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October. In the UK and Western Europe, spiders are in evidence around our dwelling places at this time of year. Some believe that the cold weather brings them in, but it turns out they’re just looking for a bit of love and affection. They were always there. OK, I admit it, I don’t like them. Mainly they’re fine. I’ve held a tarantula, and most spiders don’t bother me much. But there’s one spider, or rather three very similar species (apparently), that I find disturbing. The Giant House Spider(s), Eratigena atrica, E. duellica and E. saeva. Tried, but can’t get over it.
Up to 500 words please on something that scares you, or your MC. Bonus points if it’s something harmless, but it doesn’t have to be.
Far TMI!! Our first autumn spider in the kitchen sink this morning (usually they wait until Steve’s away and I’m stark naked before ambushing).
The Day Grammar Didn’t Matter
I held a snake, ate a worm-like creature out the ocean so fresh it was moving, and listened to a mariachi band. But it was time to iron. Such was life when a business trip spanned a weekend and stretched into the next week.
I tossed my white Oxford shirt across the ironing board.
My tenth-floor hotel room’s bay windows welcomed the moonlight. Bland beige walls wrapped around the room.
The lights on the wall trembled. The television shook. I had a couple local beers earlier, but I wasn’t drunk. Not close. I held my hands out as if they would steady the shaking. Rattling filled my ears.
The chandelier flickered.
If I was going to die, I was going to die running, not frozen like a character in a horror movie.
I bolted through the door.
Two men stood in the hallway chatting. Their peach polo shirts tucked inside their pants gave away they were employees.
“Should we evacuate?” I asked. Did I speak the grammatically correct Spanish I was proud of? I couldn’t be sure.
“Why?” asked one of the men.
The hotel vibrated.
“The earthquake,” I said.
The men chuckled. “This is a little earthquake.”
“Where I come from, this is a major earthquake.”
“If this was one of our big earthquakes, we’d all be dead by now,” said one of the men. “You wouldn’t have wanted to be here for the big one a decade ago.”
Their smiles suggested this was meant to provide me comfort. It didn’t.
The shaking stopped.
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I smelt her cherry perfume before I saw her.The accounts clerk handed me the flash drive. She smiled, pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “You still look anxious.”
“I’m not superstitious, but I’m not ironing for the remainder of my time here.”
She laughed. As if I was joking.
I sipped the bitter coffee. Why wouldn’t company policy allow me to drop a splash of cognac in this drink?
She said, “You’re not putting in that transfer request after all, I’m guessing.”
“How do you live with the constant threat of earthquakes?” I asked.
“How do you live with the constant threat of hurricanes?”
I shut my laptop. “Hurricanes have the decency to give you time to prepare.”
“Hurricanes give you time to crap yourself.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Your country looks so tiny on the map,” she said. “Hurricanes are so big.”
“We always get spared by hurricanes. Haven’t had one since they first put a man on the moon.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. The air conditioning unit kicked in, startling me, to her amusement. “We only get earthquakes once a decade. You’re safer here.”
“You’re wrong.”
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My country got hit by a hurricane. Her country hasn’t had an earthquake since. Maybe I should have submitted that transfer request.Word Count: 473 words excluding the title
UNTITLED 452 words
A leaf, the colour of burnt sugar, dried and curled into the shape of a piranha’s open maw, drifted across the path in front of her. Good. Enough of a breeze, then, to keep her cool. The last thing she wanted after her run was to turn up at Jake’s night out with a face the colour of a baboon’s bum. She checked her watch. If she timed this right, she would be back home in time for a quick shower and a large gin to ease her into the party mood.
A ten-minute brisk walk took her along the gravel path at the side of the burn – the water energetic and less slothful thanks to all the recent rain – before skirting the housing estate and veering left along the farm track towards the quarry. If she started on the downhill, she had high hopes of completing the figure of eight past the substation and around the football pitch. It was her first serious run this week and she was aiming for nothing less than the 5k. The sky held the threat of rain but, with luck, it would hold off until the homeward stretch. Unusually, the dog walkers were elsewhere, and the kids at the skatepark were packing up to go.
Despite the warm-up, her calf muscles tensed when she moved up a gear and into a run. Don’t start, she warned. You’ve had more than enough time to prepare. Even so, it took five minutes of focusing on foot placement and breathing, and keeping her shoulders relaxed and down, before she found her natural rhythm.
She checked her Fitbit – pace was good and she’d been running for almost half an hour. Should she attempt the hill? The loose gravel had the potential to be slippery. But she was caught in the moment, euphoric at how easy her breathing came and how vital she felt. Why not? At this time of day, the traffic on the path would be light – perhaps she’d meet a cyclist on his way down from East Lomond? Or maybe the horses from the farm out for their evening constitutional?
She shortened her stride and kept her eyes down as she navigated the incline, pausing at the top to catch her breath and take in the view – a random pattern of hay bales in the field on her left, with a heron picking his way through the stubble – as the first large plop of rain landed on the ground in front of her.
As crushing pain threw its arms around her chest and fear rode out on a groan, she realised her phone was lying on the kitchen table next to her car keys.
Two super entries, both darkly entertaining. Perfect for a Halloween mood, maybe.
Alex, love your dry style. I’ve been in that hotel and ironed that shirt for a meeting. Even drunk those beers. Never been in an earthquake though, unless you count the feeble growling that “hit” the south of England a few years back – much like a truck driving by. Tried to sleep though the storm of 1987 that took most of our roof off.
Seagreen, has anybody not been out on a particularly energetic trek and felt that hint of something: a twinge or an unfamiliar tightness? How reassuring that phone is.
Honestly, I could pick either of these. Take it away, Alex!
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