The Spider’s Strategy

Was it something that happened in the past? Suddenly without warning, Carol shuts herself away from husband, family and friends. She makes no explanation, she says nothing to anyone.  One day she simply does not get out of her bed. To her husband Mark she is civil but distant.             Inexplicably she is heard talking to herself.  She seems gripped by some strange ennui that is increasingly gaining hold over her.             It started the day she screamed for help – convinced she was going to be attacked by the spider she could see in the corner of the bedroom ceiling.  Mark tried to calm her explaining that there was no spider – perhaps it was the way the late afternoon shadows of the trees outside her window were creating moving patterns on the ceiling.  But no. Carol knows that there is a spider.            Over the following days and weeks she becomes increasingly absorbed by the past.  And to Mark’s disquiet, she insists that the spider is helping her search for events she can only vaguely recall.            At seventy-five, she finds memories elusive, tantalisingly close but too insubstantial to grasp.  Yet something drives her on as she creates a more and more intimate relationship with the spider.  She concludes that she doesn’t remember because at the time things were happening to her, she wanted to forget them, like she was a spectator to her own life.            Her journey towards re-entry to the world offers her glimpses of strange philosophies and eventually presents her with the opportunity to create for herself a new and satisfying reality. 3