BY DENZEL MANIPLE EVERD
I killed a spider today.
I entered the bathtub and there it stood.
All 8 limbs, stuck in the ceramic tub
Where I clean off my sweat, dirt, and pain.
I felt sad for it and thought to myself,
I can help it get out of my bathtub.
But
It occurred to me that spiders bite
Especially if they feel intimidated.
I panicked.
I thought.
I decided that if I were to get it out.
It would have to be quick fast and simple.
The poor spider kept trying to leap out of the tub.
As I worked up the courage,
I leaned in and out of the tub,
Hoping to scoop it out quickly without it turning to bite me.
I planned and schemed and worried.
Alas
I dove in, placed my hand under the spider and pressed against the tub so it wouldn’t slip from under my palm.
My fear spiked.
I was holding a spider.
I thought, now I can toss it out and we can both go and freely live our lives.
Quickly and recklessly, I dragged the spider in my cupped palm across the tub’s wall and tossed it out.
Excitedly, I look around hoping to see my 8-legged little friend a little confused but happily moving about its life.
But all I saw was the arachnid’s body on the floor.
3 legs missing, 2 somehow mangled together and the other 3 twitching about.
I looked in horror at what I had done.
After one minute, the spider stopped moving.
Its lifeless body lay there and I was burdened with the guilt of taking a life I had hoped to save.
Almost a meter of space filled the distance between my eyes and the animal I had just killed.
I felt so far removed from the death.
But I felt guilt.
I thought, “Only one of us gets to freely live”
The thought that in a few seconds, I would have forgotten about what I had just done, ran through my mind.
I was so distant from the life experience of the arachnid that it made me apathetic to its pain.
Even the finest morsel of kindness I had tried to show, was filtered through the naivety and inexperience and clumsiness of my being…
And it killed a spider.
Denzel is a writer, actor, and director. You can find and read more of his writing here: https://muwado.com/members/manipledenzel.