Post by los on Jul 8, 2007 3:45:44 GMT -5
The itsy, bitsy, spider went down Chamblers. Across, over to the trains. Now, Itsy for the life of him could never remember which line ran where, so he had to climb up and study the map each time. It was vitally important that the Very Fierce spider make sure he find his routes very carefully. If he erred, then there would be a delay in harvesting magic for Cairo. The little spider, which is adorable face and large eyes, was fanatically loyal and with great guile. Unseen by all save the most wild and wide of eyes, he was able to slip down the paths of the sidewalks and alleys of Manhattan. Oh, sure, on occasion some young child might spot him, or maybe someone sufficiently warped out of their head. For now, however, Itsy would not play with the children. So often he would amuse them endlessly, spinning his webs and coming up with a thousand clever games for them. The adults only saw the children playing with an unfamiliar doll; when the young one said it was alive, they never believed.
Itsy would be loved for a day, then thrown aside. It is right that children outgrow their toys, their friends living in their minds, their protectors. Like a child, putting away childish things, but not becoming the heartless adult which so permeated the world. And it broke Itsy's heart a little each time he was cast aside, but he carried off from all his playmates a little bit more of the light of their youth and creativity and fire, and he brought it to Cairo dutifully.
But there were other magics in the world. For while almost all saw the rag doll as adorable, there were for many a terror most intense associated with the spiders. Crawling through the dark, unnatural and unnerving, frothing with poison, they caused fear in man since before he was man. All that darkness, too, was Itsy, and he played both roles with the same gusto. So often, he was a silly plaything, hunting hot dogs, wrestling with cats, teaching children to count or spinning them little hats of spider silk. This was not one of those times.
Itsy, as bravely and fiercely and epically heroic as ever, had made it to the subway. The trolls, ogres, manticores, goblins, psychopaths, insane clowns, terrible aliens, and secret government societies with shadowy paramilitary commandos could not stop him. (And, when Itsy reviewed his adventures, these elements were -always- there, because they were -always- cool. Leave them out, and one would have the very dull story of an imaginary animal walking down a street in New York City, and -that- story was dull. It did nothing for his image as a monster who was very fierce, knew he was very fierce, and damn well would make all and sundry recognize.) He's kung-fu'd his way past the goons, slew the troll, saved Spiderman from a fate worse than death, courted Shelob, and eaten Bilbo all on his way to the Subway. (All doubters of Itsy's ferocity are welcome to just ask him how fierce he is.)
And there were more important things to do. Greater, terrible things to do under the ground, in the shadows. Itsy, foolishly heroic, comically epic, was waiting to enter the dark. Waiting to enter the earth, where the cthonic fears of mankind waited. He was seeking a place of modern nightmare, a seat on the throne Fear. Subways, the modern catacomb. Subways, where every city-dweller went. All passed through in their hearts having some subtle thoughts of the darkness and the earth, ignoring them as they cranked up their iPod or buried their head into the Journal.
It was a tiny thing, this niggling fear, but eighteen million people shared it just in the areas near this city. So had their ancestors. So had their estranged kin, delving into subways around the world. Strand by strand, it built up a layer of evil just as would a spider make a web, strand by strand.
Itsy walked down the subway platform, avoiding the many passerbys as he entered the tunnels. Now, crawling between the tracks, he had others to dodge. The dirty, foul people who lived down there. Each had their own curious story of sadness and dismay. Each made Itsy shiver. Even a very fierce spider had fears. He feared a time when this sort of despair and boredom crushed both dreams and nightmares. When everyone was as lifeless as these. When apathy was the order of the day. Here, neither reviled nor cared for, were the shadows of a doom of dreariness. Asleep on a cardboard mat was a sign of an cold world.
Shivering in the dark, Itsy walked on.
The trains rumbled by him and he climbed over tracks. These tunnels were as a second home to him. He harmlessly passed over the lines supplying power to the trains, always sure to never be pinched by the wheels and the tracks. After several turns that would disorient a man, he reached his goal. Here was a cul-de-sac in the deep, dark warrens beneath New York. Cut into the once-volcanic root of a mountain that was Manhattan, it was forgotten and alone. A deep place, under the ground, where a few forgotten transformers and other electrical goods remained. One day, one of them would fail, or else would come up on a computer somewhere as needing maintenance. A small team, themselves a little afraid of the dark, would come to this place. And then this little lair, with bones strewn willy-nilly and its foul scent, would be closed to him forever. Police would descend upon it, men scratching their head and wondering ever how such a thing happened in the deep places of the earth. Sensational stories, a long investigation. And then, in the end, urban legend. There's a reason our demons and our hell are deep under the ground, after all. But Itsy was very fierce, and nothing born in Heaven nor Hell scared the intrepid little spider. His one fear we have discussed.
“Bru...” he said, examining this, his lair. His voice fell in a cry of dismay. Everywhere, his beautiful webs had been shredded. And there was old blood on the ground. Itsy drew not blood, so he sighed. Perhaps this lair would be abandoned sooner than he thought. There was enough evil in the world that was the will of man – to the comedic little spider, there were plenty of unfun people, who were not heroes, not fierce, and probably didn't like hot dogs. And amidst the bones Itsy had strewn, another chose to kill. Brushing the strands of malignity of the world, another snapped. Or mayhap was born with genes for murder. Will, free or not, had since time immemorial failed to give men a freedom from being born monsters. What mother dreamed the thing in her womb was murder in flesh, driven by the very chemicals of its life to take lives and be a butcher? That she would raise a mind and intellect that would have such passions and not stymie them? Such men, born of woman, were drawn to places like Itsy's lair, and now one had come. Mayhap he would meet the spider, and Itsy would kill him. Then his lair would be preserved. But most likely, it would come crashing down, his webs shredded each time, his spirits lowered by the hopeless, pointless absurdity of it.
“Bruga!” but with a determined grunt, he began climbing the walls and restringing it all. Bit by bit, he spun webs no adult would see, none save the insane-in-a-fun-way (as opposed to the insane-in-an-eat-bugs-and-hearts way) or the truly Inspired. The types he wouldn't see here. He spun them and strung them until he had a beautiful trap laid out, every strand in the place where he wanted it. Until its mouth was a funnel that would bring his prey to the heart of the little spider's lair, and there his fly would be stuck fast indeed! And when this was done, and Itsy was satisfied with his work, it was time to hunt. The spider was a cunning killer, building a lazy trap that could take his prey on the wing and let him drink it dry with almost no work. Itsy was far, far cleverer. He hunted more dangerous game, and he hunted it with an intellect that was nearly human.
He battled past the dragons and gryphons and Stormtroopers that had infiltrated his tunnel (again, just ask Itsy) and made his way back to the surface. A short scamper later, he nestled down amongst the flowers around a small bit of green. In this hidden nowhere, within sight of the Brooklyn Bridge and in the shadow of City Hall, he waited. He posed. His big, soft eyes were made flesh, his little mandibles wiggled enticingly, his body was soft and furry. It was only a matter of time before his prey came.
She was a precious thing, maybe six years. She had dark, expressive eyes and a curious manner. Mom let her hand go, and she wandered over, her fingers reaching for the little spider. That was all it took. She touched the furry body, saying, “Who threw you away?” with a canted head. Mom just never noticed. Mom would never see her again. Lest we be unclear, this child with her hair up and her fingers sticky and a ketchup stain on her shirt will die. She will be reported missing, her family to mourn for years, to put up posters, to afix her name to the glass of their car. Her picture will be on a carton, her name spelled almost correctly on an amber alert.
Just so we're clear. Just ask Itsy; he is very fierce and his prey never escapes him.
Itsy came alive in the girl's hands, all eight legs wiggling and wriggling, his eyes darting this way and that. “Brugabru!” he exclaimed excitedly. He climbed onto the girl's head, then comically took a swan dive right off, landing on his back. His furry legs tickled, his mandibles chattered, “Bru!” with disarming charm. The girl of course giggled, as all of them did. She thought there was nothing strange in this, but stooped low to see the little spider. Itsy, now on the street, raised all his legs in the air most comically and did an excited little dance, chirping out again, “Bruga!” More giggles followed.
“What's your name?” she asked. They all did.
“Bruga!”
“Noo...” said the girl. “I'll call you -Itsy!-”
They all did. Boy or girl, however old, they all did one and the same. Each one thought they'd found their special friend. Every child should have one, but not today. Today, every child had Jax. Pikachu. Blue. They were sold their special friends, special friends who couldn't be just right for them. And that had made these hunts so much easier for Itsy. Ages ago, he had had to lure them with stolen gold or with the promise of escape from a life of drudgery. Now he just had to like the kids. They needed friends.
“Bru?” he asked with a questioning inflection.
“Itsy!” she said, “Your name is Itsy!”
“Bru!” he said, as if agreeing.
From here, her fate was sealed. It would be sad to talk of the seduction of the girl. She found her new friend so much fun, willing to listen. To hug her when the city scared her. To fish hot dogs out of a cart when the vendor wasn't looking and share them. To guide her away from responsible adults who might try to save her. To everyone else in New York, it was just the adorable, aggravating sight of a little girl dragging about a toy spider and yelling too loudly when she played with it. But Itsy was there to mouth songs with his bisyllabic vocabulary, to run up into cracks and make her chase him, to sit on her head and guide her. To create that final, fatal magic and trust.
Night fell. The girl had told Itsy her name, but he deliberately forgot it. The girl had never been alone in the big city before, and now she was alone in the dark. The dazzling city lights do not make us forget our fears. She said to Itsy, “I need to get -home-,” sadly. And Itsy bravely said, “Bru!” Perched atop the girl's head, he extended a long leg in the air toward the subway entrance, down under the earth. “Brubru!” he said, bouncing up and down.
“You know the way?” she asked.
“Bru!” he said cheerily.
So the girl entered the underground. And when Itsy gave a cry of alarm, she ran under the turnstile and dodged the MTA employees out there. She was a child, trusting her special friend. She followed him when he pointed down a tunnel, and climbing down into the darkness, she was on the tracks. The alarming shouts behind her were the cries of the people of a city moved to action, shocked from their normal state into one of fear and concern and maybe even a little love.
“Oh my God, there's a kid on the track!”
“Quick, somebody get her!”
“Come here, sweetie, come here!”
“Hey, Carl, call the trains and stop them! Someone go after her!”
But these cries were made alarming, made terrifying. Itsy shouted, “Bruga!” in fear. And the girl trusted her special friend. She ran, ran down the tracks into the darkness, following the furry leg of the spider perched atop her head.
“Itsy, Itsy, I'm scared.” she said. She hugged the spider to her chest and whispered again, slowing from a run to a walk. No train came; the MTA had stopped the line for her. Drunken, foul men down in the deep ignored her. And no one saved her. No one entered underground, eternal night and went to save the girl.
Remember, the fears of eighteen million have been, strand by strand, woven into the darkness here.
“Itsy, I'll be OK, right?”
“Bru!” he chirped.
Children trust their special friend.
Led by that single leg, she walked in the dark. She kicked a bone and thought it a rock, then found her spider was no longer in her arms. In the darkness, there are terrible things. There are winos who are walking despair sleeping on cardboard. There are monster-men who would kill brutally for no purpose. And there is Itsy. Itsy, who grew in her arms. She let him go, staggering back. She tripped and fell, but a wet, sticky mass held her up, almost as if she had fallen on a swing set covered in glue in the dark. Itsy gave off light now, green as venom. Itsy was larger than a car now. Itsy had legs like blades, his little mandibles dripping venom. Itsy was hungry.
Her scream rent the darkness, and the winos heard it. So did the monster-men. None came into that terrible lair.
Itsy drew closer, savoring her fear as he came close, hissing, his blade-like legs clattering over the stonework. He was very fierce indeed. The girl felt his fangs rip into her arm, and she went limp, no longer struggling, no longer able to scream, but hurting. Fire was in her veins, terror in her eyes. Spiders are vicious hunters. He would wind this one in a cocoon and toy with it, drinking until engorged when finally he decided to end the game.
The hellish face inches from her own, the spider snarled with a voice that made the very earth shake, “Bruga!”
Itsy was very fierce.
Itsy would be loved for a day, then thrown aside. It is right that children outgrow their toys, their friends living in their minds, their protectors. Like a child, putting away childish things, but not becoming the heartless adult which so permeated the world. And it broke Itsy's heart a little each time he was cast aside, but he carried off from all his playmates a little bit more of the light of their youth and creativity and fire, and he brought it to Cairo dutifully.
But there were other magics in the world. For while almost all saw the rag doll as adorable, there were for many a terror most intense associated with the spiders. Crawling through the dark, unnatural and unnerving, frothing with poison, they caused fear in man since before he was man. All that darkness, too, was Itsy, and he played both roles with the same gusto. So often, he was a silly plaything, hunting hot dogs, wrestling with cats, teaching children to count or spinning them little hats of spider silk. This was not one of those times.
Itsy, as bravely and fiercely and epically heroic as ever, had made it to the subway. The trolls, ogres, manticores, goblins, psychopaths, insane clowns, terrible aliens, and secret government societies with shadowy paramilitary commandos could not stop him. (And, when Itsy reviewed his adventures, these elements were -always- there, because they were -always- cool. Leave them out, and one would have the very dull story of an imaginary animal walking down a street in New York City, and -that- story was dull. It did nothing for his image as a monster who was very fierce, knew he was very fierce, and damn well would make all and sundry recognize.) He's kung-fu'd his way past the goons, slew the troll, saved Spiderman from a fate worse than death, courted Shelob, and eaten Bilbo all on his way to the Subway. (All doubters of Itsy's ferocity are welcome to just ask him how fierce he is.)
And there were more important things to do. Greater, terrible things to do under the ground, in the shadows. Itsy, foolishly heroic, comically epic, was waiting to enter the dark. Waiting to enter the earth, where the cthonic fears of mankind waited. He was seeking a place of modern nightmare, a seat on the throne Fear. Subways, the modern catacomb. Subways, where every city-dweller went. All passed through in their hearts having some subtle thoughts of the darkness and the earth, ignoring them as they cranked up their iPod or buried their head into the Journal.
It was a tiny thing, this niggling fear, but eighteen million people shared it just in the areas near this city. So had their ancestors. So had their estranged kin, delving into subways around the world. Strand by strand, it built up a layer of evil just as would a spider make a web, strand by strand.
Itsy walked down the subway platform, avoiding the many passerbys as he entered the tunnels. Now, crawling between the tracks, he had others to dodge. The dirty, foul people who lived down there. Each had their own curious story of sadness and dismay. Each made Itsy shiver. Even a very fierce spider had fears. He feared a time when this sort of despair and boredom crushed both dreams and nightmares. When everyone was as lifeless as these. When apathy was the order of the day. Here, neither reviled nor cared for, were the shadows of a doom of dreariness. Asleep on a cardboard mat was a sign of an cold world.
Shivering in the dark, Itsy walked on.
The trains rumbled by him and he climbed over tracks. These tunnels were as a second home to him. He harmlessly passed over the lines supplying power to the trains, always sure to never be pinched by the wheels and the tracks. After several turns that would disorient a man, he reached his goal. Here was a cul-de-sac in the deep, dark warrens beneath New York. Cut into the once-volcanic root of a mountain that was Manhattan, it was forgotten and alone. A deep place, under the ground, where a few forgotten transformers and other electrical goods remained. One day, one of them would fail, or else would come up on a computer somewhere as needing maintenance. A small team, themselves a little afraid of the dark, would come to this place. And then this little lair, with bones strewn willy-nilly and its foul scent, would be closed to him forever. Police would descend upon it, men scratching their head and wondering ever how such a thing happened in the deep places of the earth. Sensational stories, a long investigation. And then, in the end, urban legend. There's a reason our demons and our hell are deep under the ground, after all. But Itsy was very fierce, and nothing born in Heaven nor Hell scared the intrepid little spider. His one fear we have discussed.
“Bru...” he said, examining this, his lair. His voice fell in a cry of dismay. Everywhere, his beautiful webs had been shredded. And there was old blood on the ground. Itsy drew not blood, so he sighed. Perhaps this lair would be abandoned sooner than he thought. There was enough evil in the world that was the will of man – to the comedic little spider, there were plenty of unfun people, who were not heroes, not fierce, and probably didn't like hot dogs. And amidst the bones Itsy had strewn, another chose to kill. Brushing the strands of malignity of the world, another snapped. Or mayhap was born with genes for murder. Will, free or not, had since time immemorial failed to give men a freedom from being born monsters. What mother dreamed the thing in her womb was murder in flesh, driven by the very chemicals of its life to take lives and be a butcher? That she would raise a mind and intellect that would have such passions and not stymie them? Such men, born of woman, were drawn to places like Itsy's lair, and now one had come. Mayhap he would meet the spider, and Itsy would kill him. Then his lair would be preserved. But most likely, it would come crashing down, his webs shredded each time, his spirits lowered by the hopeless, pointless absurdity of it.
“Bruga!” but with a determined grunt, he began climbing the walls and restringing it all. Bit by bit, he spun webs no adult would see, none save the insane-in-a-fun-way (as opposed to the insane-in-an-eat-bugs-and-hearts way) or the truly Inspired. The types he wouldn't see here. He spun them and strung them until he had a beautiful trap laid out, every strand in the place where he wanted it. Until its mouth was a funnel that would bring his prey to the heart of the little spider's lair, and there his fly would be stuck fast indeed! And when this was done, and Itsy was satisfied with his work, it was time to hunt. The spider was a cunning killer, building a lazy trap that could take his prey on the wing and let him drink it dry with almost no work. Itsy was far, far cleverer. He hunted more dangerous game, and he hunted it with an intellect that was nearly human.
He battled past the dragons and gryphons and Stormtroopers that had infiltrated his tunnel (again, just ask Itsy) and made his way back to the surface. A short scamper later, he nestled down amongst the flowers around a small bit of green. In this hidden nowhere, within sight of the Brooklyn Bridge and in the shadow of City Hall, he waited. He posed. His big, soft eyes were made flesh, his little mandibles wiggled enticingly, his body was soft and furry. It was only a matter of time before his prey came.
She was a precious thing, maybe six years. She had dark, expressive eyes and a curious manner. Mom let her hand go, and she wandered over, her fingers reaching for the little spider. That was all it took. She touched the furry body, saying, “Who threw you away?” with a canted head. Mom just never noticed. Mom would never see her again. Lest we be unclear, this child with her hair up and her fingers sticky and a ketchup stain on her shirt will die. She will be reported missing, her family to mourn for years, to put up posters, to afix her name to the glass of their car. Her picture will be on a carton, her name spelled almost correctly on an amber alert.
Just so we're clear. Just ask Itsy; he is very fierce and his prey never escapes him.
Itsy came alive in the girl's hands, all eight legs wiggling and wriggling, his eyes darting this way and that. “Brugabru!” he exclaimed excitedly. He climbed onto the girl's head, then comically took a swan dive right off, landing on his back. His furry legs tickled, his mandibles chattered, “Bru!” with disarming charm. The girl of course giggled, as all of them did. She thought there was nothing strange in this, but stooped low to see the little spider. Itsy, now on the street, raised all his legs in the air most comically and did an excited little dance, chirping out again, “Bruga!” More giggles followed.
“What's your name?” she asked. They all did.
“Bruga!”
“Noo...” said the girl. “I'll call you -Itsy!-”
They all did. Boy or girl, however old, they all did one and the same. Each one thought they'd found their special friend. Every child should have one, but not today. Today, every child had Jax. Pikachu. Blue. They were sold their special friends, special friends who couldn't be just right for them. And that had made these hunts so much easier for Itsy. Ages ago, he had had to lure them with stolen gold or with the promise of escape from a life of drudgery. Now he just had to like the kids. They needed friends.
“Bru?” he asked with a questioning inflection.
“Itsy!” she said, “Your name is Itsy!”
“Bru!” he said, as if agreeing.
From here, her fate was sealed. It would be sad to talk of the seduction of the girl. She found her new friend so much fun, willing to listen. To hug her when the city scared her. To fish hot dogs out of a cart when the vendor wasn't looking and share them. To guide her away from responsible adults who might try to save her. To everyone else in New York, it was just the adorable, aggravating sight of a little girl dragging about a toy spider and yelling too loudly when she played with it. But Itsy was there to mouth songs with his bisyllabic vocabulary, to run up into cracks and make her chase him, to sit on her head and guide her. To create that final, fatal magic and trust.
Night fell. The girl had told Itsy her name, but he deliberately forgot it. The girl had never been alone in the big city before, and now she was alone in the dark. The dazzling city lights do not make us forget our fears. She said to Itsy, “I need to get -home-,” sadly. And Itsy bravely said, “Bru!” Perched atop the girl's head, he extended a long leg in the air toward the subway entrance, down under the earth. “Brubru!” he said, bouncing up and down.
“You know the way?” she asked.
“Bru!” he said cheerily.
So the girl entered the underground. And when Itsy gave a cry of alarm, she ran under the turnstile and dodged the MTA employees out there. She was a child, trusting her special friend. She followed him when he pointed down a tunnel, and climbing down into the darkness, she was on the tracks. The alarming shouts behind her were the cries of the people of a city moved to action, shocked from their normal state into one of fear and concern and maybe even a little love.
“Oh my God, there's a kid on the track!”
“Quick, somebody get her!”
“Come here, sweetie, come here!”
“Hey, Carl, call the trains and stop them! Someone go after her!”
But these cries were made alarming, made terrifying. Itsy shouted, “Bruga!” in fear. And the girl trusted her special friend. She ran, ran down the tracks into the darkness, following the furry leg of the spider perched atop her head.
“Itsy, Itsy, I'm scared.” she said. She hugged the spider to her chest and whispered again, slowing from a run to a walk. No train came; the MTA had stopped the line for her. Drunken, foul men down in the deep ignored her. And no one saved her. No one entered underground, eternal night and went to save the girl.
Remember, the fears of eighteen million have been, strand by strand, woven into the darkness here.
“Itsy, I'll be OK, right?”
“Bru!” he chirped.
Children trust their special friend.
Led by that single leg, she walked in the dark. She kicked a bone and thought it a rock, then found her spider was no longer in her arms. In the darkness, there are terrible things. There are winos who are walking despair sleeping on cardboard. There are monster-men who would kill brutally for no purpose. And there is Itsy. Itsy, who grew in her arms. She let him go, staggering back. She tripped and fell, but a wet, sticky mass held her up, almost as if she had fallen on a swing set covered in glue in the dark. Itsy gave off light now, green as venom. Itsy was larger than a car now. Itsy had legs like blades, his little mandibles dripping venom. Itsy was hungry.
Her scream rent the darkness, and the winos heard it. So did the monster-men. None came into that terrible lair.
Itsy drew closer, savoring her fear as he came close, hissing, his blade-like legs clattering over the stonework. He was very fierce indeed. The girl felt his fangs rip into her arm, and she went limp, no longer struggling, no longer able to scream, but hurting. Fire was in her veins, terror in her eyes. Spiders are vicious hunters. He would wind this one in a cocoon and toy with it, drinking until engorged when finally he decided to end the game.
The hellish face inches from her own, the spider snarled with a voice that made the very earth shake, “Bruga!”
Itsy was very fierce.