My Littlest, Unlikeliest Friend

[Blademaster]

It was a warm summer evening, sometime in late May. Yeah, it wasn't quite summer yet, but the warmth was one of many factors that made it feel as such. Another contributing factor was the influx of bugs.

We'd only been here, in this new home of ours, for about 9 months (Being the clueless introvert I am, I still had no friends at the time.). And we'd missed much of the summer, so while I was already used to the nippy fall nights, the frigid, snowy winter, and the green, green, GREEN spring days, summer's advent was something new to me.

I wish we'd learned more quickly of what summer in the mountains meant... After only a couple of days with the windows open, the warm mountain air blowing in and out of the house, the infestation had already started. Back in the city, ants were the only summer pests we had. Here, many more insects made their home. Last summer, a freak swarm of ladybugs had covered the windows of the house. We were still finding them in the winter months behind curtains and under lamps. This summer, they didn't return.

This summer, the infestation was much less pretty. Mosquitoes, moths, flies, and stick insects filled the house. Their incessance coupled with my low heat tolerance and reclusive nature left me largely confined to my room, my solitary existence only occasionally disturbed by mosquitoes and gnats flitting against my flickering laptop screen. Small, they were. But man were they annoying! Always covering the text I wished to read, always distracting my eyes in heated games of Team Fortress 2, they were relentless in their simple-mindedness! I didn't want to kill them, hurt them, squash them, but the temptation was becoming great. I didn't want to take their lives just for pestering me: They are small, insignificant in our human eyes, but surely the grand Creator of our world and Universe values all of Its creations equally. I couldn't destroy them for my own petty reasons. I was left with few options but to learn to live with the pests.

It was then, on that warm night in May, that my conundrum solved itself... and I made my first friend here in my new home.

It was getting late, and the lamp in my humble little lair was off. I'm not quite a fan of the darkness, so I got up and walked towards my dresser.

That's when I saw him.

Above my dresser, in the corner where the far walls from my bed meet the ceiling, there was a small shadow. I squinted and stepped closer to it, and there I saw a small black spider.

To this day, I don't know what species of spider it was, but its small size leads me to believe the black, pea-sized creature was a male. Tiny, shiny, standing upside-down in a small web stretching across that corner in an irregular trapezoid shape.

My "I won't kill bugs." philosophy naturally applied to this newcomer as well, but there was an underlying motive to my not messing with him: I'm arachnophobic. Even if I had no problem crushing bugs, this small creature terrified me. It was fast. It was possibly poisonous. It was above my head! Partially out of disinterest and partially out of fear, I left the spider alone.

Several days passed, and the spider didn't seem to move. At all. Perhaps it was nocturnal? What am I saying, of course it was. As long as it wasn't crawling on my face while I slept, I was fine with it just sitting in that corner doing nothing.

Then, one night, something had to give.

I was heavily engrossed in something on my computer sometime in June, when a mosquito landed on my screen. Not wanting my focus to be broken, I waved my hand and shooed the pesky bloodsucker away. It quickly returned, and I waved it away again.

Then a second mosquito arrived.

Then a third.

My mild annoyance gave way to irritation, then outright aggravation. I wanted to swat those damned mosquitoes so much, but I managed to finish what I was doing and I went to bed.

The next day, I woke to find two mosquito bites on my arm and one on my ankle. There were probably others.

I made up my mind. That night, those fucking mosquitoes were going to get it.

So I waited that night, doing what I usually did, ready to swat any pests that dared fly into my line of sight.

But they never came...

As the days passed, I forgot about the mosquitoes and every other pest that had been infesting my room, until one night when I noticed the spider again, still sitting in his web. But he was different. He was... fatter?

That's when I began to appreciate my terrifying little roommate. His web was littered with tiny bits of wings, legs, and more.

I named him that night. I hang out 4chan, where pretty much anyone or anything can be glorified by simply applying a top hat and monocle. So, after imagining my little spider in such a classy wardrobe, I jokingly named him Reginald Q. Spinnington the 3rd.

For the next two months, Reginald kept my room totally clear of pests. And for two months, his humble little web never grew, never dirtied up my room further than he had to... But he did continue to get fatter. My fat little spider increased from a shiny black baby pea with legs to a dime-sized sphere of black and appendages. He always faced towards me and my bed, watching for intruding bugs that he could snack on. I checked on him now and again, and he never seemed to move. He just sat and watched, content with his simple life and eager for his next snack...

Yesterday, I looked up at the corner again, and saw Reginald's web looked a bit less... voluminous than it had before. More concerning, however, was that Reginald was not in it. Perhaps he was off looking for food?

I looked online and saw, to my relief, that house spiders typically live for a year or longer; maybe even several years. He still wasn't back by nighttime.

Today, I looked again and saw his web was still empty. After a more thorough investigation of the floor in that corner, however...

That is when I found the body.

My eyes watered the slightest, slightest bit just now, from thinking about the subject in detail. I was scared of him and his kin for so many years... But he was probably scared of me, as well. Still, we managed to coexist. We lived in peace, my room protecting him from the elements and his web providing me with tranquility from the very pests he survived by eating. It was an unspoken relationship, biological in nature, but for my emotional human brain, something a bit more. I feel as though I lost a pet, and a pet is certainly a friend, is it not?

So now, here I sit, typing this long-winded story about a spider. It's so dumb... It isn't even fanfiction, and thus is not even appropriate for this forum. It's like a blog. Why am I doing this for a creature that doesn't - that DIDN'T - even know what these emotions are? Maybe I'm just that lonely that I would consider this tiny invertebrate a friend when it obviously can't return the sentiment.

But still, even that cynicism isn't enough to make me stop writing. That spider... Reginald... He was kind of like my first friend here. A tiny, very unlikely friend... But a friend regardless. And for what he did for me, I'm going to miss him. I've put him outside, where he'll ironically be eaten by other bugs. The circle of life is a weird backwards thing sometimes, isn't it?

I guess I'll stop typing now. He may never know or understand it, but I want to remember that little spider. And now, you'll remember him too.

Goodbye, Reginald. I won't forget you.



~Sincerely,
Your friend Dave the human

[Riolu1011]

A touching story my friend..

[Blademaster]

Thanks, new guy.