Butterfly Caught in a Spider's Web

A typical day, not much unlike any other, I sit in front of the typewriter, waiting for inspiration. The keys just sit there, resting under my fingertips, unmoved by my rime. The bright sun shines in on me through a frosted pane, and the steady drip-drip-drip of falling snowmelt reaches my ears. Of there own accord, my fingers press partway down on the keys, several spindles extend upward towards the page, looking for all the world like the legs of a spider. They touch the page gently, rippling across it, but not leaving any tracks for their crossing. That dull spider creeps across the page for minutes and yet still nothing is written on the page; just my fingers, up to their usual tricks, playing with the keys, mocking me at the same time, leaving me to wonder, had I ever actually written anything worthwhile?

Drip-drip-drip. The ice still melts, but it is no warmer in here. Not even the click-click-clack of a typewriter to break the monotony. The white of the page looking, as ever, like the sheet of snow outside. Even the snow holds more interest than the blank page - there are dirty spots, where rocks and twigs poke through, some trees, birch I guess, but how would I really know, with snow on the branches. Even now, hints of life, more life than will ever greet my page. Off to the side, just out of the window, a spider has spun a web, snow melt glistens on it, little scintillating sparkles in the bright sun, forever spoiling the effect the spider wants, to effortlessly blend into the background, letting no one know of its existence til it's too late, forever enmeshed in the web, stuck there til the end of days.

A butterfly, too early for the season, how could it be possible in all the snow and ice - silly, really - never mind the fact that it's existence can't be possible, here and now. Yet it is here, flying by, its yellows and oranges and blacks giving stark contrast to the dead whites and browns around it. Silly little creature, flitting through the air, not knowing or caring that I am smart enough to know that it should not exist. It almost is enough for me to crack a smile, but I don't, can't. I should ignore it, go back to work, or at least the facade of work, but my eyes still follow it of there own accord. Stupid, it just keeps drifting on the breeze, closer to the web, closer to getting what it deserves. It has no right to be here now, shouldn't be out there distracting me, and it will pay for its uncaring optimism. Too stupid to see the little sparkles in the web, it collides, and struggles, ensnared, its wings tangled, tearing; I can almost hear the water shaking from the web, adding its patter to the incessant drip-drip-drip on the windowsill, coupled with the thrumming rumbling of the spider's footfalls on the web, the sound of imminent doom, the last ticks of the clock for the butterfly.

I close my eyes, and I see myself getting up, running, sprinting for the front door, ignoring the fact that my feet are bare and that I am in boxers and a tee shirt. I push through the wet melting snow, feeling the cold and damp on my legs, my heart pounding in my chest, straining to burst, hoping against hope that I could save the silly little thing, smashing the bloated spider, its dull gray and brown body oozing its poison out between my fingertips. Carefully, so delicately then, I would pull apart the silken strands and let the little work of art go, impossible as it is, on to continue its impossible existence. And it does, flying away, no gratitude given or accepted, and I sink down in the snow and cry - the first real tears I have had in years, feeling the melt around me and through me.

But I sit there, eyes closed instead, and when I open them, there is a little brown and black spider, sitting on a small grey cocoon, a transformation for the butterfly, but not the one it must have experienced before, going back to a shrivelled gray worm.

So, at last, the struggle done, my typewriter finds me again, and the spider continues to crawl across the page, and still nothing is written.