The spider and the web

The Spider and the web

            In the village of Las Barbaras there is an unusual type of night. Residents believe it only follows the hottest days of summer, when the haze above the road is as thick as stagnant water. And when it arrives black magic fills the sky.

             On those nights, the moon is swollen, and the clouds are as scarce as desert rain. The wind refuses to blow like a cantankerous old Spirit, the shadows lie still, and the humming of moscas negras is the only sound. And while no one talk about the flies, everyone knows where they come from.

2

            When the military truck pulled up, the people of the neighborhood closed their eyes and held their breath. The hollow sounds of soldier’s boots filled the air as they marched onto the sidewalk. Alibis were concocted and excuses were invented.

            Their sighs of relief whispered into the night as another’s door was kicked in. No one went to their windows to see what had transpired, and no explanations would be offered in the aftermath. 

            Shouts commenced and were followed by the dull, carp sound of fists on flesh. Those would be forgotten. What wouldn’t be so easily dismissed from their memories—even after the soldiers had dragged the old man from his house, thrown him into the back of the truck and driven away, would be the mournful sound of his wife’s crying. Her grief was theirs, even if he ceased to exist from that moment on.

3

            “Where were you last night?”

            The words were soft, carelessly spoken. Discarded into the warm, humid air like feathers, they contained enough civility to momentarily ease the old man’s concern:  a misunderstanding, ‘don’t let it happen again’. When the question had drifted off through the room’s single window like the stench of dying, Enrique de Los Garcias let his breath out slowly. 

            “I was at home with my wife, Carmella,” he said. “After dinner, we watched the official news.”

            He bowed his head, pausing for a response. His interrogator was a slim, official man in his early forties with a nose reminiscent of a crow’s beak, oil slick hair, coal dark eyes, and a close cropped, salt and pepper mustache. The man studied Enrique with the same, detached enthusiasm he had mustered when the soldiers had first dragged him in.

            “Following the Inspector General’s report we switched to the weather channel. My son, Primo, is a doctor in San Florine. I talked to him at 8:00 P.M. and again at 10:30.”

            He looked suspiciously to both sides as if spies were poised outside the window before lowering his voice to a hiss.

            “My son had heard that Carlos had struck in the business district and had become concerned. You see, I work at the University, and he thought that the rebel forces had attacked there, instead of by the plaza. Your men arrived at two A.M., less than fifteen minutes following the second explosion at the shelter.” He shook his head. “I don’t own a car or have access to one.”

            Enrique nervously cleared his throat. A suspicious person might wonder how he could be so well informed, but Enrique and his wife lived on the highest hill in Las Barbaras. His assumption was based on the direction of the blast; the soldiers had simply confirmed his observation. 

            Enrique looked up at his interrogator. In spite of the torturous heat, he wore a loose, white surgeon’s smock over his dark, official suit. Enrique lowered his eyes to the shadowy hem of the white smock. Tiny, dark splotches of dried blood decorated the lower third like a contingent of dead army ants.

            “You can check the phone records,” Enrique said quickly. “I am sixty-two years old and quite frail. An athlete might have been able to set off an explosive device and run home in that amount of time.” His voice trailed off. “But I am no athlete.”

            The interrogator stepped forward, and slapped Enrique soundly across the side of his face. The force of the blow was sufficient to knock the old man and the chair onto the floor. Enrique cried shrilly upon impact. A moment passed before he began to speak again. His voice became low and reticent.

            “I don’t understand. I am a Professor of Literature. I have always been conscientious and faithful to the Government’s doctrines. I curse Carlos and those ruffians who have terrorized our city.”

            “Where were you last night?” the man asked a second time. No attempt was made to help Enrique off the floor. After a few moments of heavy breathing, the old man began anew. His voice assumed patriotic fervor.

            “You can ask my neighbors. I’ve always been responsible. I pay my taxes on time.”

            He nodded his head vigorously but stopped when his right ear scraped against the concrete floor. His words tumbled from him as the many forms of dying danced through his head.

            “Two months ago, I was looking out my front window, when I saw a suspicious looking truck pull in front of my house,” his voice crept back into a whisper. “It was only there for minutes, but I was able to jot down the license plate number and pass it on to the authorities with a description of the truck’s occupants. Why, they might have been Carlos’s minions or, perhaps, even paid assassins…”

            His voice rose as he shook his head.

            “Did I think about my welfare or what might happen if they realized what I had done? No! I did what I thought was my patriotic duty as a citizen. When my neighbors question Martial law, I tell them to cooperate.”

            After a moment of silence, Enrique raised his head. The man was nowhere to be seen. He looked upward and concentrated on the room’s only window. A spider’s web, as loose and lazy as a quart-sized hammock, stretched from the sill to the window frame. A fly had become hopelessly entangled on its closest edge. Its wings beat spastically as the spider casually approached. The pizzicato movements ended as the fly was devoured.

            He averted his eyes to his hands. After several desperate moments of tightening and twisting his fists in an attempt at loosening his canvas bonds, he stopped, closed his eyes and began to softly weep. 

4

            Enrique clawed his way through hot and stagnant dark. In his dream he and Carmella stood at the doorway of their house waving as their only son drove away to live in San Florine.

            It was hard to blame Primo for wanting to leave Las Barbaras. Times were hard, and the oppressive shadow of civil war followed everyone’s movements. His offer to take them with had been difficult to reject, but Primo could barely afford to support his small family. Crisis had been averted on numerous occasions in the past through frugality and kindness, why should that crisis be any different?

            Unfortunately, it was. Two weeks after Primo’s departure, Carlos had appeared like a malevolent Spirit, destroying the train station and stealing half the town’s grain supply. For months, the populace had fretted, feared and wondered what the next target would be. Martial law was the only satisfactory response. No one was overly concerned when identification and travel permits became mandatory, so long as safety could be ensured.

            “Where were you last night?”

            Enrique’s chin rose from his chest as he looked chaotically, left and right, before settling on the taciturn expression of his interrogator. Somehow his chair had returned to an upright position. His jaw moved in tiny circles as he tried to form words. After a few moments of mindless chewing, he realized that the rawhide lump in his mouth was his tongue. He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. Both of his thumbs had been amputated while unconscious. Small, red-stained bandages had been neatly applied over the missing digits. His mouth opened to shriek, but all that came from it was hissing air.

            The interrogator approached with a cup of water. He balanced it carefully so as to not spill a single drop before he brought it to Enrique’s parched and burning lips. Tepid water filled his mouth and then cascaded onto his barren chest. After several jerking swallows, his tongue suddenly came to life, and he felt a metallic sensation ease over his palate and turn his jaw into copper. He violently coughed, sending a white, foamy spray into the interrogator’s coal black eyes.

            Enrique turned his head in anticipation of another beating. Within seconds of drinking the water, he felt a thick, metallic sensation move sensually down his throat. The throbbing in his head began to disappear as did the burning in his chest.

            The man studied him in silence before reaching into his back pocket and removing a handkerchief. He wiped his face dry and slowly repeated himself.

            “Where…were you…last night?”

            Enrique screamed. The water wasn’t meant to correct his dehydration. It was but an allowance to enable his confession.

            “You know where I was you butcher! I was here! And the night before!” His mouth twisted into a circle, and he began to sob:  “What do you want? Why are you doing this?”

            “Where were you…” the interrogator accented his words by pushing on Enrique’s chest with his right hand. He finished his sentence as the front of the chair lifted from the floor. “Last night?”

            Enrique watched the man’s impassive face as it blended in with the window, wall and shadowy ceiling in a collage of nonsensical movement. He struck the floor, and everything went dark.

            Enrique awoke to the sounds of night. There was no pain, the metallic numbness that had eased down his throat had made its way to the remainder of his extremities. 

            A lone band of moonlight lay upon his chest as a ringing sound enveloped him. Particles of dust intersected the light and became inflamed. They sparkled like miniature stars before vanishing.

            A brown and hairy spider descended toward his face. When it reached the ethereal beam, it stopped and tested the light as it would a river of dangerous waters. A weak smile crept upon Enrique’s face, and he began to engage the spider in a whispered conversation.

            “So, my friend, is it my turn to feel your bite as you suck me dry and steal those parts you find appealing?”

            The ringing lowered like an unwound clock as the spider inserted a second and then a third leg. Outside the room, shutters closed, flies droned incessantly, and superstition choked the air.

            “No,” the spider responded. “Where is the drama in that? And besides, I am much too civilized to engage in such action. If I caught you, I would be mercifully quick.”

            After a moment of shared silence, the spider tapped its legs together in an oddly flamenco manner.

            “Perhaps you would like to see my web. I’m quite proud of its construction, and no one ever gets to admire it with me.”

            Enrique laughed, “Oh, and I should believe that I wouldn’t become your dinner if I were to visit? But, alas, I am in no position to allow an opinion on anything.”

            The spider considered Enrique’s dilemma.

            “If I can arrange your release, and I promise not to devour you, then, perhaps, you could enlighten me with your appraisal.”

            Enrique thought to himself in silence. Who was to say that his purpose in death wasn’t to satisfy the spider’s vanity? He nodded his head solemnly. And with his acquiescence, the spider extended its translucent cable and slowly lowered to the ground. In no time, it had cut his bonds and freed him from his chair.

            Enrique carefully climbed onto the Spider’s back using thumbs that had, inexplicably, returned. Holding onto the spider’s luxuriant hair, they began to ascend toward the ceiling. As they entered the moonlight, Enrique saw himself in the chair. In addition to his thumbs, both of his feet had mysteriously vanished.

            “Would you like to see magic?” the spider asked.

            Enrique tightened his grip. The cable they rode upon suddenly separated, and they began to fall toward the floor. When they reached the moonbeam, however, Enrique and the spider glided upon the light as if guided by forces supernatural. They floated into the heart of the spider’s web.

            When they had come to rest, the spider cautioned him:  “Walk upon your tippy toes. That’s the trick. Otherwise, you might become entangled, and I wouldn’t want to forget our bargain.”

            Enrique did as his host instructed as he examined the unique and startling construction with awe. Glass strands, as fine as silk and linen from Arabian legends, connected intricate patterns in a maze of ingenuity. Pyramids connected hexagrams to rhombus, and triquetras to triangles. Enrique could understand and appreciate the spider’s vanity, for it certainly was a beautiful domicile.

            They ascended and descended many times until Enrique reached the highest point of the webbing. As he looked out from the window, he saw the outline of the city, as crisp as a charcoal drawing. The moon reflected off of roofs, while black clouds framed themselves around its fairy’s ring. The spider approached from behind with its stilty-toed walk, and awaited Enrique’s appraisal.

            “You have a fine home, my friend,” Enrique said softly. “I have never seen such beauty except during those moments when I have looked into the eyes of my wife and felt her kindness as she loved me.”

            Enrique de Los Garcias bade goodnight to his vain yet sympathetic host, closed his eyes, and slowly returned to his body upon the floor.

5

            Enrique’s nightmare continued.

            Voices of opposition began to appear as the political stalemate dragged on. Carlos had to be a carnivore of unheralded proportions to kidnap so many while escaping capture himself. There were even those who questioned how the government could enforce martial law so efficiently yet be unable to capture one criminal. They would eventually become unaccounted for themselves.

            “Where were you last night?”

            Enrique looked straight ahead—everything below his chin had vanished into metallic numbness. The video camera sat on the desk at eye level while the interrogator lit a cigar. A dull, glassy eyed woman mysteriously appeared, applied make-up to Enrique’s face and raised a mirror. His hair was neatly clipped, and black dye had been brushed onto his mustache, making his face appear younger and more dangerous. An even coat of masque had returned the color to his pale skin. A shirt had been placed across his chest while behind him, a large picture gave the impression that he sat in an official chamber.

            The mirror was removed, and the woman vanished. A white sheet across his lap covered his missing legs and lip balm gave his mouth the texture of a waxen rose. Enrique spoke ever-so-slowly.

            “My name is Carlos. It is I who has tormented the citizens of your city and eluded capture…”

            He paused as his interrogator placed another poster on the tripod behind the camera.

            “I ask that my followers turn themselves in. Allow the government to show mercy. I will be sentenced to prison where I will strive to understand the magnitude of my crimes. From there, I will be re-educated in the ways of civility and harmony so that eventually, I can become a productive citizen and repay my debt to our benevolent government. However, if my followers remain at large, then the government will have no choice but to continue martial law until the streets are safe for all.”

            When Enrique had finished, the camera was removed, the I.V. turned off, and he was left alone. By the time the shadows had grown and taken on the nightlife, his chin had lowered to his chest and his eyes had closed. With time, he was enveloped by the moonlight as he contemplated Carlos, and all those other Carlos’s whom the government would invent as it saw fit.

            And while in the midst of dying, an unusual thing happened: The moon shone brightly, the wind refused to come down from the mountains, and the shadows lay still. Outside, shutters closed, doorways sealed, and black magic filled the night.

            It flits away from the chair. At first, it roams the dark cautiously, listening for the sounds of night and examining the room. There is an attraction, so it turns to it.

            It enters the light and drifts in its current. It floats aimlessly, surrounded by the magical light it has discovered. Several times it detects fragrances reminiscent of Jasmine and mysterious, delectable perfumes, but it ignores them. Eventually, it becomes ensnared in the spider’s web. 

            Tip toes and dancing carry the spider across the web. When it arrives, it pauses and looks at the silent form in the chair. After a few moments spent listening to the wind and contemplating that night’s magic, it cuts and rearranges the webbing until the fly is free. Once finished, it pauses and looks out from its perch beside the window.

            “What do you think of my webbing now?”

            The fly looks about itself.

            “You have a fine home, my friend—strong, sturdy and craftily designed. I’ve never seen such beauty except during moments when I have looked into the eyes of death and felt the kindness of a stranger.”

            With its words, the fly bids farewell, disappears through the window, and onto that light that will comfort and carry it away and toward that place it knows as home.