“Fern?”
“Yeah, Gary?”
“Fern, you’ve excreted some formic acid over here.”
“Sorry, Gary.”

There was a pause while Fern walked over and took a look, “Oh man, sorry Gary, I feel so ashamed. Eat me now. Seriously eat me now.”

I looked at Fern, an ant who had hopped off a bus and into my life. Hi, I’m Gary, I’m a spider. Normally we eat ants, but Fern was funny.

He piped up again, “Seriously Gary, for a second, I know you had a big lunch, two wasps wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, after a big lunch like that, I thought you might have a little indigestion. You might want some ant acid. No? C’mon?”

Or at least I thought Fern was funny. For an ant.

Some music struck up in the apartment next to where we were standing.

“Fern, do you like rappers?”
“What chocolate wrappers or gangster rappers?”
“Ganger rappers I guess, I mean rap music more than any particular gangster connotation.”
“I don’t know. I mean, yeah it’s okay I guess.”
“Okay, so I’m going to ask you this question. Do you trust me Fern?”
“Yeah sure Gary. I mean, of course.”
“Would you be willing to step onto my web?”
“Um...”

Fern knew that if he stepped onto the web his only chance of escape was for him to be given the chance to eat away at the silk which would attach itself to his legs. He could do it. We both knew of ants who had escaped, but he’d have to trust that I’d give him the time to do it. I would of course. I didn’t need to eat him.

“Why Gary? Why would you want me to step onto your web?”
“Just because Fern, until you’ve listened to rap music while standing on a spider’s web you’ve never experienced rap music. What I’m talking about is the vibrations, even rap artists have never experienced rap music properly.”
“So you’re not just talking about rap music are you Gary. You’re talking about anything with a thumping baseline.”
“Yeah, in theory,” I said, “but this is 2008 in South London it’s not like we’re going to hear any drum and bass.”
“You really haven’t been off this window sill in a while have you Gary?”
“You’re right,” I said, “ I’m not one of life’s travelers. I was one of life’s waiters.”
“All right, in that case I’ll have the nettle soup.”
“What? Oh. Waiter. Right.”

A few seconds passed, more music was playing and vibrating the web very hard.

“Alright Gary. I’ll come and listen.”
“Thanks Fern, it means a lot to me.”
“You not eating me means a lot to me, remember that.”
“I promise.”

Fern walked away and climbed up the wall. He then walked upside down onto the ledge of the next floor up, twisted his body and dropped off the bottom of the windowsill. He wouldn’t have been able to get to the middle of the web any other way. One step in from the side and he’d be stuck. As he dropped I wondered how he’d ever get off the web, I was sure we’d work it out together.

He landed a strand over from me. After the initial rocking the strong vibrations of the bass line started to vibrate us up and down.

“Gary.”
“Yes, Fern.”
“This is a very moving experience.”

Labels: Fiction, Short

I was in the pub the other day and I was talking to the bartender. It's normally a great little insight into the whole local scene. One of the pubs near me does haircuts for all the punters on a Saturday afternoon. This works well for the drunks who are having trouble at home. This is presumably because they can get up on a Saturday morning and say "I'm just off to get my hair cut" and when they get home on Sunday morning covered in vomit they will at least have had a haircut.

So I was talking to this bartender and while I might have imagined I was going to get some great insight into the local community and perhaps into the human psyche, we were in fact doing as all British people do in this situation: we were talking about the weather.

What do people do in countries without a temperate climate? How do they open up the conversation to chit chat without the opening gambit: “funny weather we've been having lately”. It's entirely possible that this is why the English are seen as up tight by the rest of the world. We have such a ready made perfect bit of conversational shorthand that we never have to get into any personal issues. The rest of the world have to talk to each other about real things. That is certainly not something we would tolerate over here.

Actually now I think of it perhaps that was the Neo Cons agenda all along? Perhaps they had tired of such political movements as "back to basics" and a return to "family values" and thought that the surest way of dealing with it would be to promote the ability to use the phrase "funny weather we've been having". That's why the US (and the ultra conservative China) have really been pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere. Once climate change really kicks off everyone in the world will be talking about the weather and there won't be time for all that naughty sex.

Anyway.

Because we were talking about the funny weather we've been having the conversation almost immediately turned to the great snow of April 2008. Almost 3 whole inches fell! Fancy! I must have brought it up because she said "Oh yeah, it was terrible. I had to go out and rescue my tortoises who had already come out of hibernation. Like two little slow-moving snowballs they were."

So remember to look after the environment because not only does it upset Neo Cons but it also stops tortoises becoming projectile weapons.

P.S. Sorry it's been such a long time since the last post. I think I'm back now.

Labels: Articles