Running AGAINST the symbolism of the spider as a cruel predator.

Money spiders fanned out over her palm, their tiny legs all of a tickle. She giggled. How intense they were, absorbed by a common purpose. Theirs was a sweet chaos, the kind you see in every schoolyard at playtime. Tip, tapperty, tap, tip: went hundreds of feet that weren’t feet at all. Her hand lowered to a nearby sunwarm rock to enable them to disembark. Away they streamed in arachnid merriment, this shoal of eight legged friends.
 

Running WITH the symbolism of the spider as a cruel predator.

As a bloody drench, the scarlet spiders came. Not a trickle, yet with waterfall speed down the crumbling wall. Long held venom pulsed behind their jaws. Then, in a mobbing swarm, they scurried, at times pausing in defensive pose. 

 

Running AGAINST the symbolism of  the snake as a predatory liar.

The sidewinder, happily plumped with a semi-digested rat, dozed in post-dawn rays. Its meal was its serenity. The desert day could pass unremarked, as if the heat were a lullaby-daydream. Its scales, sunlit, were a thousand khaki mirrors. From time to time it tasted the air and readjusted its relaxing coils. The joy of doing nothing, of simply existing, was its goal and raison d’etre.

 

Running WITH the symbolism of  the snake as a predatory liar.

A void of soul and venom-stare, fangs exposed: the king cobra rose. In creeping waves, it cleaved the air until, at last, it froze in static poise, its hood expanding wide. Conspiratorial shadows congealed over its frozen form. Then, deaf to the parrots, deaf to the monkey’s chatter, it glared the most hollow of glares. 

 

Running AGAINST the symbolism of bats as cruel predators.

As living shadows the bats swooped, cooly bathed within guardian rock. They chirped and played, wings stretched wide, these masters of the night. Their family, thousands strong, heeded Twilight's call. As armourless knights, the cold currents they rode as eagles of the night.

 

Running WITH the symbolism of bats as cruel predators.

The colony of bats spread as dark infectious mirth, multiplying beneath a grey camouflaged nigh-skin. Scaly shadows they were, fangs bared to the coldness. Bite. Bite. Bite. As their sound pinged all around for any and every twitch, it was a foul night to be abroad without even the scantest of shelter.

 

Running AGAINST the symbolism of  insects as creepy infestations.

Shields of metallic green ran hither and thither, sparky and fast. It was as if they grooved to pop music, the kind that enlivens summer days. To my inner eye the kitchen vinyl became a wide parchment awaiting a composer’s pen. To this scene the beetles were the notes, constantly creating a new melody.

 

Running WITH the symbolism of insects as creepy infestations.

As pale blisters, they rose in the dank gloom, a festering of bleached insects.  So much had they eaten, so rapid was their greed, that they sank themselves into a sleepy-hollow. Even in their creeping scurry no ground could be seen, so thickly layered were they. To be an insect at the bottom or any middle point would be to live in a world with only the beating of exoskeleton oars.

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Running AGAINST the symbolism of the scorpion as a cruel predator.

Scorpions pay no mind to the ticking of clocks, nor heed the shouts of worried beasts. In the warm light they wait, claws relaxed, sting ever-ready. No energy wasted. No frivolous flourishes. No need to build a web. Hide and wait. Hide and wait. Hide and wait. Let the prey do the work.

 

Running WITH the symbolism of the scorpion as a cruel predator.

Ignorant of the desert bloom’s beauty, the scorpion lurked. Parched sand and shrivelled plant-death were all the same to him. Blind to the shimmer of light warmed land, no fragrance did he detect. Through life-thickened armour, came not a murmuring of the world beyond. He bore his venom tail in high jaunty fashion, as if it were both coat of arms and standard bearer. As days became weeks, as weeks blurred into a yawn of time, he was the monarch of that fractured rock.

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