Webs

~Webs~

The sac wafted gently in the darkness, twirling slightly from side to side in the humid breeze. The night was hot, the jungle expectant, a new birth arriving always kept other organisms quiet as if the jungle held its breath. 

The mother attended the parcel carefully, it was almost ready, she had collected food and was unsure what she should now do, unaware of her own purpose yet reluctant to leave the nest until the young had birthed. The pulpy mass glistened and gleamed alone, it did not need her anymore. 

The wall of the white mass pulped. She paused in her flicking of one stream of web. 

A tiny gap appeared, a young leg probing outside, tentative, feeling, sensing, learning. 

The mother watched closely, she saw visions of her own birth in her mind, hers was faster, more sensually panicked than this - why? 

The leg removed itself from the gap. This was wrong, she began to panic, tearing open the cocoon with her own strength, ripping open a small enough section to get inside and free her young, stopping suddenly when she realised the sac was almost empty. 

One small, fat spider sat in the middle of the white mass. It looked dead, she moved forwards and probed it gently, her only offspring staring as if dead into white space. 

There was no sound, inside the cocoon. 

The movement was fast and planned, the last thing the mother expected as her face was held tightly between two fast pincers was that trusted, sensual feeling of her own birth flooding back to her, despair and relief in the same moment, until her sole brood began to wrap her in her own silk and feast.

"Alex?" 

Sound first. 

"Alex?" 

A thin rim of light, and heat on her body. She woke carefully, not stretching too far, the night was cold and her sleeping bag warm. 

"Alex, do I have to get a cold wet flannel or what?" 

She opened her eyes to see her father staring down at her, grey hairs struggling to cover his now balding head. 

"Dad, what time is it?" she stifled an obnoxious, almost teenage yawn, the movement warped her voice. 

"Around 3, I need you for something, now." He moved towards the door of the tent, his hands on the ladder, beckoning. 

"What is it? Damned dogs get in again or what?" 

"Something else, something different, come on, haven't got all night." 

He disappeared through the flap, Alex heard him jump from the bottom rung like a schoolboy and rose her head to find her lamp. 

She rose, tying her black hair back quickly, dragging up some khaki's and a creased shirt, with all the excitement of a sleepy Christmas morning. 

She poked her head out into the darkness. A huge range of stars glistened for attention above the canopy of tree's they were beneath. The camp raised from ground level by stilts to avoid any animals having access to the people or their food. Further tents and protected storage boxes littered the tree's, sitting roughly on branches and artificial scaffolds. Just like a bunch of ewoks, she thought fondly. 

Alexander opened her mosquito net cover and birthed herself form the tent, sealing it up behind her. Her father was already geared up for a long trek at the base of her tree, carrying a rifle and cutting gear. She dropped down silently, so as not to wake the rest of the crew, one tent shuffled gently against the natural rhythm of the jungle, shuffling unsteadily, two figures embracing in the cool night.