Eight Over Four

Scott Tierney

Description

In 2018 it was estimated that there were over 750 million spiders in the United Kingdom. By contrast, the overall number today is less than ten percent of that - but now the spiders live all around us. Today, the spiders are our neighbours. They live alongside us, coexist with us.As us...An intriguing, imaginative, and often unsettling short story set in a world where spiders and humans live together, Eight Over Four examines the problems which arise should two contrasting species be forced together.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 22 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789821413
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Eight Over Four
The Massing of the Spiders
Scott Tierney




Eight Over Four
First published in 2019 by
Acorn Books
www.acornbooks.co.uk
Acorn Books is an imprint of
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2019 Scott Tierney
The right of Scott Tierney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.



Eight Over Four
In 2018 it was estimated that there were over 750 million spiders in the United Kingdom.
By contrast, the overall number today is less than ten percent of that – yet the spiders no longer inhabit our attics or hide under the paving slabs of suburban patios; nor do they cast their webs from windowsills or bookshelves or U-bends or radiators, or become helplessly stranded in the plugholes of every bathtub across the nation.
No. Now the spiders live all around us. Spiders with wallets and sunglasses and hose pipes and pets. Spiders with a door key, a national insurance number, a bus pass, a library card, a Wi-Fi password – a birthright to vote. They stand as high as us, dress from the same hangers as us – they shop at our supermarkets and bathe in our swimming pools and accompany their children to the same schools as ours.
Today, the spiders are our neighbours. They live alongside us, coexist with us.
As us.
We must make them all feel welcome...
Charlotte had never spoken to the spiders across the hall in No. 57, for they, like her, kept to themselves – as we all know, spiders are solitary creatures. The only insight Charlotte ever glimpsed into the activities of their day-to-day lives were no more consequential or noteworthy than the scurrying of ten-dozen spiderlings down the hallway as they left and returned from school, to the slamming of the bedroom door as the parents commenced another marital spat. From time to time a bill of theirs was delivered to the wrong address, which Charlotte was neighbourly enough to pop through their letterbox on her way to work – but beyond that, she doubted that she would recognise the spiders of No. 57 if she were to knock shoulders with them in the street.
Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in the flat adjacent did not care for the spiders, however. They hogged the communal washing line, the old couple complained; their bins were overflowing by Sunday, they reported to the council. And so noisy, Mrs. Johnson hissed discreetly to Charlotte from the sanctuary of her doorstep, swatting away a fly. Rowdy, that’s what those spiders were. Racket. Disruptive. Every bloody night! Not like the nice family who used to live there – they kept it down at weekends. And you could speak to them – you could understand where they were coming from.
But this family, dare Mrs. Johnson admit for fear that God would strike her down... they should go back to where they came from, damn arachnids!
Charlotte nodded politely and made her excuses – the term ‘arachnid’ was not deemed to be acceptable these days, no more so than ‘coloured’. Only the elderly still used it, for they were fixed in their ways and knew no better – those such as the Johnsons belonged to an older generation, a simpler time before the spiders’ maturation, when they were still small and insignificant. The Johnsons still thought of the spiders as pests, intruders to be trapped in drinking glasses or banished with a broom – they had been taught to fear the spiders, for that was the bygone society in which they had been raised.