eothian

“I did not know it was Aoife.”

Eothian’s voice rose up into near hysterical pitch. His siblings looked at him disgusted, aghast; nothing he could say would convince them he did not know.

“Please, you have to believe me. Fia... god, you have to know I do not lie.”

Fia turned away he could not look at his twin, not now,the betrayal was too raw.

The youngest voice was pleading with the others, towards Fin, they all turned their back on him.

“She took another form. If I had known…”

He knew what he was saying was falling on deaf ears. It was the biggest betrayal he could ever do to his siblings. Fall in love. It was not just that, but with who he had fallen in love with Aoife - the woman who had cursed them all as swans. Although she had called herself another name and he did not know. He had gone to his siblings saying he would marry this woman and live with her until she died. Of course they were all happy, had sent invitation after invitation to her to come see them. All of which she had turned down so she could not be found out in the lie.

Eothian had been the one hurt most by the lies. He had after that swore love was a scam. One he had been fooled by and would never fall for the scam again. The closest person he had come to with forgetting his oath was ‘Jane’. And how that turned out, proved once again the thing people called love just did not exist.

His love for Aoife took time to get over eventually he did get over her, when he did he was harder and more cynical with love.

Now, he is just happy to live life without love. But love had come in many different forms into his life whether he wanted it or not. The return love and forgiveness of his siblings. Love of friendship. Love of life and love of photography. Occasionally, he also allowed a love of singing.

All of it was enough love for him. He was happy with his lot.

Imagine if you would, me, coming out my front door, I’m on my way to work and in my “looking good” mode. I’m locking the door now, picking up my daily luggage, keys...you get the drill. I see our neighbor and I give them the big, smiling Hello. I take three steps, and go: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!”
(that’s a direct quote.) at about the level of a fire engine at full wail. Spider web! I have walked full force into a spider web. And the pressing question of course: Just where is the spider now?

I fling my belongings in all directions, and at the same time manage to do a high kicking, jitterbug sort of dance. Though come to think of it the jig was something that would appear like a mating stork in crazed heat.

So there I am, I’m clutching at my hair, face and going: “AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!”

It is at an all new level of intensity. Or maybe it just sounded loud to me, because it was early in the morning when people are not usually screaming, “AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!” while doing a crazed jig. I try to open the front door without unlocking it. I try again and manage to knock out the person on the other side trying to open it to see what my fuss is all about. I get in the house running through it, “Aaaaaghghhh!”

Now, imagine if you will a different point of view. Here is the spider. Ordinary, middle aged, grey looking, lady spider. She’s been up since before dawn working on her web, and all is well. Nice day, dew point right to keep things sticky. No wind. She’s out checking the webs moorings and thinking about the little gnats she’d like for breakfast. She’s feeling good. Ready for action All of a sudden all hell breaks loose-----the earth ending in apocalyptic kind of ending. The web is torn loose and is wrapped around a frenzied moving something. And a huge looking bit of meat is making a sound the spider never heard before “ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!” The spider is realizing it’s caught breakfast, lunch and dinner. But it’s too big to get too. What’s a spider girl to do? Jump for it? Hang on and hope? Dig in?

Human being. The spider suddenly knows it’s caught a human being. And of course the pressing question is: where is the human going and what will it do once it gets there. And if the spider could say “ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!” it would be doing that too.

What I, the human being, will do once I get there is of course get rid of my clothes, shower, change into a new outfit just to make sure the spider (who by now is the size of an elephant, has big snapping jaws, and deadly poisonous fangs) is gone.

As for the spider, if she survives all of it, she will really have something to talk about------the one that got away that was THIS BIG...“And you should have seen the JAWS on the thing!”

Spiders. Amazing creatures. Been around maybe 350 million years, so they can cope with about anything. This, all, now reminds me of a song I know. And you know too. And your parents and your children, they know. The song is about eensy-weensy spider.

Yes, the spider who went up the waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain. And the eensy-weensy spider went up the spout again. You probably not only know the song, but know the motions too.

What’s the deal here? Why do we know this song and keep passing it along so others know it? Especially seen as it puts spiders in such a favorable light. Nobody goes “ARGGHHHHHHHH” when they sing the song or make the motions of the spider. So why do we learn it and pass it on to be re-learnt over and over?

Maybe because does put life’s adventures and setbacks in clear and simple terms. The small creatures is alive, looking for adventure, it’s there in the drainpipe----a long tunnel going up towards the light. The Spider doesn’t think about anything, he just goes, disaster befalls it---rain, flood powerful forces. And the spider is knocked down and out beyond where it started. Does the spider say, “To hell with that?” No. Sun comes out---clears things up and dries off the spider and the spider goes up to the drainpipe. It really wants to know what’s up there; it is not going to quit. But now it is a little wiser---it checks the sky, looks for better toeholds, says a spider prayer and heads up towards the mystery and to beyond of wherever.

Living things have been doing just that for a long time, survivors are what they are.

Human beings are survivors too. So I’ll survive and be a little wiser when stepping out.

I’ll be checking the sky, looking for the better toeholds and saying a little prayer, as I make my way up the drainpipe to get to the where ever. And if the spider lives, they’ll do likewise. And if not, well, there are lots more spiders and the word gets round, especially when the word is something like: “ARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!”

I’m just hoping it will be a long time before I have to say “ARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!” again. At spiders or anything else.

Who: Eothian.
When: Now.
Where: Hell.

Rating: PGR.
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A big man in cord pants and leggings and with riding whip in his hand, pushed his way through our crowd. You could tell the man was on the prod -looking for a fight - he slapped down a bundle of money and bellowed out a challenge to fight any man. It soon became clear who was going to take up the offer; Breacan held Jimmy back with some difficultly to stop the challenge. So I asked the stranger if he could do anything else besides fighting. He, asked me if I could do anything else besides talking. Breacan and Jimmy stopped struggling with each other to give the man a worried look, as if he was in some danger from me. Ignoring them I answered the stranger,

“No,” I said, “how about if there is something I can do better than you, we’ll put a stop to this nonsense of fighting amongst ourselves for sport. And, if I can’t do something better than you, I’ll fight you.”

“What can you do?” Asked the stranger.

I gave him an wink and a smile. “I can sing.”

“Sing? Oh well, get up there so we can judge if you can sing.”

I went up to the front of the crowd, faced them, and sang. The crowd were entranced and kept me singing for the best part of an hour, at the end there was thunderous and prolonged applause.

There was no fighting amongst ourselves that day.

Answering service:

"This is Eothian,

I'm out shagging or spending money. You know the drill, leave me a dirty message after the tone.

Seeya, babies."