Alicia, page 1

There are many dimensions in our universe, some so close together they almost overlap. Each dimension will influence the dimension it impinges upon, although those experiencing the influence will be at a loss to understand where it is coming from. So many things attributed to fate or put down to experience, when the underlying cause cannot be identified.

Sometimes though, an individual will get an insight into the phenomenon and is shocked and unbelieving as the truth struggles to reveal itself. Or oversteps the mark to the point where it cannot be mistaken….

Take Alicia for example, who spent many years wondering where all the spiders in her flat came from. Initially, she was horrified and frightened by these creatures. She thought they were dirty, aggressive things, and her mild phobia about them increased to almost unmanageable proportions. She was so frightened of them that she couldn’t bear to go near them.

They were left in their webs in corners, and the flat did indeed look dirty and uncared for. As well as being afraid, she felt sorry for them. She didn’t like to disturb them and turn them out into the cold garden, where there lived many other creatures she was afraid of. There was a sort of secret empathy for them as they lived their quiet lives, alone and not disturbing anything. And so unhappy when the broom finally descended upon them. Routed from the homes they had built, and thrown into a strange environment which they might not have been equipped to survive.

Alicia never found out the difference between a house spider and a garden spider. She feared the little house spiders might not take to the great outdoors and would not prosper. On the other hand they were spiders, weren’t they? Predators. Tucked quietly away in corners. Dark and untouched, dreaming their secret dreams. Put them out among the flowers and sunshine, and they might pine and waste away. Or find other garden inhabitants too rough to deal with.

The turning point in Alicia’s attitude to these loathsome beings came when she found an enormous spider walking down the wall just above her bed late one evening. Alone and with no other option she had to capture it before it invaded her bed. Or worse still, got under it where it would lurk all night threatening to jump on her while she was asleep.

She found a shoe box and, with great trepidation, flipped the spider into it with a piece of paper. Unusually, the spider did not take up a stance and yell defiance. Instead it crept into a corner of the shoe box and cowered there. Alicia looked at the creature and compassion overcame her amazement at its unashamed craven-ness.

How small it was in comparison to her. How frightening it must be to be scooped up into a box. Unimaginable to a human being whose only equivalent experience might be to be taken off in a giant space-ship by aliens. But this sort of capture was commonplace to bugs. At least to those bugs who encountered people who were too squeamish to squash them.

Holding the box at arm’s length Alicia deposited her spider into the outside hall. Too soft hearted to put it out into the cold, she hoped it wouldn’t limbo under the front door and come back in to take up residence again.

The truce between Alicia and the spiders reigned for some years and then one evening she saw a largish spider hiding under the skirting board in the bathroom. With half of its body protruding into the room it looked menacing and, afraid in case it ran out and attacked her foot, Alicia blew onto it to frighten it away. No such luck. This spider had some mettle. It jumped out into the room in a threatening manner and, Alicia swore late, blew a raspberry at her. Impressed in spite of herself, she decided to leave the spider where it was as a reward for its bravery.

Seeing the spider every day, and being able to actually enter its vicinity and still go about her business, Alicia almost became fond of it. Or at least solicitous. She called it Trevor and started to wonder how it was managing to eat, stuck down there on the floor with no web to catch flies. And no flies about anyway. She decided to feed him and, knowing nothing about spiders except that they were carnivorous, gingerly dropped a small piece of fish besides Trevor’s lair.

Later, Trevor could be seen outside his hidey-hole, wrapped around the fish, sucking all the juices out. Alicia was entranced. He really was a big spider and he felt secure enough in their environment to come out into the open and eat his dinner.

A rather tentative friendship developed. The woman fed her new chum at least once a week and enjoyed feeling trusted. She came and went, Trevor sat and watched her. She used to greet him whenever she entered the room. To be truthful the rapport was probably rather one-sided, but even a creature as small as Trevor must have been aware of her as another being.

She hoped he picked up the vibes anyway and he certainly looked less hostile. Of course, that may have been the result of being well-fed. Well-fed people always seem to view the world about them more benignly.

There was one unexpected benefit to be derived from having Trevor dining out in the bathroom. Alicia had one or two macho male friends who always made a big deal out of rescuing her from spiders should one be daft enough to show itself while they were around.

These friends were now invited to bend low over the skirting board and watch Trevor savouring his meal. It was a wonderful thing to behold the mixture of disgust and reluctance shown by these heroes when invited to view and be fascinated by a spider, instead of being expected to scoop it up and throw it away. So, they could only just stand arachnids at arms length too!

The day Trevor ran away, Alicia felt insulted. She wondered how she could have looked after him any better. She missed him a bit and hoped he would come back. Being able to fit new lino in the bathroom now he was gone was small compensation for his absence.

Some time later the reason for Trevor’s departure became clear. There was an infestation of little Trevors. Every night Alicia would come home from work and there would be two or three small replicas sitting on the walls, smiling at her she was sure.

Patiently she would flip them into a saucepan and drop them into the hall outside. She hoped they wouldn’t come back in, but still believed in giving them a fair chance. If they were smart enough to get back in she supposed they deserved to stay.

Nature abhors a void - a well known saying and very true. The spider absence in Alicia’s bathroom didn’t last very long, and one day she found a new spider in there. Living in the corner under the wash basin. In the old days Alicia would have shuddered and been unable to use the basin until the spider had gone. Now she just said ‘Hello’ to it, and called it Sarah.

She had to put her fingers quite close to the web when she dropped some fish in, and began to feel very brave. After Sarah left, thankfully leaving no legacy of little ones, a new spider took up residence in her place.

And during all this time Alicia’s empathy with the creatures grew. Especially with the latest one, who she hadn’t bothered to name. She watched it though, and started to realise how much she had in common with it and its species.

Alicia too was a quiet creature, rather solitary and living alone. That was what she noticed most about spiders. They always lived alone, casting their web and waiting for opportunities. Eventually a fly would buzz in and become trapped, and the spider would pounce. Spiders weren’t active hunters, they didn’t leave the nest to look for opportunities. They lay in wait and opportunities came to them.

Alicia thought of all the stories she had heard about spiders, most of them depicted as female. Some really being human females in disguise. She started to realise why. Man was the active hunter, he went out looking for things. But Woman, being thought of as more passive, could easily be equated with a spider sitting patiently in its lair, just waiting to snare an unwary male.

And yes, she thought, men could be likened to flies. Always out looking for something or somebody to stamp their impression on and claim as their own.

Just like a fly, who would regurgitate its last meal onto its new find, before sucking out all the sweetness. Alicia thought of the men who had sucked the sweetness out of her. Why else did she choose to live alone? Her heart was almost dried up, sucked dry by free-wheeling flies who had landed on her with such enthusiasm and flown away when they were satisfied.

They buzzed about a bit looking for fresher, lusher pastures, and came back to her when they found there was no-one sweeter to be had.

But spiders represented woman’s darker side. Why else were men only too anxious to save their poor frightened partners from the monstrosity in the bath? Symbolically saving them from their own hidden nature Alicia supposed. Why was the darker side of the female so anxious to pounce on the hapless male partner?

Because it knew it couldn’t trust him and recognised him as a threat. Why did male and female always have to be so scared of each other? Why couldn’t the male accept his partner and leave her sweetness unsullied?

Alicia pondered all this and thought that mythology and modern psychology had probably found all the answers. Like attracting like. The darkness of the human psyche called the shadow. The animus and anima fighting each other on battlefields hidden from normal human consciousness.

The answer looked so easy.

What she wasn’t familiar with was the overlapping dimension. The dimension that just touched her familiar world. She wasn’t aware that she had a counterpart in that dimension, living in a home that mirrored and overlapped her own.

A creature whose thoughts and attitudes pervaded her own. Look at these two beings. Both a little afraid of the outside world. Both wanting to create a little bolt-hole where they would feels safe and unintruded upon. One of them not very aggressive, the other not trained to go out and create opportunities for herself.

Both hoping to live quietly. Both needing nourishment. The one craving food for its body, the other craving sustenance for her heart and soul.

The two cravings became one craving. One being cannot distinguish between its need and the other’s need. All that is known and recognised is the hunger.

One has cast her net and is hoping for something to blunder into it so she can feed. When she realises she has access to another dimension she sees a whole new source of food. And not just food but bait to lure it in with.

The other, living in a world where she is encouraged to be more active, goes out and looks for her nourishment. All the time spurred on by her counterpart’s need.

What the human female is co-erced into needing is the human male equivalent of a fly. And she finds one. Not a man who would satisfy her own needs, but the type of man who will fulfil her counterpart’s needs. Of course she is unaware of this. She thinks she has found a man she can love.

And love him she does. Gives her all and invites him into her home. She doesn’t realise that she has been used as bait. She doesn’t know that her counterpart in the other dimension has influenced her choice, and can only use her precisely because she is such a loving person.

Who said you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar? That’s true too. But flies are not constant. However sweet the honey it will not keep them forever. Especially after they have tainted it.

So Alicia found her ‘true love’ and didn’t realise that her need for him was founded on another’s need for nourishment.

In the other dimension, another being watched the relationship develop as the man gorged and sweetened himself on his partner’s substance, taking everything he could, ripening himself until he was ready for plucking.

Knowing the nature of flies, in a way beyond poor Alicia’s comprehension, the other being knew she would have to be quick if she wanted her meal.

He almost got away once but, lending Alicia guile and binding up her pride in the process, our alien managed to capture him again. One very obvious thing about flies is that they have super sharp reflexes. They have to be caught unawares, and so it was that Alicia’s boyfriend was most in danger when he was asleep.

Many nights he was watched greedily from that other dimension, and hungered for. Many nights Alicia slept lightly, and unconsciously guarded her man. But it was only a matter of time before she dropped her guard and fell heavily asleep.

Stealthily the creature from the next door dimension began her descent into Alicia’s world. Her body was light and almost insubstantial. She was quiet and approached her prey carefully. But she had been too eager. He wasn’t quite as unaware as she had supposed. Not quite deeply enough asleep. And not so securely ensnared by his partner, who he was still planning to leave.

In his dreams he saw the giant spider as it scurried down the wall towards him. His muscles locked and he was sure there was no escape. He looked at the mandibles about to suck up his very essence and thought he must be doomed.

Sleeping peacefully beside him Alicia heard faint groans, and turned towards a sweat-drenched body. Tenderly she touched its shoulder and murmured soft words. Her soon-to-be-ex lover turned towards her and opened his eyes. Blue eyes that showed signs of panic and sheer fright. He sat up and recounted his nightmare, and Alicia sat quietly taking in the story, touchingly she was happy that she had been there to wake him and reassure him.

After he finally left her for good, she had a lot of time to assess their relationship. So many loose ends could be tied up. Her eagerness to be with him reflected her counterpart’s over-eagerness to pounce on him. He had eluded both of them.

Selfish in the extreme he simply had nothing he wanted to offer her, and being so capable of keeping himself to himself and looking after his own interests there was nothing the spider could take either.

Thinking of all the things he had with-held from her she wasn’t surprised that the spider had had no better luck. Flies know how to look after themselves and are the ultimate opportunists. They always know when they have had enough and it is time to move on.

Alicia started to feel glad that she had so conscientiously fed her little friends. They were only heralds after all of the giant spider in the adjacent dimension and it was a hard business to catch flies just by sitting and waiting for them.

She wondered how much each Earthly being’s consciousness was projected into that other dimension. Small in this world, large and powerful in that world perhaps. Different types of consciousness manifesting on Earth in the way that suited them best.

She thought of all the lessons she had learned from her experiences.

She had assumed her empathy with spiders stemmed from her own secret nature, but now she thought that maybe she had just had to find a way of living with them since they wouldn’t go away and she was too kind to harm them.

If human behaviour could be reduced down to the level of spiders and flies, and if human females and males had counterparts in another dimension, and these counterparts actually were spiders and flies, there must be a third species in that dimension.

Something that the spiders could use as bait. And she was the human equivalent of that. Not a spider at all. And maybe in that case there was a fourth species, a male sort of bait. And maybe if she was lucky that would be the sort of man she would find next time.

Or else the spider and fly represented the darker side of each person and the bait represented the lighter side. But still it was used to fulfil the needs of the darker self. Having had this dreadful thought Alicia started to doubt that she would look for another person at all.

She wouldn’t trust herself to pick another mate after this. She had seen too much of the darker side of reality. She couldn’t be sure of her own feelings anymore.

She was already too psychic for her own good. She had always picked up other people’s thoughts and feelings and believed them to be her own. Now she was picking up thoughts from entities in other dimensions and being used for their purposes as well.

Maybe that is the case in every human transaction, people being moved and motivated by creatures they didn’t know about or understand. There were hungry creatures living in other dimensions able to prey on human beings, and sometimes they were hungry enough to be careless and show themselves.

Disguised as love, these alien intrusions sucked at the heart of a human soul. Humans craved love so much, she now felt, because the need was being initiated by alien predators.

In order to protect herself she suppressed her own needs, or what were presented as her own needs and resolved to take care that nothing could feed off her ever again.

And she had been so loving in the past, not because she was a good person as she had imagined but because she was more susceptible than most to invasion.

Trying to see the funny side she wondered if there were small humans infesting the nooks and crannies of the spider’s home away in that other dimension. The possibilities that opened up if it were true really were too nightmarish to explore. She tried to set the alien an example by continuing to feed her own little ones, just in case.

Alicia cried at night for a long time as she tried to come to terms with her ideas, and wondered which theory was closest to the truth. She cried most of all at the thought of the loneliness she knew would be hers for the rest of her life.

Her counterpart in the other dimension that still just touched her home simply sat and waited. She had great confidence in her bait, and patience was a virtue of spiders. Just let loneliness do its job, and be a bit more careful next time. She’d get her meal.