When last we met, Marvin had rather precociously invited himself into my pocket and, hence, my home. With no further preamble, we will begin the story from that fateful moment on the back porch.
Having a spider in my pocket was one thing. Bringing it into my home was quite another. And I hadn't even begun to process the issue of actually conversing with it. There were so many things wrong with this picture that I opted for complacence over incredulity. It was just easier to go with the flow. Thinking would come later, I hoped.
Still, the spider had a name, or so it claimed. It seemed only fair -and certainly more polite- to refer to the creature as "him" from here on out. Marvin. Okay. If he said so. Who was I to question what he had told me?
"You okay up there?" Marvin asked, peering at me from the edge of my shirt pocket.
I thought for a second before answering. "Well, if you consider that I have a spider in my pocket, one who is speaking to me no less, and that I'm actually replying to him and walking calmly into my home rather than flailing about and screaming as if I were on fire, then yes, I guess you could say I'm okay."
"What's to consider? Seems like a pretty normal situation to me." He smiled innocently.
"Well it would to you, wouldn't it? You're the spider. Do you think other people, seeing me in this situation, would find any of this normal?"
"Why not? Don't you people talk to each other or help each other out if one of you is in a jam?" He looked at me expectantly.
"That depends."
"On what? I don't see any reason for not being friendly. And I would certainly find it rude if I saw that someone was in need of help and was being ignored."
"It's more common than you might think."
"It's not!" he said, shocked.
"Yeah, it really is. And the more people there are, the more common it becomes. You see it all the time. Especially in cities. People just ignore each other. They even avoid each other."
"Then why do they live in cities at all if they don't want to be around other people?"
"Good question. I don't know. Maybe they like the conveniences of the city. Or maybe it's because of the culture that cities offer."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, people like to go to museums, see films, attend plays. In cities you have all these things together. It's like having a window on the world."
"Look, I'm just a spider, so maybe I'm missing something. You like museums, plays, and movies because...?"
"Because you get a mix of creativity and thought and culture from people from all over the planet. Art teaches us more about who we are, and it expresses thoughts and feelings. It makes us better people because it shows us ourselves, or it shows us others who may not be like us at all. So we learn more about beauty and sadness and joy and, well, all kinds of things. I think, in a way, it shows us essential things that we have in common as people."
"You know, you're really confusing me." His little spider brow wrinkled down the middle. "You ignore each other, you don't talk to each other, but you go to museums and theaters to find out about each other."
"Exactly." I stopped, wondering what I had just said. "No, not exactly. I'm not very good at explaining these things."
"I can see that."
"Well, at least we don't ignore each other as much in smaller towns. That's why I live here." I drew a semicircle in the air around me, pointing out the living room we now stood in. "Besides, you guys eat each other after sex," I said triumphantly. "At least the females do."
"That's a myth, wise ass. Only a few species do that, and not consistently either."
"I suppose it depends on your mood."
"I'm not having this conversation. Could you find me a matchbox or something? I could do with a rest, in a comfortable bed. It hasn't been a great day."
I took Marvin into the kitchen, set him down on the counter, and began to root through the drawers.
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