THE SPIDER

… and the spider grew fatter and bigger. It gradually covered the wall. As all the other bugs were bickering, the spider was surreptitiously gobbling them up, never greedily but slowly without causing alarm and it was growing all the time.

The dominant bugs till then never thought much of the spider, even though it was devouring some of the reigning bugs to grow and cover more of the wall. But one fine day the dominant bugs realized just how big the spider had become and how far it had spread its web; they decided to take the strategy of appeasement, hoping the spider would reciprocate the goodwill.

The spider, now more powerful than ever, shedding all pretensions of subtlety, was now on a rampage: its attacks were now blatant. The dominant bugs still thought they could contain the spider's ever spreading web and that they would be spared from the wrath of the behemoth and continued the strategy of appeasement until one day they realized that they were now cornered. They found that they occupied only a small area of the wall and the web was fast approaching to annihilate them.

The spider, in the fullness of time, had all the wall covered with its web and dissenters were either eaten except those who had already fled but most knelt down in surrender. The surrendered were now the subjects of the empire of the monster and their lives were spared, for now. The formerly dominant bugs became the slaves of the wall which they had once ruled. The conquest of the spider was now complete.

Dhaka, 28th April 2016.

© S M Shahrukh and Traces of Orange, 2016