Threads
Yes, but what about the spiders? There'll be no sheds, pelmets, crannies under stairs, no room for supercargo in the bunkers, whose conditioned air will certainly exclude flies. Where will they go?
Seven years bad luck, to kill a spider . . . (Yes. just one.) How many species of arachnidae, how many money-spinners, mummy-swaddlers, house-guests, high- wire-walkers, air-fishers, scuttlers, secret sharers?
How many threads to pick up? A small brocaded bead sewn into her work, she makes the pattern new each day, Eve's - dropper, bag-woman, common-or-garden Dame Diademata. She taps into tingling wires to read all the news that's fit to eat. She's a radio-astronomer sifting the hum of space; here's the slight bleat of a quasar, the crumbling of a sun, a distant Try try try again. . . Today, a first stiffening of the air, and the webs touched in white on the privet . . . Such glass bead games, such Honiton lace, such moon-dust.
But empty; the pattern was lost, for this year at least. They would crumble at my touch.
Philip Gross
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