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Once upon a time in the east
Once upon a time in the east, there was a spider who moved to the west.
He lived in the wardrobe of a woman who danced the flamenco. She kept her long red skirt and her black lace scarf,
dancing shoes and tights in that wardrobe and also the white ankle socks she wore in those shoes.
She would practice at home and the spider would watch and wish he could do that too. Yes, it was a male spider.
Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. He watched her longingly day after day after day as she practiced her moves
in front of the mirror. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
She danced classical flamenco, made the classical moves as if they
had been handed down by the genes from generation to generation, though she was not aware of any Spanish
ancestry at all.
One day, the dancer decided to move to the west. She packed up all her stuff and shipped it to Nawlins. (This was
before Hurricane Katrina.) Now, if she had emigrated to Australia, that probably would have been bad news for the
spider as Australia worries about accidentally importing pests and therefore does not allow the import of any used
furniture, or so I have heard, and that may be true for Canada as well. But luckily, it was the States she traveled
to, so the spider was able to stay with her.
In Nawlins, the woman took up tapdancing and the spider loved it even more than he had loved flamenco. I think it
was close to the French quarter where they were living, but never mind, the point is that the spider often heard
music he could easily picture himself tapdancing to. So he went out and got himself the right shoes. Believe it or
not, Nawlins has shops for spiders.
At the shop, he met a millipede and her name was Millicent. He thought that was a funny name, in view of the fact
that she had a thousand feet. He wondered how on earth she managed not to get her legs tangled up and cover them
all in black pantyhose without ripping even a single one of them. Millicent took him places and the spider, whoa,
did he learn how to tapdance! He even put up with Millicent’s many feet occasionally stepping on his toes as
he was fully aware that she was not doing it on purpose and admired her tremendously anyway.
The two of them became so well-known in tapdancing circles that eventually, even the woman in whose wardrobe
he had traveled to the States heard of it. She realized that it was her spider and though that he could provide some
additional income for her. After all, she had paid for the ticket on which he had flown to the States. So she started
making demands.
The spider didn’t like it much and I won’t repeat what Millicent had to say about it. Now, I can go on and on and
on and on and cook up lots of stuff just like that - in an eye wink - but the thing is, I am editing yet another
paper, so I am going to cut it short for now.
Katrina saved them! Katrina happened when the spider and the millipede were on stage, immensely enjoying
themselves. The theater was flooded and the stage was demolished, but it just so happened that the floor board -
or whatever you want to call it - on which the spider and the millipede had been merrily tapdancing away was
a very special board, a bit like a flying carpet. And carried by the flood, the board carried them to one of
those gorgeous riverboats because well, it is the Mississippi River that flows smack down the middle
of the town, after all, and the Mississippi has them, those riverboats
And on that riverboat, they continued to dance for many years to come (oops, we must be in the future by
now; either that or it was a different hurricane). The millipede broke a leg or two from time to
time and even lost a few, but that hardly mattered. Then one sad but sunny Saturday, the captain of
the boat did not watch where he was going and accidentally stepped on one of them after which the
other one jumped overboard and drowned. Sad, huh?
P.S. Yes, the flamenco dancer also wore a long-sleeved tight low-necked black t-shirt when dancing the flamenco.
Sorry if you thought she was topless and had been relishing the idea.
And that fatal final jump had only been an unfortunate move to escape the captain’s feet,
a jump in the wrong direction. That's how life goes.
Out of the blue, came tumbling down the stairs but I didn't have much time and had to cut it short and let the
pair meet with a double accident.
Written on January 10, 2009
Copyright: Angelina Souren
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Yes, the flamenco dancer also wore a long-sleeved tight low-necked black t-shirt when dancing the flamenco.
Sorry if you thought she was topless and had been relishing the idea.
