Death of a Spider

Death of a Spider

By: Cluff Elliott

I woke up on a thread today. I wake up the same way everyday. Life is good, but life is not what you know it to be. It has many different angles, many different observatories. Yet, I wake on this thread every day.

What are you?

This is not a question, nor a game consisting of 20. I am the one who sees with the eyes of eagles. Through my loins, I spawn continents and I thrive. Through my mouth, I have bled prayers dry. Yet, I wake on a thread. I dangle to snare the sustenance I need. I dangle to snare faith and fill their cups. The masses are many. The flies are too heavy. My snare is ruined and I start over again, hanging from a thread.

Measly and lacking, the only meal I procure fills half the bellies that scream in hunger. They riot. They connive. They act with brutality hitherto unseen. Finally, those with empty bellies choose one of their own. They choose the one without care; they choose the one out of hunger. The one cried and begged, but the others did not hear. My eyes pooled watching them act with such monstrosity in their demeanor. My body trembled in disbelief, hanging on a thread.

The problem of caring for the world continued. I labored to fill caves that would not fill. I did not want my children to choose another. Yet their mouths opened wider, receiving twice what they once had. Worry drained my thoughts, hanging on a thread.

During a period when less diminished to meager, times were the worst I’d ever seen them. It was the flies again. They had grown fat and heavy. I persuaded myself to attempt a snare befitting their size, but my efforts fell to pieces; they fell between the cracks. I professed of the coming famine and none listened.

Please listen to me! I know what you are! Please!

Below, the two hemispheres quarreled. They paid no heed to the natural order. Instead they fought for rights, by sanctity of birth, all possess. The blessing, live and let live, is not subservient to given orders. Worth, as well, between brothers and sisters does not back down to deception. Yet they grudge toward one another, stealing and blaming that which gave them life.

I cried watching the physical misdeeds below. I cried watching my children barter life for life. Murder and plunder occupy their minds.

Beneath my being, where I perched and professed my rule for millennia untold, my thread abandoned me. The thread that links life, the same thread that supports faith slid from my grasp. Worry gripped me when my limbs closed around my body as if wrapped in a bag. Then I knew my folly, I knew what transpired. My children severed their link; I had lost my thread.

From the sky, my children willed me forth, bringing me down to answer for the famine and filth in their presence. I told them, “Blame matters not when its culprit lacks the honesty deserved by one who is of my blood.” My bindings tightened.

A shout went up, a cry of united evil. Then they were on me. They cannibalized with satisfaction, and when I ceased to be, they dwindled in darkness.

These are the words I profess to all who will listen. Do not destroy that which has given life. Without life, death is eternal.

Rise or fall; you are my children. I have created you in my image.

Author's Note

Make of it what you will.

Reviews

[Cluff]

Anyone want to try to label this piece? I have been trying to think of a market to submit it to, but I've only ever submitted fiction. Any thoughts?