I have a confession to make. I can’t contain it any further, else I will burst at the seams, teeming I am with such emotion. I have been harbouring a secret crush, and I just have to tell the world, so how better to reveal my psychological transgressions than to write it out on such a platform for all the world to see?
One morning, a few years ago, I drew myself a hot bath, found a good book, and lit some candles so I might relax on an overcast Saturday morning, after a long week’s work. Feeling the steam mist reaching the deepest recesses of my lungs, immediately loosening my muscles as I stretched out, lowering myself beneath the soapy foam bubble bath, and hearing the faint crickle-crackling of the candle wick as the gentle flame tittered about, I reached for my novel, and as I was about to open to my awaiting chapter--I saw her.
Gazing up through the windows, I saw her briefly glide into view. It is so early to be out and about, I mused to myself, yet there she was. Alert, alive, and unabashedly settling into her first task of the day, or so I believed. I would find out later that she was always busy, night or day. What a remarkable specimen, to look so good and to be constantly motivated! I was immediately intrigued, so I calmly set my book aside, sat up carefully so as not to spook her, and began to observe.
Full-figured, my subject was majestic in appearance. For someone so curvacious, her legs were slender and sleek. When she walked it was like she was walking on air. She went about her morning repairing and tidying her home, effortlessly, tirelessly. She tolerated no refuse to be strewn about her property. When even the tiniest of debris found its way onto her stoop, she would meticulously slide over, retrieve, and discard it without a single thought. I would watch her for months at a time, and she would always maintain the kind of proprietary care a master of their trade would envy. If she ever needed home repairs--and in our neighbourhood, it was often--she simply did them herself. She would spend hours, surgically repairing her home for both the aesthetics and the functionality. Some days, she simply stayed inside. Perhaps she traveled, but I doubted that was the case. When someone works as tirelessly she did, they are most certainly entitled to rest. Perhaps she enjoyed a lesiurely break such as mine, in which she was spying back at me. The thought made my heart flutter.
One day, she was gone. All evidence that she was ever there simply ceased to exist. I couldn’t anything except for a few tattered remnants of her handiwork, as she was no longer there to repair it. A small part of me went cold. Had she gone for the winter? Was she ill? Had she found somewhere else to live? Was it I who had driven her away?
Several months later, I would be reassured that she was fine. At first, I had not noticed the slow reconstruction of her new tennement. I thought that perhaps a new occupant had moved into her spot, and was clearing the cobwebs of years past to build something anew. I waited patiently yet excitedly for the moment to arrive, and sure enough, there she was. Drifting into view, my distant love had returned to me. My heart soared as she took to her stage, doing her dance, carefully choreographed to captivate me as I watched, for at this point I acknowledged that she was aware of my presence all along. Mine, and everyone else’s. In fact, she was counting on it. It meant nothing to her that I was there, watching her every move, but all this work was never intended for my audience in the first place. She had bigger fish to fry. And they frequented her often.
What was debris that so often lay scattered across her yard was nothing less than the remnants of her clientelle. I always new the nature of her business, of course, but only rarely did I see the crime as it happened. One time, a large gentleman came flitting by, poking about the premises, no doubt attracted much like I was. Suddenly, he found himself tangled in her web. Initially, he wasn’t alarmed, and set about freeing himself from the trap so elaborately sprung. Perhaps before he saw her emerge from her shelter, lithely approaching with the stealth of an assassin, or maybe only upon sight of this formidable creature did he then begin to panic. He twisted, jerking this way and that, but the more he fought, the more he seemed subdued. Never giving in, he flapped and waved, but no one came to his aid. The hunter had her quarry exactly where she wanted him. Escape was futile.
It happened very quickly. She pounced, quicker than the eye could capture, paralyzing her prey in an instant. With no qualm for any inquisiting passers-by, she began to tidy up the mess. Her victim tied tightly from head to toe, she casually lugged his unconscious body out of my view. After an indeterminate amount of time, she made her way back outside, setting immediately to work repairing the damage his incursion and subsequent capture had caused. Before long, life was back to normal. Passersby were oblivious to the horrific scene which had taken place just moments before. My beloved settled back into her hideaway, occupying herself with whatever it was she did out of my sight through the window. Perhaps she was entertaining her new guest, who I figure was never going home again. Would anyone come to look for him? Surely they would meet the same fate.
Alas, I can only dream about her ruthless efficiency. She will never reciprocate my admiration. She lives her life doing what she does, which is building and repairing her home, baiting her small but strategic piece of real estate for would-be victims, and seizing them when they inevitably stumble upon her lethal, invisible snare. She is for all I know, happy with the way she lives her life. Indeed, she could know no other.
You might think that I am hopelessly in love with her, but in fact, I am in love with all of her kind. As a matter of fact, when I walk outside, I admire a whole host of creatures like her, all established in their own environs doing the exact same thing, neighbours and peers of the killing lane I now refer to as ‘Death Alley’. The odds of anyone casually passing through this region and making it out alive are slim to none. I’ve seen the bravest of the brave, the moist boisterous and fearless of souls tempt fate by trespassing into the killing ground, only to see them all meet their fate in a most excruciating way. And it matters not their shape or size; even the tiniest of the hunters has seen success, taking out quarry many times their size. All of them are immaculate housekeepers. All have established themselves without any quarrel with their neighbours. Some have even collaborated, building what appear to be duplexes, sharing the precious little space at their disposal, only to reap double the reward. Perhaps they are collaborating behind the scenes. But I will never know.
I will never know because there is a line finer than those gossamer strands that comprise their killing machines. I can rationalize that they will not hurt me. I have physically acted upon my desire, and taken her into my hand, and she has yet to turn on me. I know, however, that she is best left to her world, and I to mine. She is best admired and adored as she is, through my steamy window while I sip my coffee and enjoy my novel. It is a good relationship, when you think about it. She gets to live the life she knows best, without the stress of being constrained to my rules or expectations. I don’t have to look after her, feed her, let her in or let or out. She will live and die exactly the way she was meant to. And if for some reason she were to rear at me, and gnash at me in either anger, fear, or even instinct, she could very well inflict pain on me, and wouldn’t that alter our entire relationship for the worse?
I have determined that we all have our own nature, and we would do best to respect the nature of others. Sometimes nature is cold. In some ways, it is the coldness that defines her appeal. By that token, a liaison between us will never be anything but dangerous. Thankfully, she isn’t that interested in me. There are definitely others in this world that would not hesitate to prey upon me or my loved ones. Why court such disaster for the sake of an exotic fantasy?
The water now grown cold, and the wick drowning the flame in the melted wax coagulated around the base of my contorted candle, I wrap myself in a warm towel before dressing, and take a moment to peer in on my two sleeping children. It’s the weekend, and they’re having a sleep-over in the spare room. Outside, in Death Alley, its business as usual.
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