I'm an arachnophobe. The sight of a spider takes me to the edge of panic, and the thought of them in my walls makes my blood pressure rise.

That may be hyperbole, I've had my terror of them under control for a very long time. I still am shocked when I notice them, and it isn't too unusual to see me jump at a glance.

When I was a young kid, I didn't have any fear of spiders. There were some strange exotic looking ones in the Santa Cruz Mountains I used to stare at for a long time, with weird green and black patterns on them. I didn't much care for the really fat engorged ones, but I mostly just found them weird.

Long story short, when I was in the 4th or 5th grade some kids trapped me in a hole with a black widow as punishment for acting strange and liking Sonic too much. It was their go-to threat on me for a while. Yeah, I've gone to therapy about that and worse, let's continue with the story, shall we?

One day some of the kids found a snail and blew it to hell with a firecracker. I found myself feeling a terrible disgust and guilt for allowing that to happen. I didn't keep a lot of track of the bugs I killed before that time of my life, but I started to become a lot more conscious of every life I took, from the ants that had to be sprayed to a roach I stepped on that was on my back porch one night.

I found myself just straight up disgusted with killing. They weren't all that different from me, just trying to make their way through the universe with just their wits.

My Dad told me this story of the Buddhist temple he used to visit in Korea. One day they fumigated the place and my Dad asked the priest how that jives with the whole respect for life thing, and the priest replied "well we can't have roaches in the temple."

I used to think about what sort of life I could live in which nothing had to die. Toyed with vegetarianism. But ultimately, I decided not to drive myself crazy. I hate the phrase "that's how things are" but until they change, I don't see the point in tormenting myself with all the violence in the world.

Being rather skittish of spiders especially but also bugs in general, living in Arizona wasn't ideal. The roaches there were the size of my fingers, the biggest one I ever spotted being a little smaller than my fist. It was atop a big roach pile on top of a gasoline dispenser at the station near my house, like some kind of roach king ruling over their domain. I'd see all kinds of gigantic bugs. I used to watch the carpenter bees larger than quarters coming home to the hive they had inside the dead tree in the back yard.

But the worst was the spiders. Those chonkers I mentioned disliking as a kid? That was practically the size they started at. The sight of a tarantula just chilling in one of the local parks sent me into a multi-day panic attack.

I'm extremely lucky that I never encountered a scorpion in the wild during my time there. I am the only person who's spent a significant amount of time there and hasn't run into one. Or had their house invaded by them. I thought I saw one once, but it turned out to be a scorpion-bug, an insect whose shtick is they look like a scorpion. For some reason to my brain that made an entire world of difference and relaxed me.

One night, I was treking through the woods to my friend's house in the desert, and when I got inside and sat down, my friend informed me that there was something on my shoulder.

The next few seconds are a blur. There was a gigantic wolf spider now in front of me that I had thrown onto the floor. With its gigantic legs, it was bigger than my hands. I tried to stomp on it but it was fast and dodged out of the way. I sprayed it with spraypaint and stomped on it.

I still feel bad about it to this day. My friend and I tried to justify it by stating that spiders were territorial and it would likely come back. But ultimately, it was a magnificent beast, and I killed it for the crime of being small and daring to be bigger than I was comfortable with. How many times has my civilization punished me for the same?

I had these dreams not too long after. I was on a planet full of spiders, as in the whole planet was covered in them. They told me that their world was dying and they needed somewhere else to go. I was terrified and I couldn't allow them in, but they asked me across three nights.

I've only had recurring dreams twice in my life. Once when I was three years old, about some soldier trying to kick me off the side of a mountain, and this. I have recurring storylines, recurring places, people, themes, but never any other time having the dream repeat like this.

I finally relented on the last night when they begged me. I promised I'd keep them safe, and they came to my world, which I guess wasn't Earth? They in turn promised to protect me from things beyond the dark.

I see spiders in my dreams a lot. They're sometimes as large as a car, and they scare the fuck out of me, but they're always something I have to protect or something that will protect me.

After my Dad passed away, I had a series of dreams where things were trying to take him away. At first they sent threatening messengers, and then eventually thuggish humanoid rabbits with clubs, and eventually soldiers who promised me riches if I would let them in who I refused. Ultimately, a green grim reaper glowing bright in a black robe forced its way in and snatched him away from me. The next night, I dreamt that he came back and he told me a bunch of spiders saved him. He never cared for spiders either, but he said he was grateful.

Dreams are pretty interesting, aren't they?

Whenever I see a spider these days, I try to let them keep to their corners, or put them somewhere they'd have a better life at out of my sight. I don't even let my cat eat them if I can help it.

Did you know the word cobweb comes from a 14th century word "coppewebbe", deriving from "atorcoppe" meaning spider? Cob is apparently an old word for spider. Someone at goth night recently compared my dancing in my longcoat to that of a spider spinning their webs. I think she was on coke.

But it seems fitting to me, somehow. There are worse things than spiders, most of them human. Allegedly. As a magnificent beast myself, I'm in good company.

Sometimes in my dreams I see that green reaper standing on the far side of the trees watching me and my Dad. I sense the spiders in the trees watching it, and it doesn't dare approach.

Stay out of my web, fucker.