by Ginger Strivelli
She wove a design that her ancestors wove into their webs when dinosaurs walked the face of the Earth. It was the same design her descendants would weave into their webs long after humans had been wiped off the face of the Earth. It was just a web to any human who might wander by, they would not stop to wonder about it, though they surely should if only they knew why.
People only see a pretty but mundane web holding the spider’s lunch and her egg sack. It would not cross their mind again once they walked past. The Spider knew the magic and the science of her web nonetheless. Magic older than history and science more advanced than the future were woven into those fragile strands of silk. They kept the world—the universe even—from disappearing into nothingness.
The webs are not just traps for the flies or cradles for the eggs, they are portals to another dimension. A dimension that is smashed up against ours threatening to crush our universe. Making all of us, everything, all that is or ever will be… just disappear in a bursted bubble. Making us barely a forgotten memory in the void of darkness.
The webs are portals, tiny little portals between the two colliding planes of existence. They bleed off little bits of energy between the two, relieving the pressure that has been building up since they crashed together more years ago than we have words for the numbers. The webs are pressure valves keeping our bubble intact, just barely.
Many tribes worshiped the spider as Spider Grandmother, most cultures told tales of Her bringing the Sun to humans for warmth and light. Like all legends there is a grain of truth in that storytelling. Our sun would blink out instantly if the web portals were not in place relieving the pressure from the invading place. Without our sun, we would die most horribly. So the spiders were and are still bringing the light and warmth of the Father Sun to Mother Earth’s face.
People, alas, have long since stopped worshiping her for it. Nevertheless all her children weave that ancient design in their webs day after day, eon after eon. Saving all of us from utter annihilation and letting us continue to live obliviously on.
“Damn spiders, they creep me out!” the old man said, smacking the web down from his porch corner with his walking cane.
She lay on the porch floor wounded, wrapped, and trapped in her own web dying slowly. Her egg sack lay nearby. She pulled herself with her three remaining unbroken legs with her last bit of strength gingerly.
“Remember my babies, weave the ancient, the futuristic design that keeps this world and all the worlds in balance. You must keep making the portals as we always have until we can no more and it all does finally collapse. May that end be as far away in the future, as the beginning is in the past,” she said to her children with the breath that was her last.
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About the Author
Ginger Strivelli is an artist and writer from North Carolina. She has written for Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Circle Magazine, Third Flatiron, Autism Parenting Magazine, Silver Blade, Solarpunk Magazine, The New Accelerator, various other magazines and several anthology books. She loves to travel the world and make arts and crafts. She considers herself a storyteller, entertaining and educating through her writing.