"Welcome to my parlour," said the Spider to the Fly.
The Spider sat impassively at the nucleus of her web. In the morning sun the dew laden, silken threads, which formed the orbed product of her nocturnal labour, glistened like the remains of a decimated bay window shimmering in the dulled brilliance of a burglar’s torch. Each crystalline bead of water exquisitely embodied the ambience of that yet unsullied dawn; the herald of new beginnings, fresh opportunities, hope of a better life. Who would dare to suspect that this thing of such subtle beauty was in reality an unscrupulous snare of death, a very symbol of callous bloodthirstiness and evil?
The Fly buzzed lethargically. His mind transmitted cerebral exchanges at what seemed a profoundly slower rate than the pace at which his wings bet the crisp air. Nevertheless, even his aerial appendages were palpitating with an atypical air of settled apathy. Undoubtedly, this slothfulness of mind and body was accredited to a fusion of the waxing morn’s nippy temperature and the Fly’s physical constitution.
Perhaps he was an artistic highbrow among a genus of intellectual dropouts and he appreciated the delicacies of fine art, or maybe it was due merely to an observational error that the Fly, like Icarus, whose misadventures were bourn to a conclusion almost as grim as that about to be enacted, flew perilously nigh to an orb resplendent with fraudulent beauty.
With something akin to an inverted maelstrom or contrariwise cyclone in the inner sanctum of his digestive region, the Fly suddenly felt the iron embrace of the silken chains. Spending all his limited energy in a futile endeavour to break free from these fetters of death, the Fly sensed the web vibrate in a movement which originated at an epicentre entirely independent of his own desperate activities. He turned to behold the Exo-skull of Death bearing down upon him like a rabid, pesticidal arachnid descending upon its wretched prey. Indeed, this simile is glaringly redundant. As compound eye met compound eye the Fly was fully gorgonized, even without the Spider’s paralyzing venom; and certainly, neither of the insectoid visages could comfortably adorn a friendly greeting card. The Fly perceived the glinting, poison-suffused fangs manoeuvre into striking stance. And the rest we will cloak in a curtain of non-violent, non-confrontational, anti-aggressive silence.
The Spider commenced her task of repairing her insidious network after performing her part, however menial, in staying the perpetual advance of contamination spreading creatures into the human world.
The Fly buzzed lethargically. His mind transmitted cerebral exchanges at what seemed a profoundly slower rate than the pace at which his wings bet the crisp air. Nevertheless, even his aerial appendages were palpitating with an atypical air of settled apathy. Undoubtedly, this slothfulness of mind and body was accredited to a fusion of the waxing morn’s nippy temperature and the Fly’s physical constitution.
Perhaps he was an artistic highbrow among a genus of intellectual dropouts and he appreciated the delicacies of fine art, or maybe it was due merely to an observational error that the Fly, like Icarus, whose misadventures were bourn to a conclusion almost as grim as that about to be enacted, flew perilously nigh to an orb resplendent with fraudulent beauty.
With something akin to an inverted maelstrom or contrariwise cyclone in the inner sanctum of his digestive region, the Fly suddenly felt the iron embrace of the silken chains. Spending all his limited energy in a futile endeavour to break free from these fetters of death, the Fly sensed the web vibrate in a movement which originated at an epicentre entirely independent of his own desperate activities. He turned to behold the Exo-skull of Death bearing down upon him like a rabid, pesticidal arachnid descending upon its wretched prey. Indeed, this simile is glaringly redundant. As compound eye met compound eye the Fly was fully gorgonized, even without the Spider’s paralyzing venom; and certainly, neither of the insectoid visages could comfortably adorn a friendly greeting card. The Fly perceived the glinting, poison-suffused fangs manoeuvre into striking stance. And the rest we will cloak in a curtain of non-violent, non-confrontational, anti-aggressive silence.
The Spider commenced her task of repairing her insidious network after performing her part, however menial, in staying the perpetual advance of contamination spreading creatures into the human world.
