YOUR BEDROOM—You will go to sleep tonight just like every other night. It won't even cross your mind that your mortal enemy, whom you failed to subdue months ago, remains ever-vigilant, waiting and watching for a time to strike. You will drift to sleep in the very room where he has remained since then, biding his time, growing steadily stronger, steeling himself for the inevitable, final bloody confrontation between you two.
Ah yes, you had almost forgotten, hadn't you? At 9:32 that fateful Sunday night you saw a spider crawl across your bedroom floor. Panicked, you hurriedly tried to smash it with a discarded shoe nearby, but perhaps because of the deep treads or the unsteadiness of your startled hand, your blow was not lethal, despite your best effort. In the confusion, the spider scurried under a piece of furniture or maybe some discarded clothes. You're not sure where it actually ended up. But you certainly searched for it. Oh, you looked high and low, knowing that your arachnid nemesis could not have gotten far, especially considering how you deprived him of one of his legs. You managed to find the leg, but not its owner. After an otherwise fruitless search, somehow, despite all of the anxiety you felt with "that creepy thing" on the loose, you fell asleep that night, oblivious to the events that you set in motion. You may have forgotten about the spider, but the spider did not forget about you.
Before your encounter, he may have been content to provide you with free pest control and disease prevention. He enjoyed nothing greater than contributing to the happiness of your household in his small, humble way. He had always dreamed of being accepted in a home and playing his own role, small though it may be. Sure, he could have taken that job offer in Utah, settled down with Emma, started a family. But he had another dream. Every time he ate a flea, fly, or mosquito in your home, he would be proud that he was helping his human comrade. Perhaps he once thought of you as a landlord of sorts, with the possibility of even becoming friends. Sure, he could have stayed in the band and toured the West, or gone back to school to get his degree. But that wasn't his dream, the one that you crushed with the muddy heel of a cheap shoe that happens to fit your weird feet.
He had finally developed the courage to introduce himself after a lengthy stay at your house. He was prepared with a written speech and everything: "Hello, you can call me Peter, or Parker, or Miles, really whatever you want, it won't bug me, get it? Seriously though, it is nice to finally make your acquaintance. You may have noticed a significant decrease in the number of insects inside your home, and I just wanted to say that I'm happy to help, both for your sake and mine!" It didn't matter though; he was met with the sharpest of betrayals, a hasty condemnation based solely on his species, unfounded on his own merits and the sacrifices he had made to live there. He had no venom, nor any propensity for violence toward humans at all, yet by merely existing in the same space, you felt justified in becoming judge, jury, and executioner. Et tu, Brute? After all he had done for you?
Suffering both physical and emotional pain of the deepest kind after your half-baked attack, he crawled to the darkest recess he could find, both literally and figuratively. Disillusioned, numb, and alone, he replayed the scene over and over in his mind for days, wondering where he went wrong. Barely clinging to life and ready to give up entirely, a reason to live came to him; he had to kill you. It wasn't his dream of living in a house that had been so wrong, but he had confided in the wrong individual. He had sneaked into the first house he had found when he was young, but he had chosen a murderer to serve. He decided that his mission in life must be to end you before you end another innocent spider.
For months now he has been hunting, eating, and working out his seven legs, nearly doubling in size. He has a plan. You'll come home from a long day, drink a glass of wine, and drift into a deep sleep. And he'll be watching, just like he has all summer long. "That [expletive]!" he thinks to himself as he recalls the night he lost his leg. You don't know when he will strike, and you don't even realize that there is a creature plotting your destruction, which is just how he likes it.
Tonight, like every night, he will weave a web trap intended to trip you down the stairs or suffocate you while you sleep, to no avail. Like so many nights before, he will attempt to garrote your limp body while your fat chin resists the bite of his thread. Tonight he will fail, yet again, to slay the white whale that took his leg. But tonight, unlike every previous night, he will meet all of the other spiders you've failed to finish off. Together they'll prepare something special just for you, when you're at your most vulnerable. Sources report it incredibly unlikely that you will survive the next week.
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