When I arrived in Montreal, the city felt like the warm season had not fully established itself yet. Unsettled weather, air with a cool edge to it. Somewhere during the ensuing days, a corner was turned. Springtime fluff drifted everywhere, cool weather coats were no longer needed when stepping out in the mornings. And bugs were suddenly around in abundance.
One evening in my high-altitude squat as the sun neared the horizon, the changing light illuminated spiderwebs outside the windows -- lots and lots of them, where none had been a day earlier. And as the sun slipped below the horizon, a fair-sized spider revealed itself, coming out of hiding from the window's edge, making the trip out to the middle of a pretty extensive web for a night of hunting.
Spiders are mostly okay with me. If I find them in my living space, I cover them with a glass, slip a sheet of paper under it, escort them outdoors. And spiders that are outside the living space, as this one was -- so that they require no relocating -- are especially okay with me.
So. A couple of nights after the season made its decisive turning: me in bed reading, sprawled happily across the covers. Lamps on either side of the bed shedding soft, comfortable light. Now and then a breeze found its way through the window screen. A relaxed evening, me obnoxiously content. At some point, I lay the book on my chest and spent some time thinking about nothing in particular. Just drifting, at peace. And during those quiet moments, something up on the ceiling caught my eye. Looking like an shadowy indentation in the plaster, with a couple of wire filaments sticking out, as if a plant-hanging hook had been there at some point, or wiring of some kind. I hadn't noticed anything like that before, took a more focused look. And realized it was a big damn spider, huddled up above the bed, an oversized arachnid with long, pointy legs. Then I noticed another, above the opposite corner of the bed. Two bigass spiders lurking high above my extremely comfy sleeping spot. Two of them. Just waiting for the lights to go off so they could start doing what spiders do at night: go places they really shouldn't be going, dropping from ceilings on web-threads to scare the bejesus out of humans trying to get a good night's sleep.
The windows in that studio flat were not easy to open, the ceiling was high enough that trying to get the spiders down to get a glass over them would be a huge amount of strenuous work. I didn't even consider that, found myself getting up, grabbing the day's newspaper from a nearby table. Got up on the bed, opened the paper, began waving it about, arm stretched upward as far as I could stretch it, leaping up and down with each attempted swat. The first target huddled itself more tightly, the paper just missing it, my swattings becoming determined flailings, feet and legs trying to propel me high enough to knock the critter down. A couple of minutes later, I connected, knocked it to the floor, saw it collect itself, look around, trying to determine which direction would take it to shelter. My hands rolled the paper up, I found myself whacking away at the little bugger before it could disappear. Then began the same routine with the second one, that one immediately moving off toward the center of the ceiling away from the bed. Toward safety, it probably thought. But also toward the ceiling fan. I found myself leaping to floor, skidding to fan switch, cranking it -- the motion and breeze as the paddles got going stopped the spider in its tracks, I got up on a chair, started more flailing with the paper, knocked it down. Jumped to floor, hands rolling up paper as spider began zipping toward furniture, caught it before it reached cover, whacked the hell out of it until it stopped moving.
The result of all that: two unnervingly big corpses, long legs all curled sadly up. I scanned the ceiling for more intruders, saw only bare plaster. Checked out the windows, trying to locate the point of entry, discovered nothing. Tossed paper on table, returned to bed, resumed relaxing (casting the occasional wary glance at ceiling). Had a night of sleep unmolested by invaders.
Two spiderless days later: sitting at my laptop midway through the afternoon. Lost in thought. Some movement catches my attention off to my left. I look around, find one more bigass spider hanging at eye level, about twelve inches from me, descending slowly, legs extended. My bod leaped to its feet, my hands found a newspaper, rolled it up. The spider had gotten the idea that this excursion had been a bad idea, had begun a panicky ascent. But not fast enough. Newspaper flailings knocked it down, I whacked the hell out of it, leaving a third oversized corpse (legs curled sadly up).
All that in the big city where I did not expect to be having adventures with mammoth representatives of mother nature. Since I've been back in sweet, rustic Vermont -- four days now -- where big armies of bugs erupt out of nowhere once the warm season takes hold to invade all living spaces in aggressively wanton fashion, no bugs have disturbed the peace. Not a single blessed one.
Go figure.
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Graffiti galore, Montreal:
España, te echo de menos
rws 5:54 PM [+]
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