Squeeeak, scrunch, sighs...The cave door opens slowly. A wizened little old lady peers out of the slit in the rock face, blinking in the white void‘s unnatural luminescence. Shuffling through the opening, she senses her pet spiders’ fears as they dance by her shoes; begging her not to leave them.
Bending down, to reassure her companions, her ancient body creaked and groaned. "I won't be gone for long, my friends. Look after the inter-plane switchboard while I am gone, OK. I need to go to the entrance of the real world, but I'll be back directly. You be rest assured of that, my dear little friends."
Lifting her cobweb veil, she shakes off the dust with a sigh, “What can it be that has reached into my realm, between reality and imagination, with so much power? Is my stick friend on a rampage? Has friend owl shed his last feather in defense of his little friend? Why are my writer’s characters being neglected?” The old woman shook with the realization of why such a thing had occurred. ”Kym Jade has lost faith in herself! How can this be? Oh, must hurry, must go, I must see what can be done!”
Gaylanna lifted two of her wrinkled fingers, placed the tips into her mouth and whistled. Within the passing of a murmur a giant long legged spider appeared out of the whiteness, walked across the cloud covered surface, and stood before Gaylanna.
Bowing its large head, the albino spider smiled. “May I be of service to you, Mother of all Words, Characters and Muses?”
Standing on the tips of her toes, Gaylanna stroked the creature’s forehead. “Daddy Eventide, I wish for you to carry me to the gate that lies between reality and imagination. I fear one of my daughters could well have deserted one of her charges.”
“Forgive me for asking, Mother, but how do you know such a thing? You always seem locked away in the
Tilting her head to the side she looked deep into the spider’s pink eyes. “You see, once in an eon an inexplicable connection is made between me and a writer. Due to this connection I feel their emotions so if they lose their way, or a daughter fails them, I become bombarded by their fears, frustration and confusion. This, as you may well realise, makes my task to help all the others very difficult. With the passing of time, and the increase in population of the earth, I’m afraid my mystic magic can’t handle the work load anymore. There seems to be more and more dangerous jams occurring in the writers’ minds, causing stories and poetry to bank back up to dangerous levels.”
Bending its large front legs down, the spider lowered its jaw to the cloud cover. “Please, Mother, take up your riding position behind my head.” Allowing his mistress to scramble onto his back it asked, “How do you propose to fix the problem of too much work?”
Sitting with the hem of her emerald green dress drawn up to her knees and both legs over one side, Mother sighed, “Well, as I am the only mystic who can exist in this junction of existence and thought, I can’t really subcontract my tasks.” Shrugging as the spider stood, she admitted, “I suppose I’ll have to get a computer, they seem to be all the rage in reality. There’s even a lot more popping up in stories theses days. It’s a shame though as I’ve resisted for so long. Nevertheless, one must do what is necessary to keep the creative flow open and if this nexus needs a boost, the computer age could hold the answer. The only thing is: what technical support could I expect in here?”
Spinning around toward the direction of the gate, the spider chuckled, “Well I’ve heard the World Wide Web is really fantastic. You won’t hear us spiders bad mouthing something that honours our talents in such a way. I really wish I could see a web that covers the whole world. All I can say is there must be spiders much bigger and faster than I, out in reality, to have achieved such a feat. Well perhaps, despite the fact I struggle to spin any webs these days, I could link you up with it myself?”
Jostling back and forth with the movement of Eventide, Gaylanna looked out across the vast white plane of her existence. “I would love it if you could do that for me, my friend. Perhaps, if we do computerise, you and I may have time to do some exploring in the real world again, like when we were young.” Leaning down she scratched behind the spiders head. “Remember when we used to move amongst the mortals, between the blinks of their eyes, undetected.” Memories of such care free times filled her mind with glee and her small impish frame began to ripple with laughter.
Enjoying Mother’s company, once again, the giant arachnid soaked up the moment and fell deep into his own thoughts.
His giant legs sinking gently into the clouds at his feet, Eventide scurried across the lowlands with surprising ease. “You know, Mother, I swear I must be getting old,” It confessed reaching the bottom of, the mist covered,
“Ah you can still talk then, old friend. I wondered if I’d offended you when you hadn’t murmured a word for so long.” Mother wriggled her bottom to get more comfortable on the creatures back and looked up at the mountain’s high peak.
“Do accept my deepest apology; I was lost in my memories.”
Leaning forward she patted him on the head. “Forgiven, dear one, now tell me why you feel you’re getting old?”
“Well to be honest, even the clouds at foot seem hard on my legs and I ache so,” he confided, starting to track up the slope. “Now please forgive me if I fall silent and concentrate on finding sound footings for our progress. It wouldn’t do for the Mother of Muses and her companion to tumble down like Jack and Jill.”
Mother admired her friend’s agility as he maneuvered up the soft, but treacherous trail. Turning her head she looked out over her void and wished she did not have to return to its isolation, ever again. Yet, she knew full well, every other place in existence contained too much thought interference for such a thing to happen. It was important she lived in a realm of absolute clarity to continue her work with the writers.
Reaching the very pinnacle of the mountain, Eventide stopped, focused his sight on the scene ahead and gasped, “Oh, Mother, there appears to be thousands of characters pushing at the gate of reality and your daughter is trying to hold them back.
Sensing the dismay in the spider’s voice, and body language, the Mother of Muses snapped her gaze from her realm and turned toward the boarder gate. “Oh by all the words that have ever existed, what could’ve caused such upheaval?”
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