I Killed A Spider Today

I killed a spider today.

I entered the bath tub and there it stood.

All 8 limbs, stuck in the ceramic tub

Where I clean off my sweat, dirt, and pain.

I felt sad for it and thought to myself,

I can help it get out of my bath tub.

But

It occurred to me that spiders bite

Especially if they feel intimidated.

I panicked. I thought.

I decided that if I were to get it out.

It would have to be quick fast and simple.

The poor spider kept trying to leap out of the tub.

As I worked up the courage,

I leaned in and out of the tub,

Hoping to scoop it out quickly without it turning to bite me.

I planned and schemed and worried.

Alas

I dove in, placed my hand under the spider and pressed against the tub so that it wouldn’t slip from under my palm.

My fear spiked. I was holding a spider.

I thought now I can toss it out and we can both go and freely live our lives.

Quickly and recklessly, I dragged the spider in my cupped palm across the wall of the tub and tossed the spider out.

Excitedly I looked around hoping to see my 8-legged little friend a little confused but happily moving about it’s life.

But all I saw was the arachnid’s body on the floor.

3 legs missing, 2 somehow mangled together and the other 3 twitching about.

I looked in horror at what I had done.

After 1 minute. The spider stopped moving.

Its lifeless body lay there and I was burdened with the guilt of taking a life

I had hoped to save.

Almost a meter of space filled the distance between my eyes and the creature I had just killed.

I felt so far removed from the death.

But I felt guilt. I thought “only one of us gets to freely live”

The thought that in a few seconds I would have forgotten about what I had just done run through my mind.

I was so distant from the life experience of the arachnid that it made me apathetic to its pain.

And even the finest morsel of kindness I had tried to show it, was filtered through the naivety and inexperience and clumsiness of my being,

And it killed a spider.