Spider web under a street lamp

One of the apartment windows is directly opposite a street lamp, that lights up earlier and earlier at this time of year.  A slight clicking sound, before the switch connects, to remind people that the summer is slowly folding into autumn, and that the darker evenings are coming this way.

When the street lamp is on, it’s easier to see three connected spider webs that have been designed and built in this setting.  Indiscernible from the ground, or in daylight, the three webs look majestic under their spotlight. 

One web is perfectly concentric, agile and moves like the sails on a ship.  Another is looser and seems to have been a trial effort, while the third web is abandoned and derelict.  It’s not clear if the same spider spun the three webs, or if it’s the work of three separate beings.  What is clear, is that millions of years of evolution has provided the creature with the skills and ability to craft a home and a trap for pray at stratospheric hights that can survive wind and rain. 

The spiders have been here for some time.

As undetectable in daylight or from a certain point of view, many moths fly straight into the biggest web, where they wait to die.  A gruesome sky ballet takes place every night, which is different from the show at dawn, or the matinee.

Dark is for the spiders.

Few people can draw a perfect circle, yet the spiders spin mathematically correct webs.  A millimetre too far and the construct would collapse, a millimetre too near and it would cave in.  Each line is the correct distance from another line, and nothing overlaps.  Made with a visceral memory, an architect’s mind, a dream project engineer and a song.

Spiders have four eyes and spin a silk straight from their abdomen.

The silk is in liquid form while still inside the spider, but transitions into a sticky, strong, agile material when it comes into this world.  Prey unsuspectingly fly or crawl into it every night.  Humans and spiders have been tenants here for a while; mutual fear and dislike has kept a respectful distance between the two species. 

It’s very rare for a spider to kill a human.

At this time of year, the rising harvest moon can be seen from one of the windows in the apartment.  It moves between the Church and the chimneys, over the way.  This allows the spiders to enjoy direct moon bathing, to dance in the rays, to feel the power of the shine.

Almost as if it was planned.