Oh no I see
a spider web and its me in the middle
so i twist and turn
but here i am in my little bubble”
-Coldplay
Spiders are by nature killers. Not in a malicious or inappropriate manner but they are required to kill insects in order to maintain the interminable circle of life. Bulbuline the spider may have big and have a telltale red mark on her belly indicating her status as a black widow, but she was nicer than any spider was meant to be. Now it may seem impossible for one to be excessively kind but there comes a point where being too kind will destroy someone. For excessive kindness will surely result in selflessness and one needs to be at least a little bit selfish in order to survive. Bulbuline was not at all self-interested and let all the other spiders decide everything about her life like where her web was built and how big it was. Baby spiderlings are born from egg sacs by the thousands, so Bulbuline had an awful lot of spider peers controlling her. The most unsettling thing about Bulbuline was that she didn’t seem to mind that her brothers and sisters mooched off of her web or shafted her into the dimmest corner that never attracted any flies. Despite the mistreatment, she worked harder than any other spider, building webs for her artificial friends and voluntarily offering for them to feast upon the insects she trapped in her web. Bulbuline was happiest when others were happy and if it took other spiders taking advantage of her to achieve this skewed form of utilitarianism, Bulbuline was content with that.
At first, Bulbuline was adored by her fellow spiders. They enjoyed her absurd kindness and her perpetual willingness to do whatever was asked of her. Alas, by nature, spiders are solitary creatures and the other spiders soon got bored of each other, Bulbuline included, and found their own spots in which to inhabit alone. Bulbuline, of course, ended up with the the least suitable place in which to build her web, seeing as she let all the other spiders go ahead of her in line in the virtual lottery of spider housing. Bulbuline soon grew lonely, however, without the companionship of the other arachnids. Although they didn’t appreciate Bulbuline’s complete lack of egotism, she did not know what to do with herself if she wasn’t doing something for someone else.
Bulbuline’s happiness level plummeted in the little niche in the woods in wich she settled. In between a rock and a tree stump, she fashioned an extremely intricate web. It was not very large but it was very detailed and would have been the object of many outdoor photographers camera lens had it not been in such a secluded position. Even though Bulbuline was proud of her web, she would have been happy to give it away to any one of her brothers or sisters if only they ever came to visit her. She was very very lonely and she was forced to eat only the dandelion fluff that by chance blew into her web because no insects ever travelled near enough for her to catch.
So Bulbuline spent her days singing melancholy songs, she was a fan of the blues, and knitting silken sweaters and booties for the friends she didn’t have. These lovingly sewed gifts would fall onto the ground and pile up until a gust of wind or rainfall would scatter them. It’s a mystery how long the she lived like this as every day melded together until not even Bulbuline herself could determine how many days or weeks or months she had spent alone in her web. Until one day a disoriented bumble bee got trapped in Bulbuline’s web. The bumble bee had drifted off course whilst searching for fresh pollen to bring back to her hive. Bulbuline’s web was in such an isolated section of the forest there was a plethora of virgin flowers, untouched by the other bee colonies. The succulent aroma of these tender buds is what attracted the young worker bee to the unfortunate circumstance which involved her being stuck in Bulbuline’s web.
The panicked struggling of the bee awoke Bulbuline from a nap, she had fallen asleep after completing her 10431st silken bootie, and she was very surprised to find the adolescent bumble bee in her web for it had been so very long since she had seen an insect in that very position. Accustomed to her diet of oxygen and dandelion fluff, Bulbuline was not seized with a desire for devouring the poor beastie, but rather with a desire for company and idle chit-chat.
“Hello there little one, I didn’t know I would be receiving visitors today.”
There was no answer from the petrified bee, who lay shivering trapped beneath Bulbuline’s feet. The spider absentmindedly rubbed her spinnerets together as she gazed perturbedly at the small bee out of her hundreds of eyes.
“Come now, why are you so scared? What do you think I’ll do to you?”
A tiny voice replied, “Eat me. Isn’t that what spiders do?”
“Eat you?”, Bulbuline scoffed, “I could never, I’m a vegetarian. I only want to talk.”
“Are you messing with me?” inquired the bee, “Because that would be really cruel to mess around with a poor defenseless bee on her deathbed. I’d much rather you got it over with quickly and stuck those giant fangs into my neck right now.”
Bulbuline averted her gaze, embarrassed, “I swear upon my life that I will do no such thing.” This seemed to appease the bumble bee who marginally relaxed at this statement, “Well can you let me go then?”
The spider thought for a moment, “Okay, only if you promise to stay and talk with me for a while. I get pretty lonely, I’ll even knit you a sweater!”
“Promise.”
With that, the spider freed the bee, unravelling the silken web from around her delicate wings and striped body. The bee, however, was skeptical of Bulbuline’s good intentions and did not keep her promise. As the bee attempted to fly away, Bulbuline frantically reached out one of her eight legs and grabbed hold of the bee’s antennae. In blind fear, the bee stung Bulbuline in the back, injecting deadly poison into her bloodstream, before releasing herself from the spider’s grasp and buzzing away. Paralyzed by the sting, the spider dazedly collapsed onto her own web. In her drunken struggles to right herself, she got wrapped up in sticky silk rendering her stuck fast even after the bumblebee sting wore off. Unfortunately for Bulbuline, that bee was the only visitor she would ever have in her concealed alcove between the rock and the tree stump, and she remained motionlessly trapped in her own web until it was washed away by a heavy thunderstorm seventeen weeks later.
