by Mortimer Evans

Created on: December 14, 2009

A HERO WILL RISE... This morning I danced with death.  Sit back and relax as I take you on a journey…

It was 6am in my humble abode as I awoke to the wrongly programmed music of Mix 106.5 on my bedside clock/radio.  Robbie Williams sang a few bars of his hit tune "Angels" before I flicked him off nonchalantly and headed for the shower.  Little did I know that angels may have been in the room looking out for me as we spoke.  A spooky coincidence? ...perhaps not.

The shower was warm, as it usually is when you're fortunate to enough to live alone and be the only one to use it, and I hummed the chorus of "It's Raining Men" for a few seconds until I realised what tune it was.  How did that get in my head?  No wonder I’m single. The shower was then turned off and the towel approached until it and my body made contact and began the standard drying process.  It is at this point on most mornings that I am forced to propel open my bathroom window to release the steam that has built up, which inevitably exposes me directly to the neighbour’s kitchen window.  Fortunately her lights weren't on, so I was safe. ...Or so I thought.

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, two extremely large, black, hairy legs reached their way around the window.  I jumped back in shock, remembering that these are the kind of legs that God usually reserves for either Kodiak Bears or... even worse... large spiders.  Three more legs crept around and suddenly the whole bear theory was ruined.  This was trouble.

Within seconds a large, black, hairy spider had entered my steamy sanctuary.  Paralysed by fear, I managed to force my legs into a springing position and propel myself out into my bedroom.  But, as my bathroom is an en-suite, this is not all that far away.  Certainly not as far as, say, Europe – which is the kind of distance I’d prefer to be from any arachnid.  And God forbid that the spider should be allowed to enter my room.  I would never sleep there again.

Naked, and still somewhat wet, I peered back into the bathroom to get a good, long look at this vicious assailant.  To say that he was large is a discredit to the spider community.  This guy was freaking enormous.  Sure, as an arachnophobe we are sometimes prone to exaggerating these sorts of things, however I can honestly say that this spider was the size of a restaurant-style wok still wrapped in its original packaging,

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