I have a new broom. I call it Sting. It came with the new house. You see, I’ve left the comfy confines of southeast Muzha for the lee side of the slopes that dot our fair city. Nestled is what I am. Cradled in a crag of a tor. Welcome to the jungle. Bienvenu a La Val de Faire Rien.
It’s quiet up here, save for the croaking of toads, the massively hysterical click of the ciccada, the buzzing of the wasps and fluttering of butterflies. Serenity Now!
I also have a steady spew of white noise emanating from the crick as it rushes headlong down my slope…
Supposed to really flash during typhoons. This river is not 3 meters from my head when in REM state.
Paradise? Maybe. Lost? Not yet.
For a battle has begun. A gambit for supremacy of my comfort zone is being waged by that same mongoose-ass Amazon as provides my peace. Mother Nature and I are going Toe to Toe (as it were). As we speak, She sends her evil minions around to shatter my illusions and destroy my sanity. Even now…they come.
First came that harbinger of temptation, the veritable snake in the grass. If I ever had desires to go bathe in my River of Golden Dreams,…well…let’s just say I no longer entertain such fancies. Last week, as I stood gazing o’er the banks of my creek, something caught my eye. Or rather.seized both.
The non-business end of a thigh-thick snake slithered into the tallest of grasses, never to be seen again. You’d need Swiss Timing to measure the encounter’s duration. That’s how brief it was. But the memory eats into my brain like a thousand termites. Not 2 meters from my aforementioned resting place, went the biggest snake I’ve ever seen in the wild. How long it was, I know not. I can only say it gets bigger each day in the torrid, tepid junglescape that is quickly becoming my mind. For all it’s atrementous guile, all it’s obsidian evil, SITG corrodes my content, turning golden dreams into ebon screams.
Is that she-wolf content to end her assault there? Not by a long shot.
This brings us to Sting. And Shelob. Following on the heels of The Day of the Snake, The Eve of The Spider crept silently into my embattled brain. She came in thru the eaves of my intellect. And lay, waiting, on the walls of my cerebrum. She was the ghostly grey of Matter, spinning her webs, planning her sac deposits hither and thither about the crevasses and cavities that populate my crania. To say she is huge is moot. She is the spawn of the unholy sapphic alliance of Tolkien’s guardian arachnid and that whore Nature. The Daughter of Shelob has entered the building. She came in that night from the North, just to show me she could. I sat, paralyzed with fear, transfixed by the hypnotic gaping maw of her pincers as they opened and closed, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, dripping wth glistening gobulets of venom.
My trance was eventually broken by the faint glowing of my new broom as it sat humbly in the corner, right where the previous tenant had left it. As yet…completely neglected. But now, it seemed to emanate and pulse with the subtle yet invincible power of confidence. It glowed bugzapper blue. I snatched it up and I trembled, nay bristled with courage. I turned to face my foe. She had the advantage of higher ground, but I temporarily blinded her thousand eyes with the electric sun I keep above my dining room table. She recoiled and I attacked. With the e-sun to my back, victory was mine. Or was it? Damn shoddy intelligence foiled the thrust. Air recon had failed to pick up on some as yet unpacked crates my laziness and ennui had neglected. As I slowed to navigate the obstacles, D of S refocused enough of her eyes to sense the danger of Sting as it sliced thru the jungle night, dead with crushing aim on her skull. She parried and my thrust missed the mark. She took a higher vantage point and laughed. I lunged again and she brushed Sting aside is if it were a mere featherduster. Then it came. The voice, the grating, gnashing, frothing, bubbling voice that only the writing of this journal silences. It taunts me, threatens me, cajoles me into false senses of security. I hear it now, as echoes of long lost memories become ensnared in her webs, spun with the pubic hair of Pan. She consumes my thoughts like flies. What ruminates most is her clicking scoffing derision as she telepathically warned me, “We shall meet again, Mortal!”. Then she scurried, sidled and slipped over the ramparts of my mountain castle and into the jungle night. She was gone, but the voice remained. For days it remained. Reverberating thru my psyche, eroding my faculties, pushing me ever closer to the abyss and the end of reason.
“We shall meet again mortal!”
The days turned to weeks. D of S and SITG have not been seen. Nature has sent her mosquito spies of course and the occasional mutant wasp to divebomb my thoughts, but I have not been idle. I travelled to the Oracle Carrefour and he bestowed upon me a Wand of Shock (batteries included). Mosquito spies quickly learn who’s personal space not to invade. Then it was off to The Temple of B&Q, where, it was rumoured, the monks had forged gas and steel and harnessed lightining into a deadly sentry to guard your homes from spies. It presents itself as the next best thing to fresh blood. A mosquito spy can’t help but be drawn into its glowy goodness. But therein lies the spy’s demise. To get to the prize, the buzztards must navigate a series of grids that, unbeknownst to them, lie charged with a thousand bolts of lightning. As soon a they touch any part of the grid, they become flash-fried mosquito meat. I got 5 and have them placed at strategic points about my estate. They work around the clock and truly enjoy their work. During each kill, they exclaim themselves victors with a high-voltage, banshee-esque cry of “ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZt”.
That’s how it’s spelled, honest.
So the weeks are turning into a month soon and I was feeling pretty good about my war. Wish everyone could say the same. Not one to cry Mission Accomplished prematurely, hubristically challenging the gods, I have lain ever vigilant, training daily in the finer arts of bugminton and Spy Chi.
So when I walked into the kitchen this morning, I was not the least bit surprised to feel her again. Without even seeing her, I knew she was there. Ambush in her heart. But my spidey senses tingled and told me to move, dart, drop, roll, take, double take, lean, gawk, slide, squint. She coiled back, her pincers snapping. She had me trapped. No way out but down the drain. She was between Sting and I. Even the Wand of Shock, not that it could have damaged her, but I could have used it to attempt to keep her at bay, alas…it was in my chambers. I looked frantically about. Damn my ennui. I haven’t unpacked a damn thing for my kitchen yet. So, short of a juice glass and a pair of chopsticks, I was defenseless. She ambled forward, pincers on pince. I retreated enough to see the stove. Fire! Every “mortal’s” birthright. Thanks Prometheus! I had a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigaretes, it was raining out, and I was wearing sunglasses. I leaked enough gas in the air to make an invisible cloud of propane. As it wafted silently up towards her, I bade my time. We were locked in a deadly gaze, our glares were webbed with haze, the gas rose and, steadying myself, I primed the stove. With a whhoooooooooooooof, the propane exploded in a cloud of flame. D of S ran over the transom and behind the door. I ran for Sting. Without a moment’s hesitiation, I swung back the door. There she was, on the roof, spinning hate. I lunged, she hissed. I’ve never heard a spider hiss before. I have now. She tried to beat a retreat, but Sting cut her off with a resounding blow to block her path. She scampered the other way. She was quick but Sting was quicker. My third lunge pinned her against the roof. I bore down on sting, crushing her with all my might. She hissed again, louder this time. I abated, and readied my self and my Sting for the final blow, le coup de tete . Surely she was flat as roadkill by now. I peered into the crevasse I had had her pinned in and she jumped up and spit at me. Up Sting went again, but She was ready this time. She made her escape out the eaves. I think I got a final blow in, or maybe She is merely injured. I know not. But I wait, evermore…
:bravo:
. Pretty strange palatte you got there, Cupper. Sure enough tho’, The Scot prolly likes his Guiness at room temp :charliebrown: . Me, I prefer it ice cold. So cold you have to completely dry off all condensation before opening, or it’ll freeze. Especially in Edmonton. Or better yet…Hobema. A beer never gets warm in Hobema…not in January.