It was 9:41 pm on Saturday, and my routine prior to my shower was interrupted by a nuisance lurking in the corner. 

 

Dangling on a single strand of its web, with its eight legs gripping the plane of the mirror, was a small, repulsive, easy-to-kill spider. Its bold yellow abodemen, and a few other details which I chose to not properly acknowledge, distinguished it from the colourless reflections of our uniformly bland bathroom. The spider’s tiny, hairy body remained static, as if it wore headphones that quietly signalled "do not disturb." It had left a cluster of web strands, created and meant for delicate reuse during its entire lifetime.

 

It didn't move in response to the abrupt brightness of the bathroom light flickering on. Not a single leg twitched among its indistinguishable cluster of legs. Did a small, hardworking spider technically bother my nightly routine in my uninspiring bathroom? No, but was I going to proceed without bothering it? Also no. 

 

The sounds of my mother's footsteps shook the floor beneath my feet as she stumbled into the bathroom to eradicate the spider. I heard the intimidating echoes of colossal footsteps gradually injecting into the static realm. The stomps shook the stiff carpet floor, creating countless sound vibrations bouncing off the walls, sending tremors that fought against the tight cling to the mirror. 

 

"You want me to get it off?" my mom asked while grabbing two sheets of Kleenex. 

 

"I guess so," I responded.

 

My mom lightly lifted the static spider off the surface of the mirror with the two tissue sheets within her two fingers. 

 

"I guess I will kill it," my mom said. I watched as she held the tiny spider between her sturdy fingers, with a thick piece of tissue separating the two. Her fingers began to close around the tissue and the spider. 

 

The spider removed its headphones. Its body flinched at the edges of the tissue coming closer, millimetre by millimetre. It quickly scurried around as the available space between the curled tissues became more and more limited. It was alive, moving frantically with the limited space it was granted between the deathly pressure of my mother's fingers.

 

The space got tighter and tighter, until the walls of the tissue began grazing the short hairs on the spider's short stubby legs. With increasing pressure from both sides, the spider emerged from the abyss of the tissue in an attempt to reach the edge until my mother's fingers completely sealed the tissue in a hushed compression.

 

I lay in my bed, my body static and serene, while my mind became the mind of the spider in its frantic race towards an unavailable opening. Why was the spider suffocated before being tossed carelessly into the bottom of a bin? Why was I the one sleeping comfortably? Why were humans, with a simple snap of two fingers, capable of ending a life carelessly, not because that life didn't deserve to live, but because we didn't take the time to acknowledge its worth?

 

The fatal drama happened in the time span of twenty seconds, from a human's perspective. The sight of a small, seemingly irrelevant spider being casually wrapped in a tissue isn't an extraordinary sight. For the spider, it was interrupted from its evening rituals on the mirror, a notably bright counterpoint against the blandness of the bathroom counters and walls. Its thread of life was consigned to its eternal rest in the silent depths in a trash can.

 

Although the spider was sleeping comfortably on the mirror without greatly interfering with the aesthetic of my nightly routine, it remained one of the most despised creatures on this planet. Spiders are born into a world dominated by a species that tends to despise them, forced to obey the oppressive norms of hatred and fright from humans, the “superior” beings. Perhaps it's worth pondering if our shared existence on this intricate web could benefit from a touch more empathy, saving one thread of life at a time.