in the drain).
This is the second spider that looks like this I’ve seen in my apartment. The first was smaller, and I killed it as well because I don’t like the monochromatic dark brown look… it doesn’t look like the typical house spider. Now that I have seen two of them I am concerned. For I haven’t seen this type in my apartment in the summer before. Unfortunately my browsing of images of brown recluses on the web has made it even more likely in my mind that it was one.
As I continued my shower trying to ward away images of it crawling up the drain and biting my foot in revenge, I began to think about reincarnation. Perhaps the spider was the reincarnation of someone I had known in a previous life (not that I know if I believe in such things, but I like to ponder them). How betrayed it may have felt knowing it had no intention to harm me, but I out of my fear and hatred for its form destroyed it in this merciless fashion. I was sorry I killed it. But logically I do not regret my action.
I then mused over the tendency of humans to hate and fear that which they don’t understand and to seek its destruction. On some level I thought the spider might understand this. For if I were asleep and it got stuck in my clothing it would bite me repeatedly out of fear. And then I started thinking this is why I fear spiders so much. I associate them with the primal simple hatred and fear present in the back of the mind of all creatures. Simple creatures like spiders act on cold self-preservational instincts. Their world is cruel, cold, alien… I fear and hate them for what is in my own mind… deep beneath all the layers afforded me by my warm more feeling mammalian ancestry. Deep beneath that is the cold nature of what was before. It is still in me, as it is in that spider. And my refusal to accept this nature leads me to irrational fear and wanting to escape this inner nature that I do not like, while at the same time acting on it (as I did when I killed the spider) confirming its presence.
Because I hate it for being merciless, for being willing to bite me out of its primal need to survive. Yet I did the exact same thing to it. And in this way we are the same... and it is not a sameness I would want.
Type this internal monologue
Originally Posted by Jarno
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