Spiders Surprise

The spiders extended their narrow legs in a stilted fashion, reaching from one point to another, partial pushing and partially pulling their weight. They came from behind curtains of heavy web, descended on nearly invisible strands of silver light, floated on the breeze below long trailing webs. They came to that low place in the earth, sheltered by the gozzy canopy of dusty silk. They huddled close to each other, their black polished bodies gleaming like breads made from a starless night. Their mass collected spec by spec until the lot of them appears as one obsidian armored entity.

The sound came as a whisper at first. The scratching of one spider fang against the body of another. The tapping of a leg on the soft dry earth filling in the space between the sound of silk twisting in a spinneret. Countless movements and their audible consequences built until words wavered in the air like smoke.

“You.” The spiders fidgeted in a frenzy.

Samuels eyes were slits of white and black between flex sockets. His hands wide to his sides as if he may lose balance. His shoulders rolled forward, poised to push away anything that would come near.

“Have.” The sound was full of scraping, shrill vibrations of exoskeletal friction.

“Come.” The black mass oscillated against the ground, effortfully creating the low sounds of the word.

“Why?” The wetness of the word emitted by countless blinking eyes.

Samuel crouched low, his fingers pressing into the dry, lifeless earth. “I… I… This is so strange, I… I wanted to know. To find out.” His mouth felt dry despite his need to swallow his nervous salivation.

“Know?” The polished beads flexed, revealing a hint of their collective strength; the sound of spiders silk being pulled over soft abdomens.

“Yes.” Samuel’s eyes blinked repeatedly in an attempt to clear away any tick of light that may be afflicting them. “I’ve seen you, or your kind, in the trees. I’ve seen you in the webs and… You move… You’re always… If one moves one way another… there’s a pattern to how your kind moves. It’s connected. And…” Samuel surrendered to his stammering.

“Many words. Use few.” The black beads skittered apart, their mass dispersing before rejoining.

Samuel stood, ready to move. “Aware.”

The black, glass like collection jittered. A vibration of all its part. The sound that followed seemed to come from every distant point of the old dark wood. A distant thunderstorm made of infinite parts. “And so we have been. Does your kind not know this?”