The most hazardous thing related to owning a bathroom, as many may know, is the multitude of bugs and pondlife that lie secretly resident within its many hidden crevices. Many bathroom owners are able to luxuriate in their baths, most satisfied in the knowledge that their resident beasties are mostly too fearful to make their existence known in the presence of the bathrooms largest benefactor.
Unfortunately, I myself do not suffer from this particular luxury. All too frequently I have found myself sharing my cleansing time with various insects and alike, in particularly, those known as woodlice, several of which measure significantly larger than my biggest toe. This can be somewhat disconcerting for someone of moderately diminutive stature, and thusly, I have found myself to be inflicting violent or unpleasant demises on these creatures. Previously, I had taken much time and care to ensure the safe capture and despatch of intruding woodlice, but with the increasing frequency of intrusions from increasingly large louse folk, I must admit, to my detriment, I panicked. I resorted to washing them down the drain or sweeping them up with a dust-pan and brush, which no doubt must have caused untold damage to their health and lungs.
Then one day I returned from a short break at my parents. Upon entering the bathroom, I noted there had been a distinct alteration in the balance of power within the miniature life-form fraternity. No longer was the floor littered with the larger woodlice engaging leisurely in their customs of social interaction, instead found there to be an alarmed contingent of small and still smaller lice, rushing to and from the radiator behind the door.
At first glance, it appeared that several of the larger lice had somehow managed to incapacitate themselves within the weave of an old, dusty web. But upon closer inspection I discovered that it was an invisible newly spun trap which was distressing these small beasts. But for all their struggles, no predator appeared, only smaller lice could be seen to attend the victims.
And then she struck. She, who was to become known as Roberta, did not appear to appear, but it was quite apparent to the eye that a sinister factor had been added to the drama that made the woodlouse's struggle all the more desperate.
Outside the window, clouds shifted, and a sudden shaft of light exposed her, Roberta.
The speck of dust, was not bouncing on the web in response to the struggles of the louse, but was in fact causing the louse distress. And the fine strands that secured this speck to the web, weren't spider silk, but spider legs.
Enthralled, I watched her elegantly entangle the stricken louse, manipulating the creature with speedy mesmeric motion. Outside, again the light shifted, leaving the louse, to my eyes, impossibly suspended between linoleum and iron. Shortly, the louse no longer struggled, the web barely vibrating with its attempts to escape from Roberta's swaddling-like shroud.
A few hours later, I found the bathroom desserted, and no sign of life, save a few dark specks and tiny legs, scattered behind the door.
Oh My!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI think I just understood this. Roberta must ne the very same Hyacinth visiting my house years ago.
An abnormal, super-real beast which struck the downfall of a very good friend of mine, Albert.
What shocking knowlege!
..but a truly inspiering story
:)