Dear giant creatures

This month I have a little less time for writing for the blog, partly because I’m going to an in-person thing that I need to write something for. So, like last week’s post, this is something I wrote at the writing group I’ve been going to. Unlike last week’s post, I don’t remember what the prompt was. Indeed, I don’t remember writing it—it was well over a year ago—and it took a fair bit of reading back through the group chat I sent it to to convince myself that I am indeed the author.

Or am I?

This week’s post is a guest letter, from Charles.

Dear giant creatures,

It is, truly, a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and I am sorry to have to write under such unpleasant circumstances. I do hope you can read this—if I am honest, I did not study as thoroughly as I might have in my biology classes, and I cannot remember whether or not your species is capable of rational thought. Perhaps even the finest minds of science have yet to conclude either way. I shall, for my part, try sending it via a number of vibration protocols, in the hope that one of them is compatible with yours.¹

Before I go on, I do feel I should apologise for whatever it was I did that offended one of you yesterday. I admit I am unsure quite what it was that horrified you so—although it is true that my webcraft has been rather lacking of late, I cannot imagine you would find it so dreadful that it would cause you to scream and run from the room. Whatever it was, I am truly sorry, and I can confirm that I have ensured that the strands in my new web are fully consistent.

This mention of a “new web” brings me to the crux of my message. After the incident yesterday, I felt it best to make myself scarce, and so I retreated into my withdrawing crevice. When I felt I had left you to recover for sufficiently long—certainly as long as decorum necessitated, and indeed longer—I returned, and was dismayed to see that my web had been removed without trace.

One does not like to make accusations, especially not against those whom one has just met. I must insist, therefore, that I considered all possible causes for its disappearance. However, there were no winds strong enough—and please forgive my immodesty—to have destroyed work of the strength of mine, and even from the crevice I would have felt any vibrations violent enough to dislodge it. I confess I even convinced myself, for a while, that I had hallucinated the entire spinning process, perhaps under the effect of some substance. That was until I recalled that I had once partaken of that substance, in the presence of some others of your kind wearing some sort of white garment—and, while the web thus produced was certainly beneath my usual standards, it was, undoubtedly, still there.

It is therefore that I come to the reluctant conclusion that it could have been none other than you who dismantled the web.

I admit my evidence is circumstantial. However, before you deny the charge, please consider that, from my withdrawing crevice, I have a fine view not only of my living room but of the dark chamber adjacent to it (I mean, of course, the one filled with mysterious things, including the Evil Suction God Whose Name We Do Not Speak). I therefore noted that, shortly after one of you ran away in fear, this chamber was flooded with light—an act, I note, which was totally insensible to the possibility of awaking the Suction God from its slumber—and an object removed from it by the remaining party. This object was then returned, in mere moments. I would challenge you, if you are able, to explain what else it might have been used for, if not to sweep away the fruit of my labours.

I am unsure if you are aware, but constructing a web takes many hours, and much silk. I must assume you are not, or you would not have brushed it away so thoughtlessly. If you indeed were aware, this act of yours seems quite disproportionate to any offence I might have caused you.

I fear you cannot help me to repair the damage done, as it appears that you are not blessed with the gift of spinning. In any case, I have rebuilt my home already. I cannot, however, truly say that this is a case of “no harm, no foul”, because, fearing further aggression from you, I have been forced to reconstruct it in the dark chamber, at great personal risk of upsetting the God that dwells therein.

If you would therefore be so kind as to offer a suitable compensation that you can provide—perhaps some of your finest flies, delivered to my new address—I will not take matters further. But I would remind you that I have cousins abroad who are much less tolerant than I, and upon whose services I would not be afraid to draw should the situation necessitate it.

Please note that I do tolerate sharing my home with your kind. But I wish you to remember, above all, that I was here long before you. And, as your predecessors would discover when they did not respond to my similar letter, I will be here long after you.

Yours faithfully,

Charles

P.S. Would you perhaps be able to enlighten me as to why, with half as many limbs available, you only use half of them again to move around? I accept it may be impertinent to ask—and that this may just be typical of the attitude of your species—but it does seem frightfully wasteful.

1. This is probably the best evidence that it was me who wrote this, because this joke is shamelessly stolen from xkcd. ↩︎