A Web of Power

“That flying machine is back!” cried the little spider. He scurried down the oak tree to tell everyone he saw.  “I’m afraid.  I don’t know what it’s doing.”  “He’s watching us,” said the grouse. “Humans use them as a way to fly.  They watch from the safety of their cars and porches, while the machine becomes their eyes. It’s pretty lazy, I think, but it’s what they do.”  “I saw one fall out of the sky last week,” squeaked the hummingbird. “It landed on a rabbit kit, and chopped up some earthworms when it hit.  It was very sad.  And I still haven’t seen a human come get it.  I think I saw one of their four wheeled machines run over it.”   A little mushroom popped his head out of the ground, and sent a scent into the air that made all the animals sigh.  It didn’t smell good, but it told the story of trees losing their branches, and leaves falling on the ground.  Since trees can’t talk to the moving creatures, the mushrooms tell their stories through their scents and spores.   “How do we stop them?”asked the spiderbabe.  “It’s not right that we all get hurt so that humans can save their energy.  If they want to see what’s happening, why don’t they just come out and walk the woods?”     “That’s a good question,” said the grouse. “Humans do lots of things that don’t make any sense, but we have to keep learning to live with them.”   The spiderbabe crept back up the tree trunk, thinking the whole time of the natural dangers that he faced every day – woodpeckers, frogs, dragonflies, even bigger spiders. “It’s not fair,” said the spiderling. “We shouldn’t have to live with mechanical predators, too.”   Then he got an idea.  He spread the word among all the spiders in the forest, if a flying machine comes again, they would stop it.    “I can’t do it by myself,” he told them. “But if we all jump in front it, our spiderwebs will follow us and tangle the blades.”   The others were doubtful, but it would sure be nice if they could have some power back to protect themselves and their woods.   So they practiced jumping up,  soaring down, leaping from one branch to another.  They painted a wonderous web among the oaks while they learned.     One day, they heard that humm that goes with the blades, so they took their places.  The drone flew down through the glade in the forest, trying to get a good look at what was below, and the human watched from the safety of his porch.  Then, the picture froze.  There was no forward movement, but there was a lot of movement in front of the lens. Spiders of all sizes leaping, throwing each other from branch to branch, trapping the drone like a fly in the webs that looked so tender, but were really incredibly strong.   The person with the controls had to get off the porch, walk into the woods, to reclaim the machine. It wasn’t easy for them, since they kept looking down. They had somehow figured that the drone must have fallen. That is usually what happened.    But as he searched for his flying machine, he heard the song of the wren, the croaks of the frogs, and saw flowers he had never seen.  It wasn’t until his hair got caught in a spider web that he bothered to look up, and that’s when he saw it.  The drone was suspended from a hammock of spiderwebs, about 20 feet up.  Higher than the person could climb.     The human left the drone there,  but muttered “I’ll pick it up after the next storm. The wind will knock it down.”  He was right, but when that drone fell what damage would it do? He didn’t think of that, until he saw a tiny tree frog catch a tiny spiderling, having lunch. That made him think, and the forest heard him say “I think I like coming out here myself. I miss so much letting the drone be my eyes.”  The spiderling heard the words, and sighed a giant tarantula sized sigh. “Maybe that’s the best thing we could do. We delayed some damage, but we might have saved someone else, maybe even the person.”   But the thing that he was proudest of was that he, a little baby spider, had been able to stop  a predator, by working with other spiders, showing that a single spider can really have power. It made him feel strong in a world that made him feel so weak so many times. He had to trap this feeling inside so he could remember it down the road.