Chapter 3 - Down came the rain and washed the spider out
The spider was roughly torn from his memory of human love when partway up the sprout he noticed something that could finally be classed as “very interesting”.
In the course of his many travels the spider had come across something the humans called “peanut butter” and he felt sure that what he was seeing now was exactly that, only in a strange twisted form. It was almost as though he was seeing, for the first time ever, what peanut butter would become when spread in a sprout and ignored for hundreds of years.
The spider gave the greeny-brown gunk a sniff, cringed at the vileness of it all, and hurried up the next section of the pipe deciding that he wanted nothing to do with anymore weird peanut butter concoctions for as long as he lived. For that matter he didn’t imagine he would have anything to do with actual peanut butter anymore either, not now he knew what it would look like in a few hundred years time!
He was ashamed to admit it, even to himself, but the spider was half worried that the peanut butter gunk would remember him and attack just to stop the secret of its evolution falling into the wrong hands. Heck, the spider mused, it is probably lurking in another drainpipe like this one waiting to strike when I am least expecting it!
Like now!
The spider barely had time to register the sound of rushing water, before he was caught up in the weird peanut butter concoction and forced back the way he had come. All his climbing and hard work reduced to nothing in a mere instant by furiously rushing water on a downward path to freedom.
It was with great relief the spider opened his eyes a few minutes later and saw that he was still alive; the rain even having the decency to wash away the peanut butter before moving off.
Panting the spider remained on the ground, eyes closed as he lost himself in yet another memory of happier peanut-butter-free times.
