Deep Spiders Quotes

The zombie looks like a man, walks like a man, eats and otherwise functions fully, yet is devoid of the spark. It represents the nagging doubt that lays deep in the heart of even the most zealous believer: behind all of your pretty songs and stained glass, this is what you really are. Shambling meat. Our true fear of the zombie was never that its bite would turn us into one of them. Our fear is that we are already zombies.

At last he stopped, and she stared down at the printed column of words, unable to comprehend a single one. His hand, warm and steady, wound its way around hers, wrapping it like a spider would its prey. She surrendered it to him, unable to watch even as his thumb traced the place, just above her knuckles, where he had once written his number in deep violet. Isobel ceased to breathe. Her heart pounded in her chest, her thoughts shattering into senseless fragments. All the while, her eyes remained trained and unblinking on the open page. Lines without meaning stared up at her, little more than black sticks in an otherwise white world.

Instead, I cut him. Not deep, but there was enough of a sting in the wound to remind him of what I'd done to the dwarven mobsters in the parking lot - and that I wasn't just some chick with a knife who looked good in black.

SPIDER-MAN (thinking): I can bench press a car. I can climb up the side of a wall. Fight twenty guys to a standstill. Swing across chasms thirty stories deep. Feel a bullet coming my way and move fast enough to get clear. But something in her makes me gentle. Makes me shy. Makes me strong. Makes me happy to be alive. And maybe that's it. Maybe that's what it really comes down to. She makes me. Makes me whole . . . She completes me . . . So here's the thing, God . . . I know I complain a lot, and I know that you and me, we've got issues, but right now, just for tonight . . . Thank you for her. Thank you. Amazing Spider-Man #53 (Volume 2)

And she arose from her deathbed in a gossamer gown, with eyes the color of starlight and hair as black as the night. And those who were her captors trembled, for the scent of death and madness emanated from her soul, and yet she was not dead. She moved like the spiders that creep in the treetops, and none could look away. Taking her first captor in hand, she fed deep and ravenous. And so it was that Myst, Queen of the Indigo Court, was born from the blood of the dead.

The peace of Manderley. The quietude and the grace. Whoever lived within its walls, whatever trouble there was and strife, however much uneasiness and pain, no matter what tears were shed, what sorrows borne, the peace of Manderley could not be broken or the loveliness destroyed. The flowers that died would bloom again another year, the same birds build their nests, the same trees blossom. That old quiet moss smell would linger in the air, and the bees would come, and crickets, the herons build their nests in the deep dark woods. The butterflies would dance their merry jug across the lawns, and spiders spin foggy webs, and small startled rabbits who had no business to come trespassing poke their faces through the crowded shrubs. There would be lilac, and honeysuckle still, and the white magnolia buds unfolding slow and tight beneath the dining-room window. No one would ever hurt Manderley. It would lie always in its hollow like an enchanted thing, guarded by the woods, safe, secure, while the sea broke and ran and came again in the little shingle bays below.

Here dwells a snake, one thousand miles long Coiled, one thousand miles deep Eyes like candy, it has eyes like candy Hard and blue, but soft as kittens feet Out of sight or in the element of light It could be a devil, it could be an angel With spiders inside a vision from hell Its spine is a vertical scream Slow as concrete, blurred as a dream Fueled by inertia, depth, radius, and velocity, Its soul--a twisted wreckage of despair and pain And the spiders inside are just praying for rain Killing time killing time And praying for rain One thousand miles deep

In the dream from which he'd wakened he had wandered in a cave where the child led him by the hand. Their light playing over the wet flowstone walls. Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast. Deep stone flues where the water dripped and sang. Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth and the hours and the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark.

Gormenghast. Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracts. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet beats away from a choked river. Deep in a fist of stone a doll's hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm. A shadow shifts its length. A spider stirs... And darkness winds between the characters. - Gormenghast

Black vomit came gushing out Samantha’s mouth, adding to the puddle already on the floor. Samantha was covered in a sheen of sweat, crouched on all fours on the wooden hallway floor, like an animal. Her thick yellow fingernails made deep scratches in the wood as her body convulsed with each new expulsion of the black vomit. Her hair was long and thick and full; thicker and fuller than he had ever seen it. It reminded him of a lion’s mane. Her skin was a sickly pale grey with disturbing red boils the size of grapefruit and weeping puss-filled black blotches where others had burst. Spider webs of blue veins were visible under the skin all over her body.

Do fear and love same the same root? I wondered if he was really scared of them. He knew everything there was to know about spiders, the way you take a deep interest in something because you love it so much.

How sweetly she looks! O, but there's a wrinkle in her brow as deep as philosophy. - Anacreon, drink to my mistress' health, I'll pledge it. Stay, stay, there's a spider in the cup! No, 'tis but a grape-stone; swallow it, fear nothing, poet. So, so; lift higher.

​They, society, hate you because they don’t want your help. You remind them of how weak willed and sheep like they are. How gleeful they are, deep down, to be ordinary. They don’t want heroes. They don’t want special people around them. Because if there are special people and they aren’t one of them - well who wants that? Who wants a constant reminder that they aren’t even trying to be special?

Despite the deep pits that lead to oubliettes, the trees that move to make you lose your way, the ice spiders that wrap their prey in frozen gossamer, the mad king, and the curse.

What’s your biggest fear?” I asked. Now that the door was open, I wanted to know a few things about him. He might be hot, but maybe I wouldn't like him. Maybe he was a jerk. . . “My biggest fear,” Hayden repeated as he ran his hands through his thick blond hair. “My biggest fear is being alone through all eternity.” Damn, that was deep. I was going to say spiders.

She would create such a to-do that Mr. Pyebald would be required to explain, or slink off to hide in a deep dark hole, infested with snakes and rats … maybe a spider or two … knee deep in sheep and pig slop … cold and miserable.

Annie clouded up. For a second, he thought she was going to erupt, and flinched. She saw that...and got control of herself with an visible effort. She took three deep breaths, each longer than the last, and her features became serene. All at once it seemed totally clear to Mike that she was right and he was nuts - that his ingenius theory was nonsense, childish, fantasty bullshit. His conviction evaporated, and he was ashamed. He felt his cheeks grow hot, groped for words with which to backtrack - "I have to admit I have no better explanation for the the facts," Annie said slowly. Again, Mike did an emotional instant 180. "Holy shit -" She held up a hand. "I am going to think now. Very hard, for a long time. You will be as quiet as possible while I do." She got up from the computer, went to the bed, and lay down. "Think yourself, or read, or play games with the headphones on, or go Topside if you like." She clasped her hands on her belly, closed her eyes and appeared to go to sleep

Look out there, my little princess,” he called down to her. “These plants are only the very tip of the earth’s treasures, almost like hairs on her head. She hides so many other secrets deep within her, and one day, if you’re lucky, you may find some of them.

You all remember,” said the Controller, in his strong deep voice, “you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford’s: History is bunk. History,” he repeated slowly, “is bunk.” He waved his hand; and it was as though, with an invisible feather wisk, he had brushed away a little dust, and the dust was Harappa, was Ur of the Chaldees; some spider-webs, and they were Thebes and Babylon and Cnossos and Mycenae. Whisk. Whisk-and where was Odysseus, where was Job, where were Jupiter and Gotama and Jesus? Whisk-and those specks of antique dirt called Athens and Rome, Jerusalem and the Middle Kingdom-all were gone. Whisk-the place where Italy had been was empty. Whisk, the cathedrals; whisk, whisk, King Lear and the Thoughts of Pascal. Whisk, Passion; whisk, Requiem; whisk, Symphony; whisk...

Sneaky and underhanded, the Federal Reserve has been sucking the life blood out of the United States since 1913. Like a black widow spider, it weaves a web of corruption and deceit. Unknown to its prey, the FED's bite is poisonous, deep, long-lasting and brings financial upheaval and misery to Americans.

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill monsters and feel quite proud of themselves. Even a girl who carries spiders outside instead of stepping on them, a girl who once fed a tiny fox kit with an eyedropper every two hours until wildlife rescue could come and pick it up—that same girl can kill and be ready to do it again. She can take her dead dog home and bury him and cry over his cooling and stiffening body, making promises as she digs a deep hole in the backyard. She can look at her brother and believe that together they’re a knight and a bard who battle evil, who might someday find and

Hic Jacet Arthurus Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus Arthur is gone…Tristram in Careol Sleeps, with a broken sword - and Yseult sleeps Beside him, where the Westering waters roll Over drowned Lyonesse to the outer deeps. Lancelot is fallen . . . The ardent helms that shone So knightly and the splintered lances rust In the anonymous mould of Avalon: Gawain and Gareth and Galahad - all are dust. Where do the vanes and towers of Camelot And tall Tintagel crumble? Where do those tragic Lovers and their bright eyed ladies rot? We cannot tell, for lost is Merlin's magic. And Guinevere - Call her not back again Lest she betray the loveliness time lent A name that blends the rapture and the pain Linked in the lonely nightingale's lament. Nor pry too deeply, lest you should discover The bower of Astolat a smokey hut Of mud and wattle - find the knightliest lover A braggart, and his lilymaid a slut. And all that coloured tale a tapestry Woven by poets. As the spider's skeins Are spun of its own substance, so have they Embroidered empty legend - What remains? This: That when Rome fell, like a writhen oak That age had sapped and cankered at the root, Resistant, from her topmost bough there broke The miracle of one unwithering shoot. Which was the spirit of Britain - that certain men Uncouth, untutored, of our island brood Loved freedom better than their lives; and when The tempest crashed around them, rose and stood And charged into the storm's black heart, with sword Lifted, or lance in rest, and rode there, helmed With a strange majesty that the heathen horde Remembered when all were overwhelmed; And made of them a legend, to their chief, Arthur, Ambrosius - no man knows his name - Granting a gallantry beyond belief, And to his knights imperishable fame. They were so few . . . We know not in what manner Or where they fell - whether they went Riding into the dark under Christ's banner Or died beneath the blood-red dragon of Gwent. But this we know; that when the Saxon rout Swept over them, the sun no longer shone On Britain, and the last lights flickered out; And men in darkness muttered: Arthur is gone…

A gardener is like a prophet looking out on a barren land and saying, ‘I see corn on that hill, and beans beneath the grove, and lavender in the field, and over there some roses by the brick wall.’ Don’t you think that’s what a good friend should be like? A truly good friend is one who can look at our bare lives and see the fruit of what will one day come from deep inside us.

As fascinating and just plain weird as the deep-sea geothermal vent ecosystems are, they have a great deal less diversity than we find in ecosystems that receive direct sunlight. At deep-sea vents we’ve counted about 1,300 species so far. In the Amazon rain forest, we can find 40,000 species of insects, just insects, in a typical square kilometer. Couple that with trees, monkeys, spiders, and snakes, and the rain forest has thousandfold the diversity.

Within the first five minutes of my opening, I always say something like this - "I want you to imagine you're building a spider web together, that you have strings coming out of your wrists, that connect with the other people here. We can only go as deep as the weakest thread will allow, now none of you are the weakest link... but the weakest thread between the two of you will determine how deep we can go together. I remind them of this throughout the session -- BUILD A WEB.

There is impotency being haunted by things we can’t change; being stuck in your own damn mistakes isn’t healthy. But when I think about the things I need to do right now, and possibly won’t, because I’d rather talk myself out of doing something that’s coming from my heart, there’s impotency in that, as well, and it’s the worst kind of indifference, Spider; it’s not doing what your heart is telling you to do. And there you’ll be, old and dying, with regrets deep as the Seneca, and maybe even longer.

It took a full week to find her way in. In that time she was chased by some of the same-clothes people, and other dogs, and was almost hit by cars more times than she could remember. But she made it, inside the big building full of terrible smells—layers upon layers of ancient sickness and slow death. Now she was curled up next to Meatsmell and it wasn’t raining on them and everything was back the way it was supposed to be. She fell into a deep sleep, inside this huge building full of anxious and tired people, many of whom she noticed were not really people.

Nobody falls that way without being pushed. I know. And I know how it feels and looks, a body that falls fighting air all the way down, grabbing on to clumps of nothing and begging once, just once, just goddamn once, Jesus, you sniveling son of a mongrel bitch, just once that air gives a grip. And you land in a ditch five feet deep or on a marble-tiled floor sixteen feet down, still fighting when the floor rises up and smashes into you because it got tired of waiting for blood. And we’re still dead but we wake up, me a crushed spider, him a burned cockroach. I have no memory of coffins.

But afterwards in the pub, they had dreamed about the big stories and talked for hours of how they would never be satisfied with the conventional or the shallow but instead would always dig deep. They were young and ambitious and wanted it all, all at once. There were times when Levin missed that, not the salary, or the working hours, or even the easy life in the bars and the women, but the dreams—he missed the power in them. He sometimes longed for that throbbing urge to change society and journalism and to write so that the world would come to a standstill and the mighty powers bow down. Even a hotshot like himself wondered: Where did the dreams go?

By the time she had picked every visible corpse off her property, the heap included ants, beetles and cockroaches, different kinds of spiders, some bees, flies, a wasp, two fetid lizard skins and the brittle remains of their skeletons, six butterflies, a stick insect the length of her forearm, two dragonflies, a handful of crickets and other creatures that in the world of naming remained untitled. The collection measured a full hand deep. She paid no attention to the odour rising out of the bucket. The scent of decay was not offensive to her. It was the aroma of life refusing to end. It was the aroma of transformation. Such odour was proof that nothing truly ended, and she revelled in it as much as she did the cereus blossoms along the back wall of the house.

The perfectionist in her wanted to be sure he'd done it correctly, so she took a cautious step toward the edge of the roof, only to get here foot caught in the gauze. Cade jerked up on the roll, just as she stepped down. The fabric slipped between her legs. Up her thighs, all the way to her crotch. She froze. Her eyes went wide. Embarrassment colored her cheeks. "Grace?" Cade's voice was deep, amused, questioning. He gave the webbing a tug, attempting to pull it free. Instead it rubbed intimately, at the crease between her sex and thigh. His gaze on her groin, he gave a second slow pull. His eyes darkened. A muscle jerked in his jaw. His nostrils flared. He rolled his shoulders and released the tautness of the gauze. The clearing of his throat cut the tension, the silence. "Snared in a spider's web," he joked, lightening the moment.

There is a deep stillness in the Fakahatchee, but there is not a moment of physical peace. Something is always brushing against you or lapping at you or snagging at you or tangling in your legs, and the sun is always pummeling your skin, and the wetness in the air makes your hair coil like a phone cord. You never smell plain air in a swamp - you smell the tang of mud and the sourness of rotting leaves and the cool musk of new leaves and the perfumes of a million different flowers floating by, each distinct but transparent, like soap bubbles. The biggest number in the universe would not be big enough to count the things your eyes see. Every inch of land holds up a thatch of tall grass or a bush or a tree, and every bush or tree is girdled with another plant’s roots, and every root is topped with a flower or a fern or a swollen bulb, and every one of those flowers and ferns is the pivot around which a world of bees and gnats and spiders and dragonflies revolve. The sounds you hear are twigs cracking underfoot and branches whistling past you and leaves murmuring and leaves slopping over the trunks of old dead trees and every imaginable and unimaginable insect noise and every kind of bird peep and screech and tootle, and then all those unclaimed sounds of something moving in a hurry, something low to the ground and heavy, maybe the size of a horse in the shape of a lizard, or maybe the size, shape and essential character of a snake. In the swamp you feel as if someone had plugged all of your senses into a light socket. A swamp is logy and slow-moving about at the same time highly overstimulating. Even in the dim, sultry places deep within it, it is easy to stay awake.

Suddenly thousands of raindrops fall before me. The movement of the expanding rings through the rosy water triggers some kind of trance. I watch the droplets transform into mini-swells of energy—varying wave amplitudes crossing over each other from all directions. Dynamic, chaotic, brilliant. Both infinite and finite at once. Time freezes and it feels as if my consciousness is floating. I am the raindrop, and the cloud, and the sky, and the setting sun. On this unusual frequency, I feel the connectedness of all things, a sensation of deep belonging. All one and simultaneously separate. Feeling becomes understanding—this great dichotomy dissolves. In this strange, brief moment, I am expansive like the Milky Way, minute like plankton, powerful like the tides, as solid as the volcanic crater, fragile like a spider’s web, patient like the trees, and empty as a cloudless sky.

Stenham had always taken it for granted that the dichotomy of belief and behavior was the cornerstone of the Moslem world. It was too deep to be called hypocrisy; it was merely custom. They said one thing and they did something else. They affirmed their adherence to Islam in formulated phrases, but they behaved as though they believed, and actually did believe, something quite different. Still, the unchanging profession of faith was there, and to him it was this eternal contradiction which made them Moslems. But Amar’s relationship to his religion was far more robust: he believed it possible to practice literally what the Koran enjoined him to profess. He kept the precepts constantly in his hand, and applied them on every occasion, at every moment. The fact that such a person as Amar could be produced by this society rather upset Stenham’s calculations. For Stenham, the exception invalidated the rule instead of proving it: if there were one Amar, there could be others. Then the Moroccans were not the known quantity he had thought they were, inexorably conditioned by the pressure of their own rigid society; his entire construction was false in consequence, because it was too simple and did not make allowances for individual variations.

We came to the city because we wished to live haphazardly, to reach for only the least realistic of our desires, and to see if we could not learn what our failures had to teach, and not, when we came to live, discover that we had never died. We wanted to dig deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to be overworked and reduced to our last wit. And if our bosses proved mean, why then we’d evoke their whole and genuine meanness afterward over vodka cranberries and small batch bourbons. And if our drinking companions proved to be sublime then we would stagger home at dawn over the Old City cobblestones, into hot showers and clean shirts, and press onward until dusk fell again. For the rest of the world, it seemed to us, had somewhat hastily concluded that it was the chief end of man to thank God it was Friday and pray that Netflix would never forsake them. Still we lived frantically, like hummingbirds; though our HR departments told us that our commitments were valuable and our feedback was appreciated, our raises would be held back another year. Like gnats we pestered Management— who didn’t know how to use the Internet, whose only use for us was to set up Facebook accounts so they could spy on their children, or to sync their iPhones to their Outlooks, or to explain what tweets were and more importantly, why— which even we didn’t know. Retire! we wanted to shout. We ha Get out of the way with your big thumbs and your senior moments and your nostalgia for 1976! We hated them; we wanted them to love us. We wanted to be them; we wanted to never, ever become them. Complexity, complexity, complexity! We said let our affairs be endless and convoluted; let our bank accounts be overdrawn and our benefits be reduced. Take our Social Security contributions and let it go bankrupt. We’d been bankrupt since we’d left home: we’d secure our own society. Retirement was an afterlife we didn’t believe in and that we expected yesterday. Instead of three meals a day, we’d drink coffee for breakfast and scavenge from empty conference rooms for lunch. We had plans for dinner. We’d go out and buy gummy pad thai and throat-scorching chicken vindaloo and bento boxes in chintzy, dark restaurants that were always about to go out of business. Those who were a little flush would cover those who were a little short, and we would promise them coffees in repayment. We still owed someone for a movie ticket last summer; they hadn’t forgotten. Complexity, complexity. In holiday seasons we gave each other spider plants in badly decoupaged pots and scarves we’d just learned how to knit and cuff links purchased with employee discounts. We followed the instructions on food and wine Web sites, but our soufflés sank and our baked bries burned and our basil ice creams froze solid. We called our mothers to get recipes for old favorites, but they never came out the same. We missed our families; we were sad to be rid of them. Why shouldn’t we live with such hurry and waste of life? We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to decrypt our neighbors’ Wi-Fi passwords and to never turn on the air-conditioning. We vowed to fall in love: headboard-clutching, desperate-texting, hearts-in-esophagi love. On the subways and at the park and on our fire escapes and in the break rooms, we turned pages, resolved to get to the ends of whatever we were reading. A couple of minutes were the day’s most valuable commodity. If only we could make more time, more money, more patience; have better sex, better coffee, boots that didn’t leak, umbrellas that didn’t involute at the slightest gust of wind. We were determined to make stupid bets. We were determined to be promoted or else to set the building on fire on our way out. We were determined to be out of our minds.

Once unbound from the shackles of truth, Fox’s power came from what it decided to cover—its chosen narratives—and what it decided to ignore. Trump’s immature, erratic, and immoral behavior? His sucking up to Putin? His mingling of presidential business and personal profit? Fox talk shows played dumb and targeted the “deep state” instead. Conservative media types were like spiders, spinning webs and trying to catch prey. They insisted the real story was an Obama-led plot against Trump to stop him from winning the election. One night Hannity irrationally exclaimed, “This makes Watergate look like stealing a Snickers bar from a drugstore!” Another night he upped the hysteria, insisting this scandal “will make Watergate look like a parking ticket.” The following night he screeched, “This is Watergate times a thousand.” He strung viewers along, invoking mysterious “sources” who were “telling us” that “this is just the tip of the iceberg.” There was always another “iceberg” ahead, always another twist coming, always another Democrat villain to attack after the commercial break. Hannity and Trump were so aligned that, on one weird night in 2018, Hannity had to deny that he was giving Trump a sneak peek at his monologues after the president tweeted out, twelve minutes before air, “Big show tonight on @SeanHannity! 9: 00 P.M. on @FoxNews.” Political reporters fumbled for their remotes and flipped over to Fox en masse. Hannity raved about the “Mueller crime family” and said the Russia investigation was “corrupt” and promoted a guest who said Mueller “surrounded himself with literally a bunch of legal terrorists,” whatever that meant. Some reporters who did not watch Fox regularly were shocked at how unhinged and extreme the content was. But this was just an ordinary night in the pro-Trump alternative universe. Night after night, Hannity said the Mueller probe needed to be stopped immediately, for the good of the country. Trump’s attempts at obstruction flowed directly from his “Executive Time.

Simon laughs when I audibly exhale. “Relieved she’s not here yet?” I roll my suitcase into one of the barren bedrooms and then plunk down on the rock-hard, hideous orange sofa in the lounge. Simon takes a swivel chair from my room and slides it in front of me, where he then plants himself. “Why are you so worried?” I cross my arms and look around the concrete room. “I’m not worried at all. She’s probably very nice. I’m sure we’ll become soul mates, and she’ll braid my hair, and we’ll have pillow fights while scantily clad and fall into a deep lesbian love affair.” I squint my eyes at a cobweb and assume there are spider eggs preparing to hatch and invade the room. “Allison?” Simon waits until I look at him. “You can’t do that. You can’t become a lesbian.” “Why not?” “Because then everyone will say that your adoptive gay father magically made you gay, and it’ll be a big thing, and we’ll have to hear about nature versus nurture, and it’ll be soooooo boring.” “You have a point.” I wait for spider eggs to fall from the sky. “Then I’ll go with assuming she’s just a really sweet, normal person with whom I do not want to engage in sexual relations.” “Better,” he concedes. “I’m sure she’ll be nice. This kind of strong liberal arts college attracts quality students. There’re good people here.” He’s trying to reassure me, but it’s not working. “Totally,” I say. My fingers run across the nubby burned-orange fabric covering the couch, which is clearly composed of rock slabs. “Simon?” “Yes, Allison?” I sigh and take a few breaths while I play with the hideous couch threads. “She probably has horns.” He shrugged. “I think that’s unlikely.” Simon pauses. “Although . . .” “Although what?” I ask with horror. There’s a long silence that makes me nervous. Finally, he says very slowly, “She might have one horn.” I jerk my head and stare at him. Simon claps his hands together and tries to coax a smile out of me. “Like a unicorn! Ohmigod! Your roommate might be a unicorn!” “Or a rhinoceros,” I point out. “A beastly, murderous rhino.” “There is that,” he concedes. I sigh. “In good news, if I ever need a back scratcher, I have this entire couch.” I slump back against the rough fabric and hold out my hands before he can protest. “I know. I’m a beacon of positivity.” “That’s not news to me.

FASCIA: THE TIES THAT BIND Imagine a collagen-rich, stretchy slipcover for every organ, nerve, bone, and muscle in our bodies, and you start to get a sense of how fundamental connective tissue—specifically fascia—is to the entire body. Suspending our organs inside our torso, connecting our head to our back to our feet, fascia protects, supports, and literally binds our body together. Fascia can be gossamer-thin and translucent, like a spider web, or thick and tough like rope. Ounce for ounce, fascia is stronger than steel. Other specialized types of connective tissue include bones, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and fat (adipose) tissue. Even blood, strictly speaking, is considered connective tissue. But to me, the most exciting aspect of the latest research on connective tissue relates to fascia. Fascia is the stretchy tissue that forms an uninterrupted, three-dimensional web within our body. Our body has sheets, bags, and strings of fascia of varying thickness and size, some superficial and some deep. Fascia envelops both individual microscopic muscle filaments as well as whole muscle groups, such as the trapezius, pectorals, and quadriceps. For example, one of the largest fascia configurations in the body is known as the “trousers,” a massive sheet of fascia that crosses over the knees and ends near the waist, giving the appearance of short leggings. This fascia trouser is thicker around the knees and thinner as it continues up the legs and over the hips, thickening again near the waist. When the fascia trouser is healthy, supple, and resilient, it acts like a girdle, giving the body a firm shape. Fascia helps muscles transmit their force so we can convert that force into movement. The system of fascia is bound by tensile links (think of the structure of a geodesic dome, like the one at Epcot in Disney World), with space and fluid between the links that can help absorb external pressure and more evenly distribute force across the fascial structure. This allows our bodies to withstand tremendous force instead of absorbing it in one local area, which would lead to increased pain and injury. Fascia is also a second nervous system in and of itself, with almost 10 times the number of sensory nerve endings as muscle. Helene Langevin, director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has done landmark studies on the function and importance of connective tissue and its impact on pain. One of the leading researchers in the field today, Langevin describes fascia as a “living matrix” whose health is essential to our well-being.

6. In the first place, because the light and wisdom of contemplation is most pure and bright, and because the soul, on which it beats, is in darkness and impure, that soul which is the recipient must greatly suffer. As eyes weakened and clouded by humors suffer pain when the clear light beats upon them, so the soul, by reason of its impurity, suffers exceedingly when the divine light really shines upon it. And when the rays of this pure light strike upon the soul, in order to expel its impurities, the soul perceives itself to be so unclean and miserable that it seems as if God had set Himself against it, and itself were set against God. So grievous and painful is this feeling—for it thinks now that God has abandoned it—that it was one of the heaviest afflictions of Job during his trial. “Why hast Thou set me contrary to Thee, and I become burdensome to myself?”8 The soul seeing distinctly in this bright and pure light, though dimly, its own impurity, acknowledges its own unworthiness before God and all creatures. 7. That which pains it still more is the fear it has that it never will be worthy, and that all its goodness is gone. This is the fruit of that deep impression, made on the mind, in the knowledge and sense of its own wickedness and misery. For now the divine and dim light reveals to it all its wretchedness, and it sees clearly that of itself it can never be other than it is. In this sense we can understand the words of the Psalmist: “For iniquities Thou hast chastised man, and Thou hast made his soul pine away and wither9 as a spider.”10 8. In the second place, the pain of the soul comes from its natural,11 moral, and spiritual weakness; for when this divine contemplation strikes it with a certain vehemence, in order to strengthen it and subdue it, it is then so pained in its weakness as almost to faint away, particularly at times when the divine contemplation strikes it with greater vehemence; for sense and spirit, as if under a heavy and gloomy burden, suffer and groan in agony so great that death itself would be a desired relief. 9. This was the experience of Job, and he says, “I will not that He contend with me with much strength, nor that He oppress me with the weight of His greatness.”12 The soul under the burden of this oppression feels itself so removed out of God’s favor that it thinks—and so it is—that all things which consoled it formerly have utterly failed it, and that no one is left to pity it. Job also speaks to the same purport, “Have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me, at the least you my friends, because the hand of our Lord hath touched me.”13 Wonderful and piteous sight! So great are the weakness and impurity of the soul that the hand of God, so soft and so gentle, is felt to be so heavy and oppressive,14 though neither pressing nor resting on it, but merely touching it, and that, too, most mercifully; for He touches the soul not to chastise it, but to load it with His graces.

I find that daydreams are oftentimes similar in this respect to real dreams, the kind we experience in an unconscious state. Our mind puts together scenic imagery and simulated interactions in a seemingly designless, irregular, and often circuitous manner. We may think the substance of the dream is simply an agglomeration of thoughts, ideas, and experiences, but in truth, it may be pulling inspiration from somewhere deep down within. It may be the result of some unfulfilled desire, or possibly the expression of some dark hidden fear (like spiders or clowns).

Spider names look silly. But this ‘‘Accord’’ group is a young culture. Their names are still mostly meaningful in their daily language.

Through nature, philosophy has been explained throughout history. The sting of a scorpion or the bite of a spider can kill the strongest man. It's what brews deep inside a creature that makes it deadly...This goes for poison and thoughts.

No path by chance but by plot, Further steps along the road of his father’s ghost. The traitor to Lolth is sought By he who hates him most. The fall of a house, the fall of a spear, Puncture the Spider Queen’s pride as a dart. And now a needle for Drizzt Do’Urden to wear ‘Neath the folds of his cloak, so deep in his heart. A challenge, renegade of renegade’s seed, A golden ring thee cannot resist! Reach, but only when the beast is freed From festering in the swirl of Abyss. Given to Lolth and by Lolth given That thee might seek the darkest of trails. Presented to one who is most unshriven And held out to thee, for thee shall fail! So seek, Drizzt Do’Urden, the one who hates thee most. A friend, and too, a foe, made in thine home that was first. There thee will find one feared a ghost Bonded by love and by battle’s thirst.

With the fading of the final notes the saxophone player turns to me. Its baleful, otherworldly gaze bores into my soul. It lowers its instrument to the disc and extends a podgy, grey hand to point at me. It looms closer, its head expanding, arm elongating. A clammy digit brushes the tip of my nose and a tingling numbness spreads over my face like an ice-cold spider web. A voice like the rustle of dried leaves whispers inside my head: “Forever…” The last syllable stretches, just like my grandfather’s dying breath. And the beady, black orbs are no longer eyes but deep, obsidian pits…

...the Pacific Wren feeds on insects and spiders, which are especially good sources of energy. To sing, it takes a deep breath --where does it put all that air? - and then lets loose for up to ten seconds without pausing...And this song is loud. The wrens put out the most volume per ounce of any bird that I know, with the Carolina Wren the loudest of them all.

Ok Kevin," he said to himself, "We were born for this! If we are ever going to find Laura then we can't be scared of the dark, can we?" He knew he had to press on, for both their sakes. He felt so awful thinking of her alone and scared, and probably always in danger. He knew the best help he could give her right now was to never give up. He knew he would find her, but he also knew he needed more supplies. He was going to hurry to his base to stock up, and then resume his journey. Taking a deep breath he said aloud, "On the count of three we'll run... ONE...TWO ... GO!!!" Kevin sprang from the tunnel entrance and launched towards the direction of his home. As he zoomed through the valley, he was pretty sure he passed a dozen spiders, some skeletons (arrows whizzed past his head a few times), and definitely a few zombies (he could hear their deep moans all around him). But it didn't matter; he just kept on running, passing through low-hanging tree branches and leaves as he went. He was so intent on reaching his home that he didn't see the drop off just a few blocks ahead of him, and went flying over the edge before his mind even registered what was happening. Falling

Nineteen secrets, nineteen stones, nineteen branches, nineteen bones, untold wonders in a day breathing deep under stone and clay.

had been born knowing that if you held the proper measuring stick, animals would always test smarter than people, and nothing I’ve seen in my lifetime has disabused me of that notion. We may have more complicated language, opposable thumbs and this dangerous thing called reason, but any self-respecting llama or buffalo or spider knows enough not to destroy its own home.

A while later I stop in a stand of big doug-firs and lean my body against one of them. The bars of yellow sun are scattered just so and I push my face into the deep rutted bark of the tree smelling the spider webs there, the dust, the hardened pitch. Big doug-fir, I think. What do I need to know right now. I love you, says the doug-fir. I love you so much. I can feel the tree there, the tree underneath me the tree all around me, the tree inside of me. The trees holding each other holding the soil holding me. The trees more patient than anything, save the ocean. The trees with the long view. I can feel their pity- Little mammal, they say, with your two legs. Running around saying Where Do I Belong. Making value judgments on the wind, the flowers in the springtime, the shapes of the stars. Little mammal with your trembling heart. I am your home and I love you and I will always be here.

Bein' here with you . . . you've really got under my skin." "You want to break the rule?" He nods slowly. "Yeah." "Why?" “Because I’m tryin’ to push you away when all I want to do is hold you. I know you say you don’t want a hero, but damn I’d like to be that guy who’ll save you from spiders and whatever and whoever else hurts you.” His words seep deep into the core of my heart. With our eyes locked, I straddle him on the chair. “I want to break the rule, too.” My heart pounds rapidly and I grab his shoulders so he can steady me. I’m dizzy with wanting him to love me as much as I love him. He’s soaking wet and now I’m soaking and rain falls on us and around us. I don’t feel hot or cold . . . I’m too caught up in being with Derek, here in the dark in the middle of the night.

I didn’t know it was going to snow either.” She turned to see who the deep, male voice had come from, recognizing it even as she saw his face. “Hi, Jack.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE TO US AND THE WORDS WE USE All these great barns out here in the outskirts, black creosote boards knee-deep in the bluegrass. They look so artfully abandoned, even in use. You say they look like arks after the sea’s dried up, I say they look like pirate ships, and I think of that walk in my valley where J said, You don’t believe in God? And I said, No. I believe in this connection we all have to nature, to each other, to the universe. And she said, Yeah, God. And how we stood there, low beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss, and spider webs, obsidian shards stuck in our pockets, woodpecker flurry, and I refused to call it so. So instead, we looked up at the unruly sky, its clouds in simple animal shapes we could name though we knew they were really just clouds— disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.

Babies don't frighten me. Bears, yes. Spiders, sometimes. But deep in my heart, I know that if I had to, even I could fend off a baby. - Kodjun

Reading about Istanbul, or looking at pictures, does not prepare you for the experience of walking along the Bosphorus and in winding cobbled streets, smelling the kebab, being invited in by kind strangers to join them for apple tea. Similarly, reading about the rainforest, watching documentaries that are well researched and beautifully shot, does not prepare you for the experience of having toucans fly overhead in the understory, the deep beat of their wings a slow rhythm in the jangled cacophony. The rainforest documentary does not prepare you for the red eye shine of spiders at night, the suction of deep mud on your boots, the deep dark green of it all. Strangely, it is also true that actually being in the rainforest does not fully prepare you for being in the rainforest, by which I mean, the experience is never the same twice. That is part of why it is so alluring to some of us

That spark is bulletproof. It’s been through the fire countless times. Its tardigrade resiliency is my saving grace. It held on for dear life when my mind couldn’t anymore. When dark thoughts of worthlessness and needlessness overcame me, that spark grabbed me by the silk of a spider’s web and held me, like cold bones. It wasn’t the warm bosom of a loving mother, it was a final place to fall, and avoid expungement.

We get too sentimental over dead animals. We turn maudlin. But only those with fur, only those who look like us, at least a little. Those with big eyes, eyes that face front. Those with smallish noses or modest beaks. No one laments a spider. Nor a crab. Hookworms rate no wailing. Fish neither. Baby seals make the grade, and dogs, and sometimes owls. Cats almost always. Do we think they are like dead children? Do we think they are part of us, our animal soul stashed somewhere near the heart, fuzzy and trusting, and vital and on the prowl, and brutal towards other forms of life, and happy most of the time, and also stupid? (Why almost always cats? Why do dead cats call up such ludicrous tears? Why such deep mourning? Because we can no longer see in the dark without them? Because we’re cold without their fur? Because we’ve lost our hidden second skin, the one we’d change into when we wanted to have fun, when we wanted to kill things without a second thought, when we wanted to shed the dull grey weight of being human?)

Furnished in elaborate velvets, silks, and brocades, it's a riot of scarlet and deep blues and greens, everything rich and dark, like overripe fruit. The patterns on the material are the sorts of things I have become accustomed to- intricate braids of briars, leaves that might also be spiders when you looked at them from another angle, and a depiction of a hunt where it is unclear which of the creatures is hunting the other.

You all remember," said the Controller, in his strong deep voice, "you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk. History," he repeated slowly, "is bunk." He waved his hand; and it was as though, with an invisible feather wisk, he had brushed away a little dust, and the dust was Harappa, was Ur of the Chaldees; some spider-webs, and they were Thebes and Babylon and Cnossos and Mycenae. Whisk. Whisk-and where was Odysseus, where was Job, where were Jupiter and Gotama and Jesus? Whisk-and those specks of antique dirt called Athens and Rome, Jerusalem and the Middle Kingdom-all were gone. Whisk-the place where Italy had been was empty. Whisk, the cathedrals; whisk, whisk, King Lear and the Thoughts of Pascal. Whisk, Passion; whisk, Requiem; whisk, Symphony; whisk…

But few gain sufficient experience in Wall Street to command sucess until they reach that period of life in which they have one foot in the grave. When this time comes these old veterans of the Street usually spend long intervals of repose at their comfortable homes, and in times of panic, which recur sometimes oftener than once a year, these old fellows will be seen in Wall Street, hobbling down on their canes to their brokers' office. Then they always buy good stocks to the extent of their bank balances, which have been permitted to accumulate for just such an emergency. The panic usually rages until enough of these cash purchases of stock is made to afford a big "rake in." When the panic has spent its force, these old fellows, who have been resting judiciously on their oars in expectation of the inevitable event, which usually returns with the regularity of the seasons, quickly realize, deposit their profits with their bankers, or the overplus thereof, after purchasing more real estate that is on the upgrade, for permanent investment, and retire for another season to the quietude of their splendid homes and the bosoms of their happy families. If young men had only the patience to watch the speculative signs of the times, as manifested in the periodical egress of these old prophetic speculators from their shells of security, they would make more money at these intervals than by following up the slippery "tips" of the professional "pointers" of the Stock Exchange all the year round, and they would feel no necessity for hanging at the coat tails, around the hotels, of those specious frauds, who pretend to be deep in the councils of the big operations and of all the new "pools" in process of formation. I say to the young speculators, therefore, watch the ominous visits to the Street of these old men. They are as certain to be seen on the eve of a panic as spiders creeping stealthily and noiselessly from their cobwebs just before rain.

LASER RESURFACING TREATMENT A dermatologist or medical professional can easily conduct a technique called laser skin resurfacing. It involves applying lasers to help boost the texture and appearance of the skin. Depending on your needs, your dermatologist may choose ablative or non-ablative lasers. Ablative lasers use erbium or carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 laser resurfacing treatments can eliminate deep wrinkles, warts, and scars. Erbium laser resurfacing treats fine lines and wrinkles on the skin. Both types of ablative lasers remove the skin’s upper layers. Non-ablative lasers, on the other hand, do not remove skin layers. Fractional lasers, pulsed-dye lasers, and pulsed-light lasers are among them. Non-ablative lasers can cure rosacea, spider veins, and acne-related skin problems. For additional information about the procedures, types, aftercare, potential adverse effects, and other topics keep reading. Laser skin resurfacing could make your skin appear younger and healthier. If age, acne, or spending too much time in the sun has caused blood spots, scars, wrinkles, or lines on your face. Laser skin resurfacing may make your skin appear younger and healthier. Healing causes new skin cells to develop, giving the skin a tighter, more youthful appearance. Laser resurfacing can be used to treat: • Fine wrinkles • Age spots • Uneven skin tone or texture • Sun-damaged skin • Mild to moderate acne scars

Center your Self on right here, right now. Breathe deep. Go with Veev.

[We fight evil by] "We kiss our children. We make sticky lemon cake for our husband. We cherish our friends. We leave the great hedge standing tall as a haven for birds, and mice and spiders. We defeat evil every time we commit acts of kindness. When necessary, we hit it with a rock.

and through it all, always, always in the front of my mind and deep in my heart burns this terrible truth: I am the reason my parents will never see, smell, taste, laugh, or love again. My parents are dead because of me. The police ruled my parents’ deaths a murder-suicide perpetrated by my father. All the news reports I’ve been able to find agree: Peter James Cunningham (age 45) murdered his wife, Jennifer Marie Cunningham (age 43), for undetermined reasons, and then turned the rifle on himself. Some speculate that I saw my father shoot my mother and that’s why I ran away; others that I found my parents’ bodies and this is what sent me over the edge. I would have told them that I was responsible if I had been able to speak. When I came out of my catatonia three weeks later, I made sure that everyone who would listen knew what I had done. But to this day, no one believes me. Not even the spider.

Lucy picked up the point. “I remember this one time when I was in the third grade? And Jesse Cantu decided that he liked me? But I didn’t like him? So he decided that I would fall in love with him if he rescued me from some kind of danger, because that’s what always happens in the movies? So one day he told me that there was a surprise waiting for me in the cupboard at the back of the classroom and all I had to do was go in at recess and open the cupboard door—” “And you believed him?” Benno interrupted, aghast. “Of course!” Lucy said indignantly. “Because I’m from Mississippi! Where we believe people! So anyway, when I opened the cupboard there was a whole mess of spiders in there and I know people say that spiders scuttle away when they see you coming, but these spiders jumped out at me like they were rabid or something and Jesse ran into the room to save me but I was screaming so much that the principal called 911!” She paused for breath. “And the only good thing that happened was that we all got out of school for the rest of the day.” There was a brief silence as everyone absorbed this. Finally Silvia muttered, “Men are pigs.” Giacomo sighed. “How old was this boy with the spiders?” he asked Lucy in a patient voice, as if they had all gone off the rails but were fortunate that he was there to put them right. She frowned, as if suspecting a trick, but finally answered, “Eight.” “As I thought! Far too young to realize what a mistake he was making,” he said triumphantly. “But I’m sure he learned from this sad experience, yes? He didn’t keep trying to attract women with spiders?” “Well, no, of course not,” Lucy said. “Jesse’s still real immature, but he’s not an idiot.” “There you are, then.” Giacomo leaned his chair back, teetering on the back two legs, looking pleased with himself. “Everyone makes mistakes in love. The point is to learn from them. For example, Jesse learned—” “What?” Kate scoffed. “That attacking a girl with spiders isn’t a good way to say ‘I love you’? That should have been obvious from the start.” “Well, yes.” He nodded, as if conceding the point, but then added. “Of course, all knowledge is useful.” “But not all knowledge is worth the cost.” “And what cost is that?” Giacomo’s deep brown eyes were alight with enjoyment. “Looking like a fool.” “Oh, that.” He folded his arms across his chest with the air of one who is about to win an argument. “That’s nothing to concern yourself with. After all, love makes fools of everyone, don’t you agree?” “No, I don’t.” Kate bit off each word. “I don’t agree at all.” “How astonishing,” he muttered. “In fact,” she said meaningfully, “I would say that love only makes fools of those who were fools to begin with.” She smiled at him, clearly pleased with her riposte. Giacomo let his chair fall back to the floor with a thump. “If the world was left to people like you,” he said in an accusing tone, “we’d all be computing love’s logic on computers and dissecting our hearts in a biology lab.” “If the world were left to people like me,” Kate said with conviction, “it would be a much better place to live.” “Oh, yes,” he said sarcastically. “Because it would be orderly. Sensible. And dull.” “Love doesn’t have to end in riots and disaster and, and, and . . . spider attacks!” she said hotly.

I looked up at Josh. His chest rose and fell a little too fast. He had this look on his handsome face—a touch of anxiety, worry, and anticipation around his brow, like he was afraid at any minute all this would be taken from him, like I might suddenly change my mind. I deserved that. This was a shotgun wedding. Josh was the one holding the shotgun. This whole thing was some flash-bang-chaos campaign to hustle me into marriage before I got my bearings. He wanted to lock me down before I freaked out on him and ran. That’s why he’d rushed this. Only, the joke was on him—I wanted to be locked down, and I’d never change my mind. I’d never leave him again. If he wanted this rust bucket of a body so badly, he could have it, and I’d just have to spend the rest of my life making sure he felt secure and loved. I looked at him, my eyes steady, and I took a deep breath. “Joshua, I vow to text you back.” Everyone in the room laughed, my fiancé included, and his face relaxed. I continued. “I will answer every call you make to me for the rest of my life. You’ll never chase me again.” His eyes filled with tears, and he seemed to let go of a breath he’d been holding. “I promise to always go to family day at the station so you know that you’re loved. I vow to support you and follow you anywhere until you’ve found the place that makes you happy. I’ll be your best friend and try and fill that hole in your heart. I’m going to take care of you and cherish you, always and no matter what.” I smiled at him. “I’ll orbit around you and be your universe, because you’ve always been my sun.” He wiped at his eyes, and he had to take a moment before he read his own vows. While I waited, I let his face anchor me. I soaked him in, let his love remind me again and again that I was worth it. He looked at his paper and then seemed to decide he didn’t need it, setting it down on the desk. He gathered up my hands. “Kristen, I vow that no matter what health issues lie ahead, I will love and take care of you. I will show you every day of your life that you’re worth everything. I will carry your worries. All I ask is that you carry your own dog purse.” The room chuckled again. “I promise to love Stuntman Mike and slay your spiders, and keep you from getting hangry.” Now I was laughing through tears. “I will always defend you. I’ll always be on your side.” Then he turned to Sloan. “And I vow to protect and care for you, Sloan, like you’re my sister, for the rest of my life.” This did it. The tears ran down my face, and I was in his arms and weeping before I knew I’d closed the distance. We were both crying. We were all crying, even the witnesses who had no idea how hard the journey had been to get here, the sacrifices that were made for this union. Or who we’d lost along the way.

Silence of the desert! The Summer flower and the lover, The night sky and the moon light lovelier, The rain and the monsoon that is wetter, A moment in time forever and a moment called never, The high that balances with the low, The deep of ocean at the shores is shallow, The midday Sun in the night is Moon’s glow, The summer colours like rainbow and the Autumnal yellow, The bound cocoon and the the free butterfly, The web and the spiders ploys, The vast sky and the wings of freedom to fly, The responsible manhood and the careless wanton boy, The right that knows the wrong, And the wrong that sometimes never knows where right does belong, Life that walks and death that never likes life’s song, The day chasing the night and the night chasing the day to create eternity’s song, A feeling of never ending silence over a vast desert of sand dunes, Climbs and walks past the sinking steps of time in these dunes, To greet me in the Summer land of my life while it is playing the love tunes, And as the silence spreads I am reminded of you and me together, just like the silence over the sand dunes, Without you the Summer exists, but never feels so, Because with you around, even the desert feels like Summer and then this feeling does not go, Then it is always the Summer flower and the lover, wherever I see or I may go, Then the chase between night and day ends and it remains so, So I often visit this desert of silence, this desert of time’s sinking foot steps, Because in this silence as my heart beats, I only hear your steps, The whispers of silence which are like your billion foot steps, All marching towards me , you, your memories, your feelings riding these footsteps, Then the stillness, the silence, the sand dunes turn into a mirage of gleaming beauty, A gateway unto you and your endless beauty, And there in this silence I become a part of this new nativity, The stillness, the silence, the vastness and in the midst of all this, the desert blooms like the summer bearing your beauty!

yourself you are strong, capable and confident. Because underneath all that wibblin’ and waverin’, you are. And I will tell you this. Life is too short and too sweet to waste any of it puttin’ things off. Why would you think so little of yourself that you would let another day – another hour – pass by with the big ugly shadow of a spider hangin’ over your head? I can promise you that whatever it is, it is better done so you can get dealin’ with the consequences than frettin’ about what they might be. Pull up your socks, take a deep breath, and just do it.

The truth is, you don’t know Menzoberranzan. Not even you, Jarlaxle, who has spent your life trying to figure it out. You cannot understand the hope that brought us to the great cavern those millennia removed. Yes, hope. It was not anger that brought us there, nor fear. It was hope. We fled a world of tyrant queens and insane kings, a place of unending war and injustice. We found a sanctuary, a deep cave, full of Faezress magic—though we did not understand that at the time—and easily defended. A sanctuary, I say, and indeed that is what the word ‘Menzoberranzan’ then meant in the ancient tongue of the drow. “A hundred families,” she continued. “Ten thousand dark elves. And each had a say in their family, and each family had a voice in the Plenum, and the largest families spoke those concerns in the Conclave, which you now—and only—know as the Ruling Council. We were not rulers then as much as servants, heeding the words of all the drow. And it was Lady Lolth that led us there, before she was called the Spider Queen.

In my youth . . . my sacred youth . . . in eaves sole sparowe sat not more alone than I . . . in my youth, my saucer-deep youth, when I possessed a mirror and both a morning and an evening comb . . . in my youth, my pimpled, shame-faced, sugared youth, when I dreamed myself a fornicator and a poet; when life seemed to be ahead somewhere like a land o’ lakes vacation cottage, and I was pure tumescence, all seed, afloat like fuzz among the butterflies and bees; when I was the bursting pod of a fall weed; when I was the hum of sperm in the autumn air, the blue of it like watered silk, vellum to which I came in a soft cloud; O minstrel galleons of Carib fire, I sang then, knowing naught, clinging to the tall slim wheatweed which lay in a purple haze along the highway like a cotton star . . . in my fumbling, lubricious, my uticated youth, when a full bosom and a fine round line of Keats, Hart Crane, or Yeats produced in me the same effect—a moan throughout my molecules—in my limeade time, my uncorked innocence, my jellybelly days, when I repeated Olio de Oliva like a tenor; then I would touch the page in wonder as though it were a woman, as though I were blind in my bed, in the black backseat, behind the dark barn, the dim weekend tent, last dance, date's door, reaching the knee by the second feature, possibly the thigh, my finger an urgent emissary from my penis, alas as far away as Peking or Bangkok, so I took my heart in my hand, O my love, O my love, I sighed, O Christina, Italian rose; my inflated flesh yearning to press against that flesh becoming Word—a word—words which were wet and warm and responsive as a roaming tongue; and her hair was red, long, in ringlets, kiss me, love me up, she said in my anxious oral ear; I read: Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour; for I had oodles of needs, if England didn't; I was nothing but skin, pulp, and pit, in my grapevine time, during the hard-on priesthood of the poet; because then—in my unclean, foreskinned, and prurient youth—I devoutly believed in Later Life, in Passion, in Poetry, the way I thought only fools felt about God, prayer, heaven, foreknowledge, sin; for what was a poem if not a divine petition, a holy plea, a prophecy: [...] a stranger among strangers, myself the strangest because I could never bring myself to enter adolescence, but kept it about like a bit of lunch you think you may eat later, and later come upon at the bottom of a bag, dry as dust, at the back of the refrigerator, bearded with mold, or caked like sperm in the sock you've fucked, so that gingerly, then, you throw the mess out, averting your eyes, just as Rainer complained he never had a childhood—what luck!—never to have suffered birthpang, nightfear, cradlecap, lake in your lung; never to have practiced scales or sat numb before the dentist's hum or picked your mother up from the floor she's bled and wept and puked on; never to have been invaded by a tick, sucked by a leech, bitten by a spider, stung by a bee, slimed on by a slug, seared by a hot pan, or by paper or acquaintance cut, by father cuffed; never to have been lost in a crowd or store or parking lot or left by a lover without a word or arrogantly lied to or outrageously betrayed—really what luck!—never to have had a nickel roll with slow deliberation down a grate, a balloon burst, toy break; never to have skinned a knee, bruised a friendship, broken trust; never to have had to conjugate, keep quiet, tidy, bathe; to have lost the chance to be hollered at, bullied, beat up (being nothing, indeed, to have no death), and not to have had an earache, life's lessons to learn, or sums to add reluctantly right up to their bitter miscalculated end—what sublime good fortune, the Greek poet suggested—because Nature is not accustomed to life yet; it is too new, too incidental, this shiver in the stone, never altogether, and would just as soon (as Culp prefers to say) cancer it; erase, strike, stamp it out— [...]

God’s Song I am the amoeba swimming in pond water. I am the elephant stepping gently on huge feet. I am the whale that sings its song seven fathoms deep. I am the chickadee with dark bright eye. I am the hawk rising swift on currents of wind. I am the tiger stalking its prey. I am the platypus, most confused of all animals. I am the wild goose flying on strong winds. I am the rabbit, fleet of foot and timid of heart. I am the minnow, darting in shallow water; the tadpole transforming into something new; the caterpillar never dreaming of wings; the butterfly that speaks to you of resurrection; the cat curled in your lap; the spider spinning her web; the cow, patient servant of humanity; and the cricket, singing its autumn song. I am the breath of each one. I am the Spirit in each. Look. I am everywhere you turn, if you only had eyes to see.

Go away! All of you! Just get the hell away from me!” I turned on my heel, the sodden folds of my nightgown clinging to my legs like wet spider webs. “Regina! Don’t be an idiot!” Konner growled, his boots and cane raggedly thumping behind me. I walked faster, lengthening my stride no matter how much my thighs screamed in protest, until a hand latched on my shoulder. “No! You don’t get to say anything!” Using my finger like a sword, I jabbed my finger in the center of his chest. Freya’s jaws snapping closed with a loud pop, barely missing my fingertip by seconds as her long neck stretched out towards my hand. “You could have avoided all this by seeing it! You have that magic, if you wouldn’t be so stupid and use it!” The seeping rain slowed, turning into a fine shower of mist straight from the heavens above, and it dripped off the tightly carved lines of his face pulled sharp with tension. He was silent, still as stone, with nothing but the slight heave of his shoulders even proof that he was alive. His eyes dropped from my face, the uneven shadow of blonde hair hiding them from my sight. Part of his neck bobbed with the effort of a heavy swallow, like he had something stuck, and the tentative flicker of something else across face made me take a step back. A flash of anger, chilled by fear, a few tiny cracks started to appear in his stoic mask. Ones that I’m not sure why, but they made a strange ache start to stab deep in my heart. “Do you love him?” So soft that it was nearly lost in the rolling thunder, I would have missed it if I hadn’t seen his lips move. “Yes. No! I don’t know!” I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t love Ivo, not like that. But I couldn’t lose him either. “He’s my friend! My best friend! Why does it matter?” “I see. It matters more than you know.” Konner drawled slowly, the thick muscles of his shoulders rolling in a shrug that sent rivers of rainwater coursing down his chest. Mixing with the streaks of bloody red and ash grey in a ghoulish highlight to his muscles, the water slowly pooled in the ruined fabric of his shirt, further pulling it down his shoulders. He led out a heavy sigh, then suddenly straightened to the full length of his imposing height. Shoulders back and spine stiff. Then he straightened, drawing himself up to his full imposing height, and clasped his right arm across his chest. With his clenched fist resting right over his heart, he slowly lowered himself down to one knee at my feet, bowing his head over until it nearly touched my thighs. “Then I’ll get him back for you. I swear it on my life!

And then there is the Löwenmensch – the Lion Man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel. In the hills between Nuremberg and Munich in Swabian Germany there are caves that have yielded one of the most important works ever crafted by an unknown artist. Around 40,000 years ago, a woman or man sat somewhere in or near that cave, with the detritus of a hunt scattered around. They took a piece of ivory, a tusk from a woolly mammoth, and carefully considered that it might be the right material, shape and size for something that they had been pondering. Now extinct, cave lions were fierce predators at that time, posing a threat to people, and also to the animals that people would hunt and eat. That person thought about the lions, and how formidable they are, and maybe wondered what it would be like to have the power of a lion in the body of a human. Maybe this tribe revered the cave lions out of fear and awe. Whatever the reason, this artist took that mammoth ivory, a flint knife, and patiently carved the tusk into a mythical figure. It is a chimaera, a fantastic beast that is made up of the parts of multiple animals. Chimaeras exist throughout all human cultures for most of history, from mermaids, fawns or centaurs, to the glorious monkey-man god Hanuman, to the Japanese snake-woman nure-onna, to the Wolpertinger, an absurd and mischievous Bavarian part-duck part-squirrel part-rabbit with antlers and vampire teeth. Today, we have reached the ultimate manifestation of a 40,000-year interest in hybrid creatures in genetic engineering, where elements from one animal are transposed into another, and hence we have cats that glow in the dark with the genes of deep-sea crystal jellyfish Aquorea victoria, and goats that produce dragline silk from the golden orb weaver spider in their udders. The Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel

Okay, first there are the angels on horseback and devils on horseback." Blake shakes his head. "Remind me what those are?" "An English thing. Angels on horseback are baked oysters wrapped in bacon. Devils are the same thing with dates instead of oysters." Blake nods. "Got it. What else?" "I'm going to slow-cook the barbecued ribs and serve them as 'skeleton ribs,' and I'll serve up the calamari tentacles as 'deep-fried spiders.' Then I'll roast the shrimp and arrange them in glasses of ice to look like claws or fingers, which people can dip into a 'Bloody Mary' cocktail sauce. And I'll scatter platters of deviled eggs around the living and dining rooms." "Think that'll be enough food?" "Definitely, I'll throw some cheese and crudités into the mix, too. Oh, and dessert- spiced devil's food cupcakes and blood orange sorbet.

I await my time. I sit, I cook, I spin, with downcast eyes I am silent and let him speak. This is fine. I await my time. Everything is a strategy. This is the wisdom of the spider. Silently, silently spin. Let the fly buzz. Before I ate her and put on her skin I lay across the stove in my hut, the hut standing on a chicken leg, and I waited, and they came to me, and became my food, and in the end she came too, the one I wanted, and instead of swallowing her I dived inside and let her swallow me. It doesn’t matter what it looks like! I ate her even as I allowed her to eat me. It’s a special digestive trick: a reverse takeover of the feeder by the fed. And so farewell, chicken-legged hut in the forest! Goodbye forever, foul Russian smell! Now am I perfumed and clothed in beauty, my eyes behind her eyes, my teeth behind her teeth. Everything she does is false, every word a lie, because here I am inside her, pulling her strings, casting the web of her words and deeds around the little fly, the old fool. He believes she loves him! Ha ha ha ha ha! Cackle, cackle! That’s a good one, that is. (...) I conceal this voice deep inside myself, so deep that she, myself, can convince herself she cannot hear it, that it is not her truest voice. At the level of the skin, of the tongue, a different voice speaks, and she tells herself a different story, in which she is virtuous and her deeds are justified, both absolutely, by moral standards, and empirically, by the events around her. By him, the old one, the king in the golden house, who he is, how he treats her, what his faults are. But there it is, the deep voice speaking, commanding her at the deepest level, the level of the molecules of instruction, twined into the four helical amino acids of her being, which is also mine. It is who I is. It is who she am.

Dane and Marco and the boys all fled the stage but I was still playing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. I tried different interesting arrangments. Mozart’s twelve variations and Elton John style. Even Billy Joel/‘Piano Man’-ish. Then I had a brainstorm and thumped it out like Jerry Lee Lewis, with my feet on the keys and everything, and that seemed to confuse the guy waving the gun. Anyway he didn’t shot me. By now I was really getting into ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, actually getting the old flash while I played it over and over, I don’t know how many times, and I sort of hypnotised myself. I was in a trance. People had thrown every available bottle and can and busted seat at me. Now they started on the fire extinguishers, and they were frothing and spurting and rolling around on the stage. Even the over-roided security joined in, and the bouncers were throwing stuff at me, too. I didn’t care. I was in a daze. I felt bulletproof and above it all, and when I eventually finished I stood in front of the redwood crucifix with my arms out, covered in fire-extinguisher foam like a snowman, and bowed to the audience. And then for some insane reason I pushed over the crucifix, which was difficult because it was heavy and splintery, and it cut my hands so I was bleeding everywhere, and I deliberately rubbed the blood all over my face. Then I put my foot on the crucifix, like a big-game hunter with his kill, like Ernest Hemingway with a dead lion, and raised my bloody fist in victory. And there was a sort of roar then, a deep roar lie a squadron of B-47s. And I passed out on the stage. I came to with someone furiously screaming. An amazing octave range, about five – from an F1 to B flat 6. It was your mother standing over me like a tigress, waving a broken seat, and preventing the Texans from rushing the stage and stomping me to death, they were wary of this wild, high-pitched little chick and backed off. As I stumbled back to the dressing-room, Tania was yelling that she wished the oil-rig guy had shot me, and this was the end, she’d really had it. And the record-company people were just staring at me open-mouthed like I was a lunatic. And outside, our tour bus had been set on fire, and there were no extinguishers left, and the police and fire brigade got involved, on the side of the Texans, and there was suddenly a visa problem. So that was it for Spider Flower in America. And for your mother and me, as it turned out.

The will is the energy that strengthens our inclinations and empowers our convictions. Without this energy we are just puppets controlled by strings we do not see.

That is why we fear the zombie. The zombie looks like a man, walks like a man, eats and otherwise functions fully, yet is devoid of the spark. It represents the nagging doubt that lays deep in the heart of even the most zealous believer: behind all of your pretty songs and stained glass, this is what you really are. Shambling meat. Our true fear of the zombie was never that its bite would turn us into one of them. Our fear is that we are already zombies.

In 1848, the twenty-five-year-old Gage was working on a railroad bed when he was distracted by some activity behind him. As he turned his head, the large rod he was using to pack powder explosives struck a rock, caused a spark and the powder exploded. The rod flew up through his jaw, traveled behind his eye, made its way through the left-hand side of his brain and shot out the other side. Despite his somewhat miraculous survival, Gage was never the same again. The once jovial, kind young man became aggressive, rude and prone to swearing at the most inappropriate times. As a toddler, Alonzo Clemons also suffered a traumatic head injury, after falling onto the bathroom floor. Left with severe learning difficulties and a low IQ, he was unable to read or write. Yet from that day on he showed an incredible ability to sculpt. He would use whatever materials he could get his hands on—Play-Doh, soap, tar—to mold a perfect image of any animal after the briefest of glances. His condition was diagnosed as acquired savant syndrome, a rare and complex disorder in which damage to the brain appears to increase people’s talent for art, memory or music. SM, as she is known to the scientific world, has been held at gunpoint and twice threatened with a knife. Yet she has never experienced an ounce of fear. In fact, she is physically incapable of such emotion. An unusual condition called Urbach-Wiethe disease has slowly calcified her amygdalae, two almond-shaped structures deep in the center of the brain that are responsible for the human fear response. Without fear, her innate curiosity sees her approach poisonous spiders without a second’s thought. She talks to muggers with little regard for her own safety. When she comes across deadly snakes in her garden, she picks them up and throws them away.

Pham felt a sudden thrill of understanding. Yes. Somewhere down there the old Spider might still sleep, waiting for his lady lost… and beginning on his greatest Lurk of all.

It’s pointless to fight evil by destroying life. “How do we fight it, then?” I demanded. We kiss our children.We make sticky lemon cake for our husband.We cherish our friends.We leave the great hedge standing tall, to serve as a haven for birds and mice and spiders.We defeat evil every time we commit an act of kindness.When necessary, we hit it with a rock. “I get it.” I nodded slowly. “Fill each day with acts of grace, but keep a rock handy, just in case.

I wanted to get a look at the area near that forward magazine, but I wasn’t sure if that would be possible, because Lusitania was resting on her starboard side. The wreckage also had become a favorite place for local fishermen to set their nets, and some of the nets had broken off and gotten caught on the ship’s superstructure, forming a giant spider’s web that could endanger our manned mini-sub Delta, our newly developed Jason robot, and a smaller remote-controlled vehicle called Homer. The first step was to use Jason and its sophisticated sonars to make a 3-D model of the wreck. We could then superimpose the ship’s original engineering drawings onto that map to locate the forward magazine precisely. Fortunately, the angle of Lusitania’s hull made it possible for Homer to slip under the bow and determine that the forward magazine was completely intact. Whatever had caused the second explosion had not been stored there.