Spider Man

‘Reach out, reach out I say!’

The woman stretched out her hand to show me how it was done.

The merry-go-round was moving slowly away from my hand.

My little girls eyes didn’t understand the request.

What was I supposed to do with this giant thing that moved on its own?

Spider looking arms hugged its bottom as though it was trying to get away from me looking only at the dirt.

My eyes opened in a newly sprung thought, maybe it was as afraid of me and I was of it?

I moved a little closer to touch an arm as it swung by.

‘There, big spider man, see, I’m nice, you don’t have to be afraid’ I thought, as my hand touched the cold metal.

The spider man, slowed itself down so that my hand could touch him every so often.

Tap, tap…tap…..tap…….tap…….Final tap to a stop.

 

The woman was talking, saying something to me but I wasn’t paying much attention.

I was communicating with the giant spider man. He seemed to be looking at me with his dark underground eyes.

‘Step on me….it’s ok, I won’t hurt’.

I could remember my brother cruelly stepping on spiders in the front porch, all with approval from my mother.

I didn’t want to step on him but he seemed to say, ‘it’s ok, I’m a big spider man. You can’t hurt me’.

 

So I did, I stepped on him.

Before I could check to see if he was hurt, the woman flung herself at the spider man’s arms and rushed at him.

The action made him start to turn again. All I could do was hang on the arm near me as we twirled in a motion that was fast for my baby eyes.

Motion was blurry as we moved together. The colors all mixing together in long streaks as though the grass was gone and some pistachio ribbon was in its place.

This was a world different than before, different than I’d ever seen. I wondered if spider man thought it was different too?

He wasn’t looking at me, he was just turning and turning in motion with the streaky world around me.

If I looked at him and not the outside, it seemed like we were the only two things in the universe.

I liked that. Being alone with my spider man in the universe made for us.

Just for us.