Chapter 2: Spiders in Her Hair -- Fabulous Freewrite in the Art of Stephen King
Well, apparently there have been requests to tell more about Sara. I feel I have an obligation to comply. So, without further ado....
FABULOUS FREEWRITE IN THE ART OF STEPHEN KING: CHAPTER 2
Spiders In Her Hair
...A few years passed. The new owners were fairly uneventful. They passed gas as they watched reruns of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune from beige recliners. The Man would always put his dentures in when he moved the lawn and did the gardening, just in case someone stopped by to chat, which never happened.
The Mrs. seemed to enjoy vacuuming, and baking casseroles. Especially on Sunday afternoons. It reminded her of when they were younger and had family and friends over for Sunday dinners. The ritual of vacuuming and baking casseroles triggered deep memories of a full house bustling with conversation and commotion. They had not had company in years, and they likely never would--which frankly suited Sarah just fine.
Sarah preferred the quiet. Occasionally The Mrs. would make her way into the formal dining room--where Sarah lived--and she'd bring that awful, cumbersome, whirring, vacuuming machine with her. Well, it wasn't completely awful. Thinking so would require emotion. And Sarah was, after all, quite void of emotion. But for the sake of argument, there was something rather unnerving, about having something so loud and mechanical brush and roll and scrape repeatedly over your back.
It was easily the most eventful part of Sarah's life during that time, with the exception of one instance in particular.
There was a house spider that lived in the bottom corner of the dining room, beneath the curio, which happened to be very close to where Sarah's head was......or USED to be. The spider would come out in the evenings and try to catch a meal or two during the week. It was very clearly a female, as she had just recently eaten her partner, and Sarah watched as she slowly doubled in size with a bulbous belly. But it wasn't full of lovers' flesh and bones. It was full of something else. She used to skitter about rather speedily. Now she teetered and wobbled and dragged as she made a new home for her babies.
Sarah watched as Mama spider spun a sac with her spindly legs and deposited the fertilized eggs inside. Her body pushed out the tiny blobs in sort of a pulsing way as she filled the sac with her gooey offspring. Her abdomen went from large and shiny to flat and dull within a very short time. She hung around and fiddled with the sac for a few more days, fastening it tightly on the base of the curio, then eventually crawled away and dried up somewhere, no doubt dangling in the air as her leg caught on a wall or a cabinet.
The sac, though, was very much alive. It was small, so Sarah found it difficult to make out all the details all the time, but she did notice some movement occasionally--something of a bulge and a fidget now and then. And then it happened.
A little crack...and tiny, wiggly, probing legs began to delicately tear open the sac, the way a young woman might carefully tear at a pastry when she found herself being admired and didn't want to appear greedy. Miniature things made up of eyes, legs, and skeleton found their way to the hole and pushed through, one on top of the other, emerging from the silk. Hundreds of them. Pouring out. Crawling in no particular direction but out. Which way to go next?
Some were black and shiny, others pale and matted. There must have been a few partners. The milkman first, then the cable guy. And the pool boy. All got what they came for, and were swiftly devoured. Sarah wondered if they felt their lives had served their purpose as their legacy of little ones sprang forth, full of fire, hungry for something...milk maybe? Or was it blood? They would know soon enough.
A gust of warm air blew out of the vent on the floor, and the babies suddenly took flight and zoomed around the room, just as The Mrs. was coming in to dust the curio. She hadn't noticed of course, a very large and swarming number of legged critters that had landed gracefully into her fluffy hair and around her ears. Their tiny little spiny feet had caught onto the wisps of hair, the fabric of her sweater. They travelled everywhere, into her scalp, her eyebrows, down her neck and even nestling quite nicely between her sagging breasts that were held up with an old peach colored polyester bra from K-Mart, back when it was in business.
They found homes in the carpet, the curtains, the curio. They munched on dead flakes of scalp or dust, but it left them feeling...hungry. Still hungry. They would need to find real food. Such harmless little creatures, without their mother. Sarah nearly found it amusing that they had found rest in an old woman's hair, of all places. She wondered if they would enjoy a little Alex Trebek and a glass full of soaking dentures on the side. She felt something of a chuckle begin to form in her throat, but quickly stifled the feeling and remained a silent observer just as she had been......since the incident with the floor.
It was another few years before the couple declined altogether. The Mrs. went first. The Man followed. He fell depressed because he didn't have anyone fussing over him, and he missed her voice--even the nagging. It made him feel like he mattered to someone. Upsetting The Mrs. was his way of keeping her close. If he was feeling lonely or bored, he'd leave a dirty spoon in the sink or forget to put the lid back down. It was sure to get a rise out of The Mrs. If he was lucky, they might go at it for a little while.
But that was over now. And the new family would be moving in soon. They had been in a few times since closing. They brought with them a little girl. She seemed to know things.....
Sara, the silent observer. I like it.
I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do something with her in the floor. I've got to build up to who she was in the past.
Okay, I'm definitely hooked.
Nice job making my skin crawl with the spiders. I feel them in my hair, on the back of my neck....
And I certainly look forward to meeting her.
As do I!
I hope you never stop writing this!
Or at least writing this way!
"she found herself being admired and didn't want to appear greedy." Great line. Also, how men, especially older generations, became trained to get attention by being ding dongs and purposefully getting nagged at. I was my family counselor and tried to get my father to change how aggressive he was in arguments to save their marriage. He told me fighting showed you still had passion and cared. It didn't work, but it is an enduring human quality lol.
Yeah, there is some funny psychology to it, isn't there?