Monsters by Derrick Jensen

Author:Derrick Jensen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

I leave the building and begin following the directions. This time the route involves a deep forest with a thick canopy far up in the sky, a winding path, and several streams.

I arrive at a natural opening in the understory. The directions tell me to enter. I do.

And that’s when I see the spiders. Three of them. Orb weavers. Huge. Far bigger than I am. They’re releasing their silk, weaving it with their long legs, and cutting and anchoring the strands. The web stretches behind them, far into the forest; farther than I can see.

The spiders scare me. I wonder if the receptionist sent me here to die. Maybe death is the solution to loneliness.

It seems the spiders can get in my mind, just as I can get in the minds of humans. One of the spiders says, “Of course we’re going to kill you.”

The second says, “But we won’t.”

The third says, “Not directly.”

They laugh: a chittering, clacking sound.

They continue to release their silk, weave it, cut and anchor it.

“You’ve nothing to fear, dearie,” the first one says.

“Nothing at all,” says the second one.

The third one says, “Nothing. Exactly.”

More of the chittering, clacking sound. More of the releasing, weaving, anchoring.

“Come closer.”

“We won’t eat you.”

“Not at all.”

Their legs are constantly moving.

Their movements are beautiful, mesmerizing. I feel as captivated by the beauty of their dance as I would be held captive by their silk. I come closer. And closer.

I see that hanging from the strands of the web are silk-wrapped bodies. Thousands of them. Millions of them. Uncountable numbers of them. Every size and shape imaginable, in every possible state of decay. There are dead dogs and cats and trees and starfish and humans. Some are mere tatters of silk barely covering skeletons of wood or bone or chitin. I see that the ground itself is made of bodies, bigger giving way to smaller giving way to smaller giving way to soil.

And that’s when I see an angel.

Dead. Decaying. Wrapped in silk. I look at the spiders in horror.

“Oh, don’t look at us that way,” says the first spider.

“Everybody dies,” says the second.

“You know that,” says the third.

“Angels?” I say.

“You must have heard of some angels who’ve died,” says the first.

“How would she? None of the other angels will talk to her,” says the second.

“Well, angels die,” says the third.

“Guardian angels die.”

“Other angels die.”

“You will die.”

Then I see that some of the silken bundles hanging from the web are not decaying, but instead growing. I see a small hole appear in one close to me. The hole grows larger and larger, until I see a snout poke through, then a brown head. The cocoon bursts and a lizard falls to the ground, shakes himself, takes a quick drink from one of the streams, and scampers into the forest.

Then another cocoon bursts, releasing a small shark who flops this way and that till she makes her way to one of the streams. She swims downstream. Creature after creature emerges from its cocoon, drinks from or dives into a stream, and enters the larger world.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.