My apartment, for reasons that a non-arachnid mind cannot hope to fathom, has become home to a league, a colony, a collective, of wiry, thin-limbed spiders.

In particular, my bathroom has become their adopted habitat. My trashcan, my radiator, my claw-foot tub have all become anchors for their silken demesnes. I watch them hang motionless from their perches and, I suppose, they also watch me.

One of my guest arachnids

My invasive neighbors withstanding, I live in a bug free space. It hadn’t occurred to me precisely why it was bug free. I live in a ground floor garden apartment. I often open my windows (now with screens) and there must be numerous dark, hidden ways leading from the outside to the inside. Indeed, such ways had been used by probing, exploratory assaults by the warlike queens of both ants and termites in the spring. However, long ago did I slay their armies. As the pharaohs of old, I made them as those that exist not.

Which brings me back to the spiders: who are they? what do they want? I don’t know. As predators of insects, I appreciate their silent guard of my domain. My domain, however, has rules. The bedroom, the kitchen, and attacks on my most eminent personage are all off limits. The penalty for any breach is death. My word is law. There is no appeal. I announced my decree this morning. They have been warned.

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