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12 – Mr. Spider

We were driving down a dusty country road when I noticed that a spider had made a web inside the car.  It had to have happened sometime during the night, for what spider in its right mind would climb inside a car to build a web during the daytime?  None I’d ever met.  

But I was worried about this little spider.  I didn’t want him to get hurt as we drove along.  We badly needed food for our little house in the woods.  I’m sure the spider was thinking the same thing when he climbed inside the car.  I wasn’t going to punish him for trying to get a bite to eat.  There certainly were plenty of flies around for an enterprising spider like him to catch and feast upon.  One less fly in the world wouldn’t bother me.  

I was also afraid that my friend, no friend of spiders indeed, would kill the little guy so I gently cupped him in my hands and said, “Mr. Spider, I know you’re afraid, but I’m not going to hurt you.  You just have to be still for a little while.”

Surprisingly the spider sat still in my hands.  I looked at him down there and he turned his eight tiny eyes up to meet mine.  I winked at him and let him know that everything was going to be ok.  

“What do you have in your hands there?” my friend asked.

“Oh nothing,” I said.

“Sure you do.  What is it?”

“Just a spider,” I said.  

“Why do you have a spider?”

“Because I’m going to let him out when we stop,” I said.

“You should just kill it,” he said.  But I knew that killing the spider was not a good idea.  

When we stopped the car at the grocery store, I took the spider over to a bush on the side of the parking lot and placed him on the ground next to it.  I told him that it was time to go.  He looked up at me, turned around, and walked off into the darkness beneath the bush.  I was happy to have saved the little spider’s life.

Later that night, as I lay in bed tired from my exciting day of relaxing in the woods, I heard a tiny little voice, no louder than a whisper.  Just as I noticed it, it stopped.  I remained very still, barely even breathing, hoping to hear the little voice again.  Again it came, again it was too quiet for me to hear.  

“Whoever that is, I can’t hear you,” I whispered back.  “You’ll have to be a little bit louder.”

The tiny voice came again, but just a little louder this time.  But I could still not hear it.  

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I just can’t hear you.  Maybe if you get up on the desk and I put my ear very close to you, I’ll be able to hear you.”

Very soon thereafter I saw my little spider friend from earlier climb up the side of the desk and walked right over to the edge and wait for me.  Imagine how surprised I was to see him again!

“Oh, Mr. Spider, was it you that was whispering to me?” I asked as I bent my head down to where he was standing.  

“Yes,” he said.  “I wanted to thank you for sparing me today.  I’ve come to give you a gift.”

“You don’t need to give me anything.”

“Oh, but I do.  I would like to.  Won’t you let me?”

“If you insist, Mr. Spider.  What are you going to give me?”

“I am going to make you perfect, like a spider.  Would you like that?”

“I think so.  Would I be able to climb walls?”

“Yes.”

“Or weave beautiful webs?”

“Oh yes.”

“Would I be strong?”

“Very.”

“Then I accept.”

“Good.  Put out your hand so that I may climb onto it,” he told me.  I did just as he asked and he climbed up my hand, onto my arm and up the back side of my neck.  It tickled a little, but I held myself still so I wouldn’t throw him off and hurt him.  I felt a sharp prick on the back of my neck which hurt a little and scared me a little.  

Then I heard the spider’s voice much more clearly than I had been able to before.  “I’m sorry if that hurt.  It was necessary to give you my gift.”  He sounded like he was talking from right inside my head!  A very strange sensation, I tell you.

“It’s ok,” I said.  “I understand.”

“Do you?  That’s good then,” he said.  “I have to go now.  I will come back soon to check in on you and see how things are going.”

“Ok, Mr. Spider.  It’s time I got to sleep anyway.”

With that, the little spider climbed down off my neck and out the window through a tiny little hole in the window screen.  I hoped that he would come back soon.  I had taken a real liking to that little spider and I hoped we could stay good friends.  I knew that I had made the right decision by saving him.  

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