And now a word from our sponsors. Or not now, but later. Much later. You won’t know it when it happens. It’ll be just one of many words you’ll encounter that day. But it will come leaden with unseen meaning and consequence, and it will slowly spread throughout your life, invisibly infecting every light moment with its heaviness. Our sponsors cannot be escaped. You will see their word. And you will never know.

26

When the phone rang, Diane flushed.

That morning she was at work, but she was not working. She was looking up information about King City on her computer. It seemed like a normal enough place. A highway. Some restaurants. Houses. Probably filled with people who have dreams and wishes and nightmares and crippling doubt and feel things similar to or exactly like love.

Diane was making broad assumptions based on the small amount of data that was her entire life. She was lost in her research, face close to the screen.

When the phone rang, she closed her browser and opened a spreadsheet, out of instinct. Her face felt warm as she pressed her office phone to her ear.

“Can you come in here, Diane?”

“Sure, Catharine.”

“Everything okay? You sound out of breath.”

“I’m fine.” Diane remembered to exhale.

Catharine’s door was open, but Diane knocked anyway. Catharine turned around in her desk chair and cut a line through the air with her upturned palm. “Sit, please,” her hand said.

Diane sat. The tarantula was perched in Catharine’s thick, wavy hair. It wasn’t moving much. A slight stretch of a front leg every so often. Catharine, from time to time, would scratch the side of her head with a letter opener. The tarantula would change position by an inch or so to avoid being hit.

Catharine had felt her scalp itch all morning. She thought about the qualities of various shampoos, whether she was using the correct brand. She thought about the dry air here in the southwest desert. She did not think about the tarantula hanging from her hair, because she did not know about the tarantula hanging from her hair. Had she known at all that there was a tarantula in her hair, Catharine might have behaved in a surprising and unsafe manner.

The tarantula had no idea where it was or what was happening. It felt movement from time to time, and it would, in turn, move carefully to accommodate for a possible predator or a possible prey. The tarantula knew about hunger and gravity.

“Diane, I’m troubled by something,” Catharine said. “Someone was in my office the other night. I’m not accusing you of snooping around in my office the other night after work, but what were you doing snooping around in my office the other night after work?”

She slapped the desk with her palm, and Diane jumped. The tarantula did not react visibly.