A Spider Is Battling a Moth On My Windowsill Right Now
18 April 2009
The moth is struggling heroically, but the spider seems to have him by the head. It’s a small yellow spider. I think he may actually be eating the moth headfirst while it continues to squirm. Animals are terrifying. This spider would think nothing of waterboarding.
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I always feel internally divided when I see spider battles. On the one hand, I know that it’s none of my business, but on the other I feel an urge to intervene and assert my godlike authority. I imagine that if I were to spare the life of a moth it would consider me its benevolent and supreme deity. Then there would probably be some kind of moth religion that glorifies me as the heavenly savior and describes the eternal struggle between myself and a demonic spider-god. I don’t know how I would feel about that.
I have the same dilemma. There is this passage from James Thurbur’s The 13 Clocks:
“I make mistakes, but I am on the side of Good,” the Golux said, “by accident and happenchance. I had high hopes of being Evil when I was two, but in my youth I came upon a firefly burning in a spider’s web. I saved the victim’s life.”
“The firefly’s?” said the minstrel.
“The spider’s. The blinking arsonist had set the web on fire.”
Spiders are okay when they’re not sucking the liquified insides out of their mummified victims.