It's back...

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If you ask any soldier how they do what they do they will, more often than not, tell you that their training kicks in and they automatically know what to do. In a split second their eyes register objects that can be used to their advantage in defending themselves.

To a soldier, or even an accomplished barroom brawler, all things that are not nailed to the floor are viable weapons. If you are attacked by an enemy who is hell bent on damaging you the only option is to attack hard and fast with no mercy. By all means. Be they fair or foul. As the saying goes... All is fair in love and war.

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I do my best work in the early hours of the morning, when the roads are quiet, the moon is high and the noise of my stereo is stonewall guaranteed to annoy the living fuck out of everyone who shares a street with me.

While doing some research for an article I'm attempting to write I stood up and found I was feet to face with an old enemy. The spider I wrote about a fortnight ago is back...

There are burn scars upon its back, one of its legs is missing and it has lost two eyes. Despite this it still manages to look like it's well and truly pissed off at me. There is a vicious look in it's six eyes that seems to convey a deep seated desire to run up my leg and sink it's fangs into my scrotal sack.

As soon as eye contact was made both the spider and I knew. Tonight would not be a sizing up exercise. Tonight would be a fight to the death. Blood would be spilled.

My can of deodorant was unreachable and I quickly realised that the spider had very intelligently placed itself between me and my preferred means of attack. “Clever Boy.” I said as I leapt for the arm of the sofa to attempt to make a dash for the deodorant can that sat on the bookshelf at the other side of the room. As soon as my foot made contact with the sofa however, the spider leapt.

I could see that the spider was wise to my plan of action and had taken into account the shortest, and most possible, route I would take. I dropped my shoulder to try to convince the spider that I was about to switch tactics and the spider twitched in response. I grabbed my chance and quickly changed direction.

I dived across the living-room table and hit the ground, rolling to absorb the shock from the leap. The spider immediately knew I had tricked it. Fortunately it reacted too late and I had the few seconds I needed to arm myself with my second choice of weapon. I got a hold of the Morphy Richards iron that was sitting on the stool behind the door.

As the spider advanced on me I threw the iron at it and as an added extra I threw the stool at it also. My mindset was that if I could slow it down for long enough I may be able to make it to the deodorant can. Next on the list of things I threw into the spiders path was the ironing board, followed quickly by my skateboard, a dartboard and a copy of Mein Kampf that was sitting on top of the radiator.

The spider dodged all of these items with relative ease with the exception of the copy of Mein Kampf which clipped one of its legs. The book hit the spiders’ leg and trapped it for a few seconds.

At this point the spider sensed it was in trouble and I watched as it did something that gave me such a fright I couldn’t move for a few seconds. The spider bit off the leg that was trapped underneath six hundred and thirty six pages of Hitler's work. I shuddered as I realised that this was no ordinary spider, this was a spider hell-bent on exacting revenge upon me.

A shiver ran up my spine as I watched the spider chew off it’s own leg like a dog caught in a snare. I knew I had to get to the deodorant as soon as possible. My life could depend on it.

I renewed my vigour and made a lunge for the deodorant can. I was about a foot away from it and grabbed wildly at the can. In my haste I knocked the can off of the bookshelf and it clattered to the ground, struck my foot and skidded under the table.

I looked in the direction of the spider and gasped “What the Fuck...” as the spider shot a strand of silk out of it’s abdomen that hit the light shade in the centre of the living-room. The spider swung upwards and flew across the living-room towards the wall opposite the bookshelf where I was standing.

I realised that the spider had changed tactic on me and had decided against a frontal assault. It obviously knew I could keep it at bay by throwing books at it and had come to the conclusion that its advantage was that I could only travel on one surface, whereas it could travel on every surface.

I reached into a stone flower pot that I keep bits and pieces such as foreign coins amassed over the years, spare lighters, my catapult, spare pens, two sets of darts, decks of cards, seashells collected on my travels and my bag of marbles. An idea flashed through my head.

I grabbed the catapult and began firing marbles at the spider that was now making its way up the wall in an attempt to reach the ceiling where it would gain the advantage of being on the high-ground. In my haste to fire as many marbles as possible I spilled about a half a dozen of them onto the floor and I cursed myself for failing to retain my head.

The words of Sean Connery’s character in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came to my mind. "You have to feel the shot... take your time with it. You have all the time you'll need... all the time in the world." I spoke aloud to myself to steady my nerves and told myself to compose myself.

I steadied my hands and took aim at the beast that was rapidly scuttling up the wall. I repositioned my legs into a shooters stance and stood on the handful of marbles I had so carelessly dropped. I yelped as the marbles caused my left foot to shoot out from beneath me, making me fire the marble wildly and I grabbed wildly at the bookcase in an attempt to prevent myself from falling to the ground.

My left leg shot upwards as I made a grab for the bookshelf. The world turned upside down as I lost my footing and pulled the stone flower pot full of detritus down on top of me. I landed with a thump on my back and the flower pot hit me in the chest, causing me to be winded for a few seconds and spilling it’s contents around me.

As I lay on the floor gasping for breath the spider was making its way across the ceiling at speed. I had given my head a good thump against at least two of the shelves of the bookcase, my vision blurred and I could feel myself losing consciousness. I fought back the desire in my brain to lie still and recover from this injury as the spider was almost directly above me.

I could sense that the spider was positioning itself directly above my head to enable it to drop onto my face and strike the deathblow. My hands fumbled around for something, anything, that I could use to defend myself. My hand alighted on one of the darts that was in the flower pot and I grabbed it.

As the spider dropped from its position on the roof time slowed and I realised that this was possibly the last moment of my life. The spider fell through the air between us, spinning around in an almost feline motion to allow its legs to be the first thing that touched down, I focused my mind and threw the dart.

The dart flew through the air on its way upwards as the spider dropped towards me on its way downward. Then the two objects met. The dart pierced the soft underbelly of the spider, arresting its fall and sending it back towards the roof with a dart through its guts.

Just before I passed out through the exertion of the last few minutes and the trauma of a blow to the head I saw the dart thunk into the ceiling and pin the spider there.

After a few minutes I came round and looked up. The spider hung limp. The battle had ended.