JAKOB EGGERS
THE WASP SPIDER & the Honey Bee
The wasp spider spun their web into a tightly woven fabric cube. The honey bee lay there, slightly twitching as the poison worked through her body. The wind blew through them both like a knife, stabbing cold into their exoskeletons through the cracks in their armor. The cold blue sky shone fractals of penumbral lines onto the web, dancing across both of these bugs. The wasp spider had never seen an insect quite like this, though wasps were similar. It was a fortunate catch; there were few prey willing to brave the frost. The slightly alien form of the bee gave the spider pause, as they considered her peculiarities. She had a rounded body, with weaker mandibles and smaller wings, strange web-like strands throughout her body, as if every pore were a spinneret, and an oddly hooked stinger... "Perhaps this one is not unlike me, perhaps she plucks the webs out of her body and makes her own nest? Perhaps she thinks like me, but yet she lies dying in my web," the wasp spider pondered while weaving, its movements slowing. The honey bee was no stranger to venom, but still, she gave out eventually. Tight woven web restricted her body, and venom made the body yet more immovable. The twitching grew more violent, then stopped with sleep, the tiny mind shutting down. The wasp spider could not cry. But they did stop for a while. Slow down. Felt the loss. There was little else to do in the cold. Another death just to eat. Was the death worth preserving the life of one lonely spider? Reflexively, the spider's mandibles paused at the stinger, quickly trying to bury the thought away.
"No sting has killed me yet!" thought the wasp spider, discarding memories of the loved ones they lost indulging in venom before. What more damage could be done?
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