As some of you know, as well as writing about astrology, I write short fiction under the name Mandi S. Lockley. Here’s one that was published in September 2015 in Mused Bella Online Literary Review, in which a young woman is inspired to question her lifestyle whilst watching a spider spin its intricate web.
Enjoy…
The Spider
Lonely, that’s how you’ll end up. Old and lonely.
His remark had reminded Louise of her mother’s reaction when she’d told her all those years ago that she never wanted to marry. Who would be a spinster by choice? she’d asked. The word spinster was loaded with shame and rejection and Louise wondered how many girls of her mother’s generation had condemned themselves to loveless marriages just to escape that tag. Not for the first time, Louise wondered if that was why her mother had married her father.
But it was the twenty-first century now. Independence was something to be proud of and being alone wasn’t the same as being lonely. Even so, James’ words and the memory of her mother’s insult had set her thinking about her life.
She poured herself a drink and took a long swig, as if the sweetness could rinse away the nasty taste the spinster word had left in her mouth. As she drank, she wandered into the lounge. West facing, it was always bright in the evenings during the summer. She opened the sliding glass door and sat down in the opening. The sun, low on the horizon, warmed her legs, which cast long shadows across the patio.
She noticed a grey spider dangling from a rhododendron bush. With the sun behind it, she could clearly make out its silky thread and the tiny hairs on its multiple legs. Louise smiled to herself. She recalled how, as a child, she’d been terrified of spiders, had screamed at the mere sight of one. Now she thought of them as friendly housemates helping to keep down the flies. Her fear had dissolved through necessity. Who else was going to remove a spider from the sink or chase one away from the bedroom ceiling in the middle of the night? Once, she had accidently drowned one in the bath and felt so bad she had made a spider ladder out of matchsticks and string and hung it over the bath taps.
She knew she should do some work. She had a lecture to rewrite and her students’ end of term papers needed marking, but she felt frozen on the spot, her attention captured by the suspended spider, her thoughts on James...
...Read the rest of this story (for free) at this link: bellaonline.com
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Lots of love, Mandi x
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