Spider

So there I was, cooking a couple of duck-breasts, flash-fried, hot over the gas-blue flame, deep in the unctuous fat of their own flesh. Kitchen hot and smoky and aromatic, full of the promise of rich, red meat, gold and pink and, in its heart, deep red.

In the corner of my eye comes the spider. Tiny bodied, long legged. Running. Displaced by my cooking fumes from somewhere above the hob. In flight.

I turn back to the flame, burning blue and hot over the enamel of the hob. Then suddenly, there is the spider again. Moving swiftly on long, impossibly thin legs. Looking for a better place to be. But running - yes, running now - across the enamel. Running straight for the flame.

Into the flame.

A single moment when movement stops and long, hair-thin legs stop, buckle, crumple in the heat.

And the spider is still and dead.

I do not, can not, comprehend what drove my fly-eating arachnid friend to self-immolate. And in such purposeful, driven haste.

Why?

Just thought I’d share that moment. Still don’t understand.