Last week, while walking in a wooded area, I was bitten by a spider. At least, I asume it was a spider, but I never actually saw the offending critter. The first thing I knew, there was a little bump on my right wrist and all the muscles and tendons in that area were sore to the touch, or if I used them. Soon that hand was slightly swollen. And about 15 minutes later my left hand was swollen right along with the right one, and both hands were slightly sweaty.

Just when I was about to get worried (about half an hour after the initial bite), everything went away except for a lingering soreness on my right wrist. By the next day I couldn’t even see the bite any more.

But what image has filled my mind as I look back on the incident? Was it the mottled pallor of my hands, the sheen of the sweat, the bite itself? No. It is the spider that I never saw. I can just imagine him pumping me as full of his paralytic poison as he could, almost hyperventilating with excitement on the size of his catch. I can imagine him leaving, spent and exhausted from his efforts, and running back to his friends to spin tales of “the one that got away.” Can’t you just hear him… “I kid you NOT! It was THIIIIS BIG!!!!!”