By Princess Lea
Part 1- The Spider
By A Thread- A Fictional Story- The perfectly designed web glistened with the morning dew. The little girl watched as the spider crawled along the thread, sucking each droplet as it passed. The little girl was fascinated with the intricate pattern among the green foliage, carefully placed to provide a final resting place for the spider’s meal. Her young mind swirled with wondrous questions as she reached for a strand. She hoped to watch as the spider came back to rebuild it. Her cheeks were smeared with a mixture of dirt and tears, as she wiped the hair away from her face. Her finger slowly touched each web strand as she daydreamed that diamonds were forming in the dew. A sudden voice yelled from inside the house, startling her, causing the fragile strand to snap. Just one gesture and the entire web collapsed, sending the spider swinging into the foliage where it crawled away. Her fascination turned to worry as the little girl sat for the spider’s return. She came back, day after day for a week until school was back in session. The memory of the spider soon drifted into a place in the girl’s mind where it would never be recalled again.
At 2603 Delaney, Clara Hunter turned on the switch to the hot kitchen light, sending a sudden bright spark into the darkness.
“Damn light bulb!” She muttered and half way yelled.
Clara was living alone in the house she inherited from her lost family member, her aunt Celie Farmar, who inherited the house when her husband died of alcohol poisoning. Clara’s parents had passed when she was a child and she moved from foster home to foster home until her aunt Celia became an elderly widow and needed help from Clara. Clara took care of Celia until she died five years later. With no living relatives found to inherit the house, the courts granted it to Clara. The dilapidated house was not worth the bank’s effort to seize and sell it.
Clara pulled a chair under the light after grabbing the replacement bulb. Holding her protruding gut, she carefully heaved herself up. She stood atop the chair and unscrewed the burnt out lightbulb all while memorizing the location of it with her hand as she fidgeted with the new bulb in the dark. She slowly screwed the new bulb in and on the last turn of the bulb, the filaments glowed abruptly blinding her for a moment, but not long enough to distract her from the spider that was hiding behind the socket. As it crawled over her hand, she screamed and shook her arms to fling the spider off. The momentum sent her to the edge of the chair causing it to tip. As it balanced her at an angle, the vinyl floors she just waxed provided just enough viscosity for the chair to slip, sending Clara falling on her back. As she fell she heard a snap beneath her. A slow trickle of warmth spread between her legs and onto the floor. As she tilted her head to look the pain shot down her back with a fire she couldn’t bear. She screamed for help, but even the effort to get enough air into her lungs sent a frenzy of painful sensations into her spine causing her to gasp with a weak whimper for help. Within seconds Clara was unconscious.
The spider crawled away under the crevice between the wooden plank floors, to find the next meal, already a day delayed.
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