Countryhumans Art Book

The Light Of Allah

More casual alternative (Iran got them for her)

Traumatic memory that I was thinking of today- there is a area near me with what I think is called an irrigation canal. It is big enough to get a small boat down, and too rural for anyone to stop us even if we're not allowed. And my friend has a kayak. So we go along this canal and find a large tunnel. Obviously we want to go through it. I'm in the front. As we enter I see them. Large, round balls. Hundreds of them it seems. Spiders. Very. Large. Spiders. I scream and we rapidly paddle back. Then I regird myself, we go back in, I see them and scream again. I am not afraid of spiders but I cannot stress to you how many they were. Hanging there. I could see gogogo hovering around them. It triggered some primal feeling in me to retreat. Final time, plan of action. Friend steers while I sit in front and wave my paddle in the air to destroy the webs. The thick, huge webs that stretch from tunnel wall to wall. I crouch down, raise my paddle, close my eyes and start swinging. We enter. Friend finally sees the horror I saw. Screams. I command her not to back down. We're going. I'm waving my paddle. I can hear it hitting the spiders, and I can hear them plopping into the water. Friend is still screaming. I'm screaming at her to steer and telling her that if we tip I will kill myself. She is giving me a verbal description of what is happening. 'They're huge! One is above your head! It's stuck to your paddle!' My eyes are closed because I do not want to know these things. I have to open them to get the spider off my paddle as it is coming for me, scuttling down the pole for my hands. I am still screaming as I can't smack it against the wall because then we will go right through the spider webs, and if I feel the beasts on my face I will capsize us. Also I am seeing the spiders as I get within a few feet of them. Finally I get the spider off, slam my eyes close again and hunker down. Then light. We are out of the tunnel. Both still screaming. My skin is crawling. We're both demanding each other to check if there are spiders on us. Once we are a safe distance away, we go to get onto the shore and I see it. Big yellow spider. Right in my kayak hole. I leap up and my friend screams again because she thinks I'm going to abandon ship. I am calm now. I vanquish the spider. Then jump out and full body shudder. We check each other for spiders. We destress. We realize that in order to return home, we need to go back through the tunnel.

I have no idea what kind of spiders they were. There were different types, big and small. But mostly big. I think the one I killed was a joro-gumo because it was yellow, but I have no idea. Which is sad because I do like joro-gumo, they're pretty, but... not in that concentration. I cannot say enough that I have never seen that many spiders before, living so close, all together. Whenever I think of this I get very squirmy.