Short Story : Knowing What’s There Isn’t Always A Good Thing
The room was dark, and I was afraid.
Two simple statements, but what they represented was far from simple.
I discovered that my house had an attic at the age of eight, never before having been allowed to venture up the folding ladder that twisted through the air and rested gently on the upper landing carpet. On that day my mother and father said I could go up there and have a look around. See if there was anything that took my fancy.
The attic room was filled with old junk, including some of my parent’s childhood toys and jigsaw puzzles, old books and magazines, as well as old clothes. Clearly my parents were hoarders or, as my mother quickly corrected me, my father was a hoarder.
I looked through the boxes of things, finding all manner of fun things to play with, including some old He-Man and Thundercats toys and lots of board games, some of which I’d never heard of before. As my parents left me to look through their old belongings, I wandered further into the dark attic space, shining my torch around in case I missed something.
In a far corner of the attic there was a large cob web, filling up one corner of the ceiling. In the middle of the glistening web sat a spider. It was pretty large, but it wasn’t moving so I wasn’t afraid. The web was shiny and made up of many different colours, something I’d never seen before. I always thought webbing was just white and sticky, but this spider had produced blue, red, and yellow webbing. I’ve no idea how.
As I looked closer at the webbing, I could make out what almost looked liked letters. I know what you’re thinking, the spider probably weaved the words “Some Pig” up there or something, but this said something else entirely.
It said ‘boa tarde’.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, so when I’d finished looking around, I wrote down the message on a piece of paper and Googled it.
At first I thought it might have been something to do with snakes – assuming it meant anything at all – because of the word boa, and as I Google searched it seemed more and more clear that the language the spider may have weaved its words in was Portuguese, with the words meaning “Good afternoon”.
So the spider was saying hello? Well, it could have been worse. The next day I wrote down some simple Portuguese phrases on some cards and brought them up to the attic with me.
As I went back to the place where the spider had been, I shone my torch at the web. There sat the spider, only this time the message was different – more elaborate.
It said ‘como estas hoje’.
I had no idea what that meant, so I held up a card that said “voce fala ingles”, which roughly translated means “Do you speak English”.
The spider began to weave again, extremely quickly, and underneath the message weaved the word ‘nao’. I assumed it meant no.
I headed back downstairs, grabbing my ipad, then returned to the attic. I’d use Google to translate as I went along.
The message that read ‘como estas hoje’ roughly translated to how are you today, so I scribbled the translation for ‘I am good today, how are you?’ on a spare card. The spider quickly weaved again, this time saying ‘i ter sido melhor’, which meant ‘I have been better’. I frowned and wrote another message, this one reading ‘qual o problema’, which meant ‘what’s the matter’.
The spider weaved again, removing the existing messages and replacing it with the following.
‘Estou assustado’.
‘I am scared’.
I swallowed nervously, typing a message into the translator on my ipad then scribbling it down on a card.
‘Do que voce tem medo’.
‘What are you scared of’.
The spider started frantically spinning, this new message being the longest it had written so far. Once ith ad finished it read:-
‘A unica coisa que esta fechando a porta do satao’.
It took me a moment to type this into the translator, and when I finished I pressed translate.
My eyes widened.
“The thing that is closing the attic door’.
I spun away from the spider, staring at the place where the attic door stood open to the ground, watching as the ladder lifted as if by itself and retracted into the attic space, the door closing firmly shut. I still had my torch, and I shone it in the direction of the closed door. I could see nothing.
“It must have been my mum or my dad,” I told myself, turning back to the spider web and shining my torch as the web. While I’d been distracted, a new message had appeared.
‘Ele estra atras de voce!’.
I swallowed nervously at the exclamation mark the spider had bothered to weave and copied the phrase into my translator.
‘It is behind you!’.
I turned quickly, shining my torch into the darkness, but still I could see nothing, but this time I could hear something. I tsounded like someone breathing heavily, and I could feel it on the side of my neck.
I spun sideways, the torch outstretched, but still I could see nothing...
...Only I could feel something.
My torch was meeting resistance as I held it out into the darkness; resistance from something that wasn’t there. I looked at the spider, which had weaved another new message. A simple message.
‘Fugir’.
I didn’t need a translator to guess what that meant. It looked like fugitive, so it probably meant run, or hide, or something like that. It might as well have meant say your prayers for all it mattered. Something invisible in the darkness swatted the torch from my hands, and it fell to the ground, switching off or breaking, I’m not sure which. The room was plunged into darkness, even the light from my ipad having gone to sleep. Not that the darkness made a difference; whatever it was the spider had tried to warn about couldn’t be seen, but I could hear it growling, and feel it drawing near. I tried to scream, but fear had stolen my voice as the creature drew closer, its paws feeling for my quivering body in the gloom.
The room was dark, and I was afraid.
Originally Posted 1/11/2015
Result - 1st Place
Two simple statements, but what they represented was far from simple.
I discovered that my house had an attic at the age of eight, never before having been allowed to venture up the folding ladder that twisted through the air and rested gently on the upper landing carpet. On that day my mother and father said I could go up there and have a look around. See if there was anything that took my fancy.
The attic room was filled with old junk, including some of my parent’s childhood toys and jigsaw puzzles, old books and magazines, as well as old clothes. Clearly my parents were hoarders or, as my mother quickly corrected me, my father was a hoarder.
I looked through the boxes of things, finding all manner of fun things to play with, including some old He-Man and Thundercats toys and lots of board games, some of which I’d never heard of before. As my parents left me to look through their old belongings, I wandered further into the dark attic space, shining my torch around in case I missed something.
In a far corner of the attic there was a large cob web, filling up one corner of the ceiling. In the middle of the glistening web sat a spider. It was pretty large, but it wasn’t moving so I wasn’t afraid. The web was shiny and made up of many different colours, something I’d never seen before. I always thought webbing was just white and sticky, but this spider had produced blue, red, and yellow webbing. I’ve no idea how.
As I looked closer at the webbing, I could make out what almost looked liked letters. I know what you’re thinking, the spider probably weaved the words “Some Pig” up there or something, but this said something else entirely.
It said ‘boa tarde’.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, so when I’d finished looking around, I wrote down the message on a piece of paper and Googled it.
At first I thought it might have been something to do with snakes – assuming it meant anything at all – because of the word boa, and as I Google searched it seemed more and more clear that the language the spider may have weaved its words in was Portuguese, with the words meaning “Good afternoon”.
So the spider was saying hello? Well, it could have been worse. The next day I wrote down some simple Portuguese phrases on some cards and brought them up to the attic with me.
As I went back to the place where the spider had been, I shone my torch at the web. There sat the spider, only this time the message was different – more elaborate.
It said ‘como estas hoje’.
I had no idea what that meant, so I held up a card that said “voce fala ingles”, which roughly translated means “Do you speak English”.
The spider began to weave again, extremely quickly, and underneath the message weaved the word ‘nao’. I assumed it meant no.
I headed back downstairs, grabbing my ipad, then returned to the attic. I’d use Google to translate as I went along.
The message that read ‘como estas hoje’ roughly translated to how are you today, so I scribbled the translation for ‘I am good today, how are you?’ on a spare card. The spider quickly weaved again, this time saying ‘i ter sido melhor’, which meant ‘I have been better’. I frowned and wrote another message, this one reading ‘qual o problema’, which meant ‘what’s the matter’.
The spider weaved again, removing the existing messages and replacing it with the following.
‘Estou assustado’.
‘I am scared’.
I swallowed nervously, typing a message into the translator on my ipad then scribbling it down on a card.
‘Do que voce tem medo’.
‘What are you scared of’.
The spider started frantically spinning, this new message being the longest it had written so far. Once ith ad finished it read:-
‘A unica coisa que esta fechando a porta do satao’.
It took me a moment to type this into the translator, and when I finished I pressed translate.
My eyes widened.
“The thing that is closing the attic door’.
I spun away from the spider, staring at the place where the attic door stood open to the ground, watching as the ladder lifted as if by itself and retracted into the attic space, the door closing firmly shut. I still had my torch, and I shone it in the direction of the closed door. I could see nothing.
“It must have been my mum or my dad,” I told myself, turning back to the spider web and shining my torch as the web. While I’d been distracted, a new message had appeared.
‘Ele estra atras de voce!’.
I swallowed nervously at the exclamation mark the spider had bothered to weave and copied the phrase into my translator.
‘It is behind you!’.
I turned quickly, shining my torch into the darkness, but still I could see nothing, but this time I could hear something. I tsounded like someone breathing heavily, and I could feel it on the side of my neck.
I spun sideways, the torch outstretched, but still I could see nothing...
...Only I could feel something.
My torch was meeting resistance as I held it out into the darkness; resistance from something that wasn’t there. I looked at the spider, which had weaved another new message. A simple message.
‘Fugir’.
I didn’t need a translator to guess what that meant. It looked like fugitive, so it probably meant run, or hide, or something like that. It might as well have meant say your prayers for all it mattered. Something invisible in the darkness swatted the torch from my hands, and it fell to the ground, switching off or breaking, I’m not sure which. The room was plunged into darkness, even the light from my ipad having gone to sleep. Not that the darkness made a difference; whatever it was the spider had tried to warn about couldn’t be seen, but I could hear it growling, and feel it drawing near. I tried to scream, but fear had stolen my voice as the creature drew closer, its paws feeling for my quivering body in the gloom.
The room was dark, and I was afraid.
Originally Posted 1/11/2015
Result - 1st Place
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