Guilt

I barely slept. The guilt of last night`s murder kept me awake.

Everytime I fell asleep, I saw the spider. And it wasn`t scary: it was sad. It wanted to know why I killed it. It wanted to know why I thought I had more right to live than it did. I tried to point out that I paid rent and - as far as I can tell - there hadn`t been any contributions from another source recently, but it was all karmic technicalities. I killed because I was scared, not because I was in danger, and there are few worse reasons for death. And, added to the three cockroaches and two mosquitos I`ve obliterated in the last few months, I think I`m in for some retribution. No matter how many stray kittens I`ve tried to save in the meantime, or the fact that I carried a grasshopper out in my hands at 3am because it was singing on my curtain.

You don`t get any brownie points for saving cute things. It`s the scary, ugly ones that need compassion.

The spider`s still under the bowl. I dodged around it this morning: kept my eyes away from it as I made coffee. I`m too scared of what I`ll see: my own cruelty staring back at me. In a huge, terrifying form. And still just as huge and terrifying, except for different reasons.

I`m killing nothing else. Mosquito, cockroach or spider: if I can`t catch them and let them go, I`ll suffer the consequences. I`ll just have to allocate a certain amount of time each day to screaming and being bitten. In no particular order.

And at least I won`t have to ruin any more bowls.