hampton44
07-28-2013, 11:59 PM
The Spider and the Fly
A Story by hampton
I wrote a lil story bout a spider and a fly...lol...
The old man leaned forward in his wheelchair, and with a slight tremor in his leathery hand, he carefully raised his fork to mouth, and savored one last bite of the dark toast he had earlier topped with some fresh fig preserves, given to him by a long time neighbor who lived a mile down the road.
He laid the fork on the table and screwed the top on the Mason jar which held the remaining preserves, and then maneuvered the chair in a tight circle back to his left and opened the door of the antiquated Kenmore refrigerator, where he placed the jar.
A recent hip surgery, had, for the time at hand, left him with limited mobility, and without the help of the chair, it was a bit difficult at present, to get around the old farmhouse and out the front to the porch to get his firewood for the wood-burning stove, which occupied a corner of his living room.
He had lived in the house, alone, for nearly 23 years, and on this morning, like so many others, he longed for the companionship a successful marriage and loving wife would have given him.
He reminisced, yet again, about the early days with the lady he fell in love with, and the times they shared laughing, and some times crying, as well. For a long time, they held fast to their bond, and remained together through bad times and good. They had looked each other in the eyes, and vowed to be married ‘til death , and for better or for worse.
What had happened? How had he arrived at such a lonely place, without realizing the speed with which his life had passed to this point?
It seemed, on one hand, that it was just yesterday that he and she were on the back porch of their comfortable North Florida home, out back, sitting on the porch swing, having a drink and watching the sun set over the trees which lined the back of the peanut field he farmed, and talking of the future, and plans that they had for their lives together.
It was a very happy time…a time of utmost contentment.
But, on another hand, it seemed like it had been an eternity of time, and a hell he had endured, from pain and sleepless nights; and a hell he had endured, with thoughts racing through his mind , of wondering where she was right then, who she was with, what she was doing, and why was she doing it.
Seemingly from nowhere, this woman, who he believed loved him more than anyone ever had, and the one person in the world he that he had trusted the most, and who he would have literally died for, had betrayed him.
One day, he was blindsided; and all he had known, that defined who he would be, and defined his future happiness, was gone.
She had turned on him in a heartbeat, and committed adultery against him, and
the life he had known for 14 years, was no more. He was suddenly forced into a life of loneliness, and distrust, and deep and painful depression.
He fought hard to keep the marriage together, and in spite of the facts at hand, he refused to believe that someone he was so sure had, at one time, loved him and cared for him so much, could just become an entirely different person and throw him away, like a bone to the dogs.
But, indeed, that was exactly what had happened. He continued to love her, and maintained his love through all the years, and just was never able to recover and move on to another.
His question was “WHY?” Why had he seen so many others remain married, happy and respectful towards one another through all the years that he had now been alone?
He had promised to himself, that he would surpass accepting the supposed love of another, and bear on to the end a lonely man, but that even loneliness was far less painful, than the years of severe heartbreak he had experienced.
He realized, that another such similar tragic occurrence in his life, would, subsequently lead to his early demise, so he made his choice, to travel solo for the remainder of the trip.
But the questions had still remained…Why? Why him? What did he do so wrong to cause this to happen to him? He had not been able to succeed in marriage and the happiness he had longed for, had become so unattainable.
What he believed was really there, and that would sustain him and make his life a happy one, had actually been just an elusive trick of the mind and heart.Now here he was, so many years later, an old, crippled man, using a wheelchair, and imprisoned by his distrust in mankind, and suffering so much unhappiness at the hands of one he had loved so much many years before.
Why was it so hard for him to understand that, he had not been a selected sole victim of some evil curse, but he was simply another living creature, amongst so many others, that has felt loss or pain, or both, and that sometimes, things which seem so tangible, and end up not so, are perhaps, for a reason.
The rapid barking of a gray squirrel on the pecan tree outside the open kitchen window jarred him from his daydreaming, and he figured it to be time to wheel himself down the long hallway to the living room, and assume his usual routine in front of the wood stove in his tattered old recliner, to read the paper.
The wood floors creaked as he made his way slowly down the hall, and before he moved to his tattered cloth recliner, he focused his attention on stoking the fire in the wood stove. After adding a couple more seasoned oak logs, he pushed himself up with his arms from the wheelchair, and wobbled with an intent momentum over the few feet to his recliner, turned, and eased himself down .
The morning sun filtered through the large panes in the window which occupied the wall directly in front of his seat, and just the sight of it made him feel a bit warmer, in addition to his fire.
In a matter of seconds, he noticed a large fly clinging onto the glass of the window, and moving upwards, slowly and diagonally from left to right. As suddenly as the fly had appeared, a spider emerged from a small fissure in the left side of the wooden window frame, and, immediately, the old man realized the spider’s intent.
The spider was black, with three rows of beady eyes and a thin white stripe, which ran the length of its abdomen. The man eased forward in his seat and his eyes strained through his glasses with anticipation of the rapidly developing hunt.
The fly moved erratically several steps at a time, with seeming little effort, up and towards the right top corner of the window, and it appeared it was just enjoying the sunlight, and unconcerned with the colorful, eight legged and stealthy creature which had taken so much interest in it.
The spider closed the distance at about halfway across the the window, and suddenly, it sprung several inches and pounced directly on top of the fly, but the fly somehow escaped its grasp, and flew a small circle before, once again, settling upon the window pane, just in front of the arachnid.
Again, the spider jumped and made its presence known, and as before, the fly somehow miraculously escaped. This suspenseful sequence was repeated time and again, such that the old man lost count, and with every failed attempt, he increasingly longed for the spider to win the cat-and-mouse game between fly-and-spider.
He could almost feel the frustration of the perplexed spider, at how the fly had thwarted spider's advances, over and over again, and then, upon straining his eyes even harder, the man soon realized a very important factor, which was setting the spider at a huge disadvantage.
The old man pushed downward on the worn armrests of his chair, as he leaned further forward with a rocking motion, until momentum helped him his to his feet.
Immediately, and without his wheelchair, he proceeded to his left and then right, and moved with surprising stability, and even a bit of quick finesse towards his front door.
Before exiting the house, the old man picked up a 15 year-old copy of Outdoor Life magazine, the topmost issue on a 5 inch stack, which lay covered in dust on a table midways down the short hallway.
As he proceeded slowly out the front door, he folded the issue over, in half, and then, holding it tightly between in his right hand, he steadied himself on the handrail with the other hand, and eased down the wooden ramp which paralleled the outer wall of his house, towards the window on which he had seen the struggle of the spider.
What he had earlier realized, was that the fly, all along, had been on the outside of the window glass, and the spider, on the inside, so close, and yet, so far from each other.
Things in life, which seem so apparently easy to desire, and to accomplish, are all too often, unattainable and virtually impossible, as hard as we try to attain them.
The old man, remembering how he had been so wronged though his life, but had tried so very hard to just be treated right and loved, was about to exact revenge for a confused and hungry spider, which, too, had put forth a great effort for something it really wanted.
He moved ever slower down the side of the house on the ramp, scanning carefully with a piercing gaze, and through the dark reflections of the surrounding foliage on the window’s outer glass, he then spotted the jumping spider, at rest, on the inside, apparently still waiting patiently for another try at that cursed fly, but now there was no fly on the outside glass, to be accounted for.
The old man felt a sense of dismay and discouragement, as if he had failed the spider, but just as suddenly as those emotions had come, so did the fly, returning to play his game again. The fly softly lit back on the outside glass, one more time, seemingly inconspicuous to everything in the universe, but the old man and that spider.
With great concentration, the magazine rose slowly back, and at a nice right angle to the window, and with a sharp snap of the wrist, “pop!!!”... It was over for the fly.
The old man slowly pulled back the face of the magazine from the glass, and there, surprisingly intact for the amount of force it had suffered, the fly rested , stuck by a bit of its own blood to the antler of the large deer’s photo on the cover.
The old man turned and with increasing pain in his hips, made his way back into the warmth of his house, but before resting back into his chair, he used the point of his pocket-knife blade to separate the deceased insect from the glossy paper of the magazine, and then he wiped it off the blade and onto the inside surface of the window, and then backed away from the window, a few feet.
Now a bit winded and weary, the man steadied himself against the back of the wheelchair, which he had earlier left near the window.
A minute or two passed before the spider, emerging again, from its lair under the window frame wood, caught the man's eye.
The spider made no jumps this time, but instead, eased steadily and purposefully across the smooth surface towards the small mangled meal which lay before it.
Then, so quickly, it seized the remains of the fly, and returned across the glass to the window’s edge, and just before it disappeared again into its wooden cavern, it paused for a split second, as if to say “thanks” to the kind man.
Victory is sweet, no matter how small.
The old man returned, in a similar manner, to his recliner, where he relaxed with a dip of snuff, and a pleasant grin spanning his chin.
He had not just done it for the spider.
That fly reminded him of a person, and he knew just who.
A Story by hampton
I wrote a lil story bout a spider and a fly...lol...
The old man leaned forward in his wheelchair, and with a slight tremor in his leathery hand, he carefully raised his fork to mouth, and savored one last bite of the dark toast he had earlier topped with some fresh fig preserves, given to him by a long time neighbor who lived a mile down the road.
He laid the fork on the table and screwed the top on the Mason jar which held the remaining preserves, and then maneuvered the chair in a tight circle back to his left and opened the door of the antiquated Kenmore refrigerator, where he placed the jar.
A recent hip surgery, had, for the time at hand, left him with limited mobility, and without the help of the chair, it was a bit difficult at present, to get around the old farmhouse and out the front to the porch to get his firewood for the wood-burning stove, which occupied a corner of his living room.
He had lived in the house, alone, for nearly 23 years, and on this morning, like so many others, he longed for the companionship a successful marriage and loving wife would have given him.
He reminisced, yet again, about the early days with the lady he fell in love with, and the times they shared laughing, and some times crying, as well. For a long time, they held fast to their bond, and remained together through bad times and good. They had looked each other in the eyes, and vowed to be married ‘til death , and for better or for worse.
What had happened? How had he arrived at such a lonely place, without realizing the speed with which his life had passed to this point?
It seemed, on one hand, that it was just yesterday that he and she were on the back porch of their comfortable North Florida home, out back, sitting on the porch swing, having a drink and watching the sun set over the trees which lined the back of the peanut field he farmed, and talking of the future, and plans that they had for their lives together.
It was a very happy time…a time of utmost contentment.
But, on another hand, it seemed like it had been an eternity of time, and a hell he had endured, from pain and sleepless nights; and a hell he had endured, with thoughts racing through his mind , of wondering where she was right then, who she was with, what she was doing, and why was she doing it.
Seemingly from nowhere, this woman, who he believed loved him more than anyone ever had, and the one person in the world he that he had trusted the most, and who he would have literally died for, had betrayed him.
One day, he was blindsided; and all he had known, that defined who he would be, and defined his future happiness, was gone.
She had turned on him in a heartbeat, and committed adultery against him, and
the life he had known for 14 years, was no more. He was suddenly forced into a life of loneliness, and distrust, and deep and painful depression.
He fought hard to keep the marriage together, and in spite of the facts at hand, he refused to believe that someone he was so sure had, at one time, loved him and cared for him so much, could just become an entirely different person and throw him away, like a bone to the dogs.
But, indeed, that was exactly what had happened. He continued to love her, and maintained his love through all the years, and just was never able to recover and move on to another.
His question was “WHY?” Why had he seen so many others remain married, happy and respectful towards one another through all the years that he had now been alone?
He had promised to himself, that he would surpass accepting the supposed love of another, and bear on to the end a lonely man, but that even loneliness was far less painful, than the years of severe heartbreak he had experienced.
He realized, that another such similar tragic occurrence in his life, would, subsequently lead to his early demise, so he made his choice, to travel solo for the remainder of the trip.
But the questions had still remained…Why? Why him? What did he do so wrong to cause this to happen to him? He had not been able to succeed in marriage and the happiness he had longed for, had become so unattainable.
What he believed was really there, and that would sustain him and make his life a happy one, had actually been just an elusive trick of the mind and heart.Now here he was, so many years later, an old, crippled man, using a wheelchair, and imprisoned by his distrust in mankind, and suffering so much unhappiness at the hands of one he had loved so much many years before.
Why was it so hard for him to understand that, he had not been a selected sole victim of some evil curse, but he was simply another living creature, amongst so many others, that has felt loss or pain, or both, and that sometimes, things which seem so tangible, and end up not so, are perhaps, for a reason.
The rapid barking of a gray squirrel on the pecan tree outside the open kitchen window jarred him from his daydreaming, and he figured it to be time to wheel himself down the long hallway to the living room, and assume his usual routine in front of the wood stove in his tattered old recliner, to read the paper.
The wood floors creaked as he made his way slowly down the hall, and before he moved to his tattered cloth recliner, he focused his attention on stoking the fire in the wood stove. After adding a couple more seasoned oak logs, he pushed himself up with his arms from the wheelchair, and wobbled with an intent momentum over the few feet to his recliner, turned, and eased himself down .
The morning sun filtered through the large panes in the window which occupied the wall directly in front of his seat, and just the sight of it made him feel a bit warmer, in addition to his fire.
In a matter of seconds, he noticed a large fly clinging onto the glass of the window, and moving upwards, slowly and diagonally from left to right. As suddenly as the fly had appeared, a spider emerged from a small fissure in the left side of the wooden window frame, and, immediately, the old man realized the spider’s intent.
The spider was black, with three rows of beady eyes and a thin white stripe, which ran the length of its abdomen. The man eased forward in his seat and his eyes strained through his glasses with anticipation of the rapidly developing hunt.
The fly moved erratically several steps at a time, with seeming little effort, up and towards the right top corner of the window, and it appeared it was just enjoying the sunlight, and unconcerned with the colorful, eight legged and stealthy creature which had taken so much interest in it.
The spider closed the distance at about halfway across the the window, and suddenly, it sprung several inches and pounced directly on top of the fly, but the fly somehow escaped its grasp, and flew a small circle before, once again, settling upon the window pane, just in front of the arachnid.
Again, the spider jumped and made its presence known, and as before, the fly somehow miraculously escaped. This suspenseful sequence was repeated time and again, such that the old man lost count, and with every failed attempt, he increasingly longed for the spider to win the cat-and-mouse game between fly-and-spider.
He could almost feel the frustration of the perplexed spider, at how the fly had thwarted spider's advances, over and over again, and then, upon straining his eyes even harder, the man soon realized a very important factor, which was setting the spider at a huge disadvantage.
The old man pushed downward on the worn armrests of his chair, as he leaned further forward with a rocking motion, until momentum helped him his to his feet.
Immediately, and without his wheelchair, he proceeded to his left and then right, and moved with surprising stability, and even a bit of quick finesse towards his front door.
Before exiting the house, the old man picked up a 15 year-old copy of Outdoor Life magazine, the topmost issue on a 5 inch stack, which lay covered in dust on a table midways down the short hallway.
As he proceeded slowly out the front door, he folded the issue over, in half, and then, holding it tightly between in his right hand, he steadied himself on the handrail with the other hand, and eased down the wooden ramp which paralleled the outer wall of his house, towards the window on which he had seen the struggle of the spider.
What he had earlier realized, was that the fly, all along, had been on the outside of the window glass, and the spider, on the inside, so close, and yet, so far from each other.
Things in life, which seem so apparently easy to desire, and to accomplish, are all too often, unattainable and virtually impossible, as hard as we try to attain them.
The old man, remembering how he had been so wronged though his life, but had tried so very hard to just be treated right and loved, was about to exact revenge for a confused and hungry spider, which, too, had put forth a great effort for something it really wanted.
He moved ever slower down the side of the house on the ramp, scanning carefully with a piercing gaze, and through the dark reflections of the surrounding foliage on the window’s outer glass, he then spotted the jumping spider, at rest, on the inside, apparently still waiting patiently for another try at that cursed fly, but now there was no fly on the outside glass, to be accounted for.
The old man felt a sense of dismay and discouragement, as if he had failed the spider, but just as suddenly as those emotions had come, so did the fly, returning to play his game again. The fly softly lit back on the outside glass, one more time, seemingly inconspicuous to everything in the universe, but the old man and that spider.
With great concentration, the magazine rose slowly back, and at a nice right angle to the window, and with a sharp snap of the wrist, “pop!!!”... It was over for the fly.
The old man slowly pulled back the face of the magazine from the glass, and there, surprisingly intact for the amount of force it had suffered, the fly rested , stuck by a bit of its own blood to the antler of the large deer’s photo on the cover.
The old man turned and with increasing pain in his hips, made his way back into the warmth of his house, but before resting back into his chair, he used the point of his pocket-knife blade to separate the deceased insect from the glossy paper of the magazine, and then he wiped it off the blade and onto the inside surface of the window, and then backed away from the window, a few feet.
Now a bit winded and weary, the man steadied himself against the back of the wheelchair, which he had earlier left near the window.
A minute or two passed before the spider, emerging again, from its lair under the window frame wood, caught the man's eye.
The spider made no jumps this time, but instead, eased steadily and purposefully across the smooth surface towards the small mangled meal which lay before it.
Then, so quickly, it seized the remains of the fly, and returned across the glass to the window’s edge, and just before it disappeared again into its wooden cavern, it paused for a split second, as if to say “thanks” to the kind man.
Victory is sweet, no matter how small.
The old man returned, in a similar manner, to his recliner, where he relaxed with a dip of snuff, and a pleasant grin spanning his chin.
He had not just done it for the spider.
That fly reminded him of a person, and he knew just who.