The spider and the butterfly
On a warm September day, a spider lay in waiting, hidden between dusty crystal vases. She had made the forgotten corner her home for a week now, and had since eaten one roly-poly, which lasted her three days.
For days she lay in the still coolness of the fall, in the apartment where windows were flung wide. The winter was coming, but for now all that mattered were the flies buzzing in and out of the spider’s world, high above her head, and five times her size. Just one of those morsels could last her a week or more if rationed, and the spider sat in patient hope that one would soon get the notion to fly between the light-catchers on the top shelf and find itself hopelessly stuck, entangled, dinner.
At the very moment the spider was daydreaming of the sweet soft underbelly of a ladybug, a moth fell from on high and landed right next to the spider, causing the delicate strings of her home to tremble. Shaken from her daydream, the spider was nearly frightened by such a disturbance. The moth did not struggle as those before her, but lay still, wings perched high, pressed together, as the spider observed the pattern of brown and black swirls on the underside of those wings, wondering if this was the same type of moth of last month which, upon devouring, gave her a nasty stomach ache. at this very moment the moth was wondering how it had ended in such a sticky mess for the second time this week, and was so saddened by her demise that all hope left her, and her wings fell to her sides in defeat, sticking fast to the web.
The spider nearly fell out of its web in awe as bright orange lines and spots of blue were displayed on the defeated wings. Never in all her life on this utility shelf had she seen such mesmerizing color. With the complimentary hues, the spider felt a surge of life spring into her body, covering her in warmth and washing away her hunger. Everything in the world seemed to be sucked into this color and pale in comparison, to spider’s eyes. Choked by the newfound feeling, she fell into a restless sleeping stupor.
On the next day the spider woke and asked gently “what are you?”
The moth smiled a knowing smile. The spider of earlier this week had fallen for her beauty as well, and she saw her escape route lay before her. “I am a butterfly, a simple butterfly, and I’d like to be out of this web now.”
(____________________________________________________some interlude shit I cant write yet…. And….)
The winter came, the butterfly gave up her body for the spider to eat as they were both dying of starvation and the butterfly could not eat the spider. The spider wept as blood spurted from the head and the beautiful orange pattern was shredded in her mouth.
When she finished, she lay down and cried herself to a nightmarish sleep. three of those giant juicy flies found their way into her web that day, but the spider was in so much pain, she could not move. The flies died of starvation, and the spider died in a world so devoid of color she could not stand to be in it.
