The Halfnoise of Spiders

Every day, there is at least one moment when I ask myself if this is going to be THE day, the day that I fall over the edge I've been walking on.  I can feel it coming...  I might be wrong.  I hope I'm wrong.  But...I feel it waiting for me.  A Howl like none other.  The mother of Howls.  The Howl at the end of the world.

It scares me.  I'm serious.  Everyone has a tipping point, and most people, fortunately, come nowhere near it, but we've all seen, or heard about, those who were pushed over the edge.  I'd estimate that, at the very least, 40% of the chronically homeless are people who tipped.  They no longer live in the same world the rest of us do, and they never will again, and their lives are spent deep inside their own individual, never-ending Howl.

So, yeah, it scares me.  I'm afraid of being pushed over that edge, beyond all redemption, past all methods of retrieval, into an all-encompassing Howl of Howls.  I'm afraid of losing this world - and myself - and not being able to get back again, maybe not being able to realize that I've left at all.

I have an inner spider.  He's so very patient; he spins and he spins...  I'm afraid that, one day, the webbing that encases me will be complete, and that's where I'll be forever.  Apart from the world, apart from my Self, frozen in limbo, and nothing to wait for but the end of it all at last.

This isn't an intelligent view.  Not a mature view, either.  It's not even particularly articulate or original, but...  it's what I'm afraid of, and fear doesn't give a tin shit about intelligence or reason, does it?

I can hear him spinning. you know...