Better Off Dead

Chapter Nine: Tarantulas Don't Judge

I decided to warm up and clear my mind in the backyard. Stare at the sky and pretend I hadn't been shot. At least the yard was nice. There was a garden, a pool, and tall fences on the sides so no one would see me, and the back was a glass wall that looked out over the ocean. There was no patio furniture, but whatever. I sat on the concrete and warmed up like a reptile. I wondered if reptiles were happy. They didn't have to worry about the things I did, but on the other hand, they did have to worry about getting eaten by cats. Being eaten sounded terrible.

I was just contemplating that unfavorable method of execution when I saw something move over my face. Something dark and fuzzy. Then I felt the little footsteps on my skin. It was a tarantula. On my face.

While I didn't love having an arachnid eyepatch, there was something encouraging about it. The creature picked me, me, to walk on. It wasn't afraid of me.

Tarantulas don't judge. It doesn't matter if your face is black, white, green, or nonexistent, they will crawl over it without prejudice. A tarantula accepts you for who you are. You are someone it can walk on.

I chilled there with the spider for a while. Eventually it moved on and crawled down my arm. The tarantula had a bow on it. Out of the entire unlikely encounter, that's what surprised me.

Something was moving by the fence. It was a little girl peeking her head over and looking at me.

"Did you see Rosie?" The girl asked.

I had no idea what that meant. "Who?"

"My tarantula Rosie. She has a pink bow."

It all made sense. "Yeah, I'll bring her. How did she get over here?"

"She climbed the wall like me. She's really good at climbing." The child looked very proud. As she should. I had no idea how a child managed to reach the top of a wall like that. "I'm not supposed to play with her outside but I did and she got away."

Not exactly a surprising outcome. I carried Rosie over to the girl, making sure my scary side was turned away from her. I gently set the spider in the box held out to me and looked at it again. The bow was hilarious.

I figured that would conclude our verbal transaction and started to turn away, but the kid kept talking.

"You look sad." She said. She noticed? No one notices how I look. This kid was good.

"Yeah. Things aren't great." I said. Maybe I should have lied and said things were nice? Are you supposed to lie to kids? I had no idea and left it at that.

The girl looked thoughtful. "Why not?"

"Uh..." I figured I'd just talk to the kid. Opportunities for friendly conversation don't often come my way. But I wasn't sure what to say. It's not like I was going to tell her I just got shot. I know you should at least lie to kids about that. I'd talk about the problem from a different direction. "I moved here for a job, but it turns out the job is way crazier than I realized. And worse. It's just way worse."

She scrunched her face and thought about this. "One time my grandma said I could eat cookies, but there weren't cookies, we had to make the cookies even though she said there were cookies. But then we made cookies and they were yummy."

Okay... I could see where she was going with the analogy. I thought it over. "So you're saying... sometimes people expect way more from you than they said, but ultimately you still reach the end goal it was just a little harder than expected?"

She nodded proudly. "Mhm!"

I was impressed by this kid's wisdom. "You're so right. I'm still getting the cookies. I just have to put in the unexpected effort of baking them, but the important thing is that the cookies will be attained. Huh. Thanks, kid."

The cute child's cookie analogy really reminded me how meaningless my own physical safety and experience of pain was. Totally irrelevant. It's all for the cause. I had no idea how she was able to teach me this. And with only a couple of sentences. This kid was amazing.

"I smell cookies I have to go bye." She vanished. Just like that. Appeared out of thin air like a fairy godmother to help me not to worry about the little things like getting shot. It's easy for us to get lost in the details and lose sight of what's really important. Like dying.