It's been weeks since she last slept. Her four enlarged eyes stare into the middle distance in every direction. The other four have given up and tumbled into the kind of line her mouth would make if it could make expressions. It can't. She screams without sound. 
The children never sleep. The children never stop. Eight squirming legs for each child. How many children? She has not counted. A hundred? 800 legs? Each movement of a leg disturbing another in a domino effect, a Mexican spider wave rippling around her abdomen.
At night the lights reflecting from all their eyes turn her into a Van Gogh painting. Van Gogh was depressed. She sympathises with him. She wonders if he had this many spiderlings on his abdomen also.
This is all Darren's fault. Dammit Darren. She has learned too late that Darren is the kind of spider that has only one thing on his mind; continuing the unbroken line of successful genetics that stretches from him back to the beginning of life itself.
It all sounds very noble and philosophical until you wake up the next morning to find he's left without even the courtesy of letting you consume him for the nourishment of your future children. Darren. Bloody Darren.
She counts the days until her offspring will enter the moody solitary stage of their lives and jump ship, never to call or drop by again. It should be weeks, but in today's economy things are looking grim. Wages are stagnating. Work is insecure. Housing costs have skyrocketed.
She imagines them still home several moults later, piled on top of one another and wobbling around ludicrously as she walks. She imagines them as adults, still trying to squeeze into the spare room and asking which insects are for dinner.
She realises she has spent the last several minutes in a bizarre daydream while having her photo taken by a large biped. She scuttles off. She definitely, definitely needs a nap.
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Wolf Spider (Lycosidae) and spiderlings. Ipswich, QLD.
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Wolf Spider (Lycosidae) and spiderlings. Ipswich, QLD.
