A Sticky Situation

It’s funny how one day you can be on top of the world and the next day you can be biding your time until death. Well, not so much “funny,” but for a lack of a better word, we’ll roll with that. My community had accepted the fact that death is inevitable. Our life spans are extremely short, so death is very common and happens nearly every single day.  Instead of worrying over it, we should try and live every day to the best of our ability. Sure, some days were better than others, but in the end, I would like to think they balanced each other out. Although I didn’t expect the “end” to come so soon, I am surprised at how well I am taking things. 

The only complaint I had was how long death is taking. I was there for 8 hours, and I was still waiting for my turn. In those 8 hours, I met two others that were also waiting for their fate. The first one that I met, Henry, was a kind spirit. He was already there when I arrived, so he gave me a quick run-down of how everything works. It was a pretty quick run-down since there wasn’t a whole lot that you need to know. Basically, we were supposed to sit around and wait for the “Keeper” to select us. That seemed easy to do since my entire body was stuck in one position, and moving any part of my body seemed impossible. Believe me, I  tried. The only scary thing about waiting is I didn’t know how long it was going to take. Henry told me that sometimes it could be as short as 20 minutes, other times, it could go take up to 12 hours. Unfortunately, I fell into the latter. Henry did not have to wait very long. The Keeper selected him around 15 minutes after I first arrived. 

After Henry got his turn, I had a good 3 hours all to myself. I spent this time thinking. Thinking about anything and everything. My life. My wife. My job. My friend Rob. Anything that came to my mind was deeply analyzed. Then, in between my thoughts on veganism and global warming, someone else got in line. Her name was Paige. I gave her a quick run-down as soon as she arrived, just as Henry once did for me. After that, we started sharing details about our lives, and for a brief moment, all of my anxiety over waiting disappeared. I shared some of my most inner-thoughts with Paige and she did the same. Having a life-line at that moment was so important. There came a time when my thoughts became distorted and painful. Turns out all I needed was a friend… 

Paige and I were together for around 4 hours before the Keeper came in and took her away. It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to say goodbye. One minute I was confiding in my neighbor, and the next I was back to thinking, alone. The first thought that came to my mind was, “Why were Henry and Paige selected before me?” The only clear difference between myself and them was our size. Both Paige and Henry were significantly larger than me. The only thing I couldn’t piece together was what role size had in the selection process. Just as I started deciphering that thought, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. A large creature was headed straight towards me. This creature had not two, or four, or six, but eight legs! It lazily made its way over to me and my entire body started relaxing. “This is it,” I thought to myself right before I heard a loud buzzing noise coming from a few inches away. A third individual had found its way into the line and the creature shifted its attention from my puny body to their large and nutritious one. It was at that moment that I realized the Keeper was only concerned with the body that would give them the most energy. Everything that I thought I knew at that point was proven to be worthless. Death wasn’t slow, it was a selfish spider.

“If only I was a wasp,” I thought to myself as I slowly entered the infinite loop of thinking about anything and everything before a smaller fly comes along.