Spider

October 31, 2024

I could feel something crawling on me as I hid in the back of the gardening shed, but I was too worried that he would find me to do anything about it. He had been searching for the past five minutes and I could hear him getting closer and closer to where I was hiding. It was always when I was shoved in a small space and needing not to move that I needed to pee, and I tried to shift from one foot to the next as silently as I could. If I knocked something over, my hiding spot would be given away. And, as if my bladder wasn’t enough, the creepy crawly thing, brushing against the back of my leg, almost did me in.

I had been the reigning champion of hide and seek for years now, and I was not about to let a tiny little bug ruin that for me. Against my better judgment, I looked back to see what the creepy crawly was, and to my great dismay, it was a spider the size of a tea saucer. I held my breath and bit my tongue, but I had to get away from this thing. It was yellow and black and had long muscular legs. I knew it was just a garden spider, and that I should not be afraid of him, but the creature was terrifying. There was a frisbee at my feet, so I contorted myself into a position to allow the creature to climb from where he was on the back of my leg, to the belly of the disk.

Come on, come on, come on… I whispered to the creature, trying to keep my breath low and shallow. Come on, little buddy, you would be much more comfortable on the frisbee… and in trying to get him off, I forgot myself, and in barred my seeker. Triumph was written all over is face, even as a scream escaped my lips and I flung the spider off my leg with the adrenaline ( and fury) of being found. My reign was over. And in its place lived a new fear of small spaces and large spiders.