Fictionlet
Greg came wandering into the room and hovered over Brigid, who was lounging on the couch with a cup of coffee and a sitcom. He was scribbling furiously in a small notebook. Brigid looked up at him, or more accurately at the back of the notebook, for several long, silent seconds.
Scribble, scribble, scribble, scribble.
Brigid looked around the room, then back up at the notebook. Finally, still scribbling, Greg asked, “Do you suppose that spiders think?”
“What?” said Brigid.
“Spiders,” Greg said. “What do you know about them?”
“Well,” Brigid said, “the basics. Eight legs. Eight eyes. Eat bugs. Always find the corner that’s hardest to clean cobwebs out of.”
“Cobwebs!” said Greg, writing it down. “Great word!”
“Glad you like it.”
“So what’s your opinion? Do spiders think? Do they sit around forming opinions on things, or is it all stimulus-response, stimulus-response with them? Is it possible for spiders to have a personality? Or are they like little robots, that run the ‘build web’ program when they find a dark corner, and the ‘eat bug’ program when something gets stuck in the web?”
Brigid blinked. “Good lord, I don’t know, how should I know? Geeze, I hope they can’t think. It’s hard enough spotting one of them on the ceiling when I’m in the shower, without having to wonder what it’s got on its mind. Guh!” She shuddered.
“Spider tells all!” Greg said, scribbling with almost manic intensity. “Naked woman in shower traumatized!”
“Oh, thanks.”
“Hmm,” Greg continued. “Cobweb. Cobweb.”
“You’re not even listening to me any more, are you?”
“Cobweb. Cob. Web. Corn on the cobweb!”
Brigid squeezed her eyes shut. “Okay, that is officially the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”
Scribble! Scribble! “The world wide cobweb! WWW-dot-help-I’m-being-eaten-by-a-spider-dot-bug!”
“Right,” she said, turning off the TV and hastily getting to her feet. “I’m outa here. You and the spiders, have fun.”
After a moment, he noticed the silence and looked around at the empty room. “Huh!” he said to the empty air. “I wonder what’s the matter with her?” He flopped down into her space on the couch, and went back to his scribbling.
-The Gneech
EDIT: Revised, per frostdemn’s suggestion. Thanks, dude!
<-- previous B&G next B&G -->
