unexpected

The years of ignored dust have settled on the window sill in my bathroom. It is a blanket of neglect. To one side, an abandoned spray bottle of cleanser, not quite empty. To the other, a poured candle in an aluminum tin. Its fitted lid snug but askew reads "Vanilla Cookie." The picture of the cookies is bleached by the sun to pale blues and greens as if it were a photo of moldy biscuits. Next to the vanilla cookie candle is a North American lilac candle. Also a poured candle, it is in a small glass jar with an out-turned lip. Then, an open book of matches sponsored by Winston cigarettes. The text that you are exposed to when you twist one of the 18 matches from its stapled roots informs you that Winstons are 100% First-cut Tobacco. No additives. No preservatives. I have not seen the front of the matchbook in a long while. I believe it was a bustling scene of attractive yet ordinary smokers, gathered in a freeze frame of nicotine euphoria. Between the matches and the bottle of cleanser sits a small black digital alarm clock. The LCD is a standard murky greyish green with black sections that appear and disappear in permutations that yield numbers. The façade is ridged to give it a futuristic design. The time is accurate. During daylight savings, a substantial amount of dust is wiped away by insistent fingertips holding the time button and tapping the hour button until the hour is corrected.

It is here between the dusty clock and the match book that a spider has made his residence. He has lived there for approximately 9 months to a full year. Perhaps longer since there is dust on the silky threads. At first, the skeleton of his web was not apparent. But, when I really took notice of him about 6 months ago, he had already added intricate strands which connected in three dimensions. This is not a web that recalls a snowflake's six prongs. It is like a jungle gym made of glistening nothing. It is here that he waits, upside down mostly, for food. I find comfort in knowing that he will eat whatever insects dare enter through the overlooked crevices between the window screen and its frame. I have grown to be considerate of him. When I return from work, I look for him asleep under the matchbook. When I crank the window open in the evening, I do not jolt it violently as I once did because I noticed it frightened him. Once, after a rotting apple core in my garbage can had attracted fruit flies, I carefully lifted their carcasses off my palms and laid them gently at his door. At first he did not know what to make of such a coup; two flies without a flutter left between them, resting on the edge of his home, smelling of a strange, animal sweat. Days passed and he eventually retrieved them. That day, we became friends.

I have been disappointed by many humans. But in the most natural sense, the spider and I exist in a plane of emotion that is void of expectations or demands. I know that he will behave in the way that spiders do and never err. I do not ask him to be human. He does not ask me to be spider. He finds my dwelling to be acceptable as his own. So much so that I think he now has a roommate or perhaps it is a newborn child. We share the space in my humble bathroom. My clean bathroom with the very serene and untouched window sill.