Mm Links December 2012 Week 3
This is 'Sir Robin of Linksley', back to offer you my third and final challenge.
The Spider
One of the most spine-chilling of beasts is the spider. The strongest hearted man may be forgiven a twinge as he removes the crafty, scuttling, hairy little nastiness from his bath, especially if, as I do, he remembers the childhood nightmares which followed grim tales of huge tarantulas and the horrible fate of their victims.
I was in the roof space at the time, and our roof space is at best an eerie place. The house was built in more spacious days, between the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo. The structure of the roof is a crazy cobweb of huge roughhewn timbers whose weary joints groan and complain with every gust of wind, like the planking of some ancient ship, and unseen movements seem to populate the shadows.
Suddenly, I saw it. There, into the pool of light thrown by my torch, moved the spider, malevolent and foul. Sharply outlined, its huge body was greater than the span of my hand, and the speed with which it moved towards me left flight unthinkable. I crouched, immobile like some rabbit anxious for the stoat to end its futile life. And, in that instant, as the moving evil flashed towards me, I saw quite clearly my own futility, my total insignificance.
But the spider knew none of this as, no bigger than the head of a pin, he crawled slowly across the lens of my torch.