We have noticed that, for the last week or two, a fairly small spider appears every night in a specific corner of the bathroom floor. He/she just sits there, unmoving. With only five legs he/she is probably technically not a spider – don’t spiders have eight legs?
In the morning, the spider thingy is gone – only to reappear the next night at around midnight or so, when I am just going to bed. He does not spin a web. He does not appear to catch anything to eat. He just sits there, on the floor. He is just there.
Last night, I tried taking a photo of him. The photograph came out strangely blurry… It just would not focus. (But then, that could be due to the fact that my camera does not seem to be very reliable at the moment).
My husband has suggested it might be a duppy – a spirit. Like the big flapping brown moths that live in the shadows under trees and sometimes enter the house at night. We call them bats in Jamaica, although of course they are not. Latin American and Caribbean myths about those creatures are not encouraging and usually involve death. So our yard is full of spirits, lurking in dark corners. I see omens of death almost daily.
In light of these superstitions, I am starting to wonder about our five-legged spider. But I am not. Superstitious. Am I?
Perhaps I can catch a real photo of him tonight.
