Fear

This is yet another old story re-visited.

I have my bird seed delivered in large heavy sacks direct into my garage.

They then need to be moved to the shed to fill the plastic bins in which they live until the next refill.

This I do in small quantities at a time since I can't lift heavy weights.

Today I decided to move the remainder of one sack in one go as it was half empty.  In the dim light of the garage I spotted a sudden movement in the sack just as i went to lift it.  A mouse, I thought, so I'll just leave it for a while and go out again in an hour to see if it has been frightened away.

This has worked before.

Gingerly lifting the sack to the garage door I put it down by the door of the shed opened the door and went to lift it in.

Horror of horrors, clinging to the inside of the sack was an immense black spider.  Transfixed with fear I pushed one edge of the sack towards the garden and stepped back-----nothing.

Peering into the sack from a safe distance I saw the monster quite near one edge, so amazed by my own superhuman courage I picked up the sack, marched to the edge of the garden and turned the sack on its side.

The beast slowly crawled out and crept into the greenery, whereupon I seized the sack, hurled its contents into the bin slammed the shed door shut, took the now empty sack into the garage and fled into the house, shaking.

For me a Dan Dare moment, for the rest of the world an exhibition of abject fear.

Gandhi was right, hatred is really fear.

If I hated spiders I'd kill them.  I wouldn't dream of killing them, or indeed anything else, so what I feel is pure unadulterated fear.

Like all fears it is irrational, but knowing that makes no difference to the reaction.

There is a lesson there to be learned.