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Chekhov the Spider
Feb. 10th, 2011 12:26 pmI woke up at half past six from a dream about a monstrously giant spider. I remember being in a bedroom, watching a fly buzzing around and then being caught by a larger insect which held it between its pincers... and after waltzing around the air for a while like that, they were both ensnared on a hairy tentacle-like thing, which drew them into a black lump on the ceiling.
After devouring them in a way that wasn't clear to me, the lump unfolded its eight legs and scuttled across the ceiling. It looked at this point like a tarantula, but it slowly grew even bigger as it came down the wall, and by the time it reached the floor, it was a hulking mega-spider, the size of a small dog with eight legs, black with two rows of white spots going down its back. At this point I remember I thought about the usual spider removal method of a glass and piece of card, but you wouldn't have been able to do the same to this thing without at least a cleaning bucket and a broadsheet newspaper.
I backed away from it and realized that it was following me - not in a threatening way, just as if it wanted to encourage me in the direction I was going. So I led it down the stairs (the location having transformed into a half-correct mis-memory of my parents' house), aware even in the dream that this was unusual behaviour for a spider. As we got near the back door it got much faster, and I opened it to let it outside, but in its enthusiasm it missed the gap and ran right into the door. Its disguise fell off from the impact, and revealed that it was actually Chekhov, our ex-cat, who had dressed himself up because he didn't think that he was getting enough attention.
When I got out of bed in the real world, I opened the door to the landing and saw a small spider crawling across the ceiling. It remained its normal size.
After devouring them in a way that wasn't clear to me, the lump unfolded its eight legs and scuttled across the ceiling. It looked at this point like a tarantula, but it slowly grew even bigger as it came down the wall, and by the time it reached the floor, it was a hulking mega-spider, the size of a small dog with eight legs, black with two rows of white spots going down its back. At this point I remember I thought about the usual spider removal method of a glass and piece of card, but you wouldn't have been able to do the same to this thing without at least a cleaning bucket and a broadsheet newspaper.
I backed away from it and realized that it was following me - not in a threatening way, just as if it wanted to encourage me in the direction I was going. So I led it down the stairs (the location having transformed into a half-correct mis-memory of my parents' house), aware even in the dream that this was unusual behaviour for a spider. As we got near the back door it got much faster, and I opened it to let it outside, but in its enthusiasm it missed the gap and ran right into the door. Its disguise fell off from the impact, and revealed that it was actually Chekhov, our ex-cat, who had dressed himself up because he didn't think that he was getting enough attention.
When I got out of bed in the real world, I opened the door to the landing and saw a small spider crawling across the ceiling. It remained its normal size.
