text: My head pounds to the rhythm of my pulse and I see dark stars creeping in at the edges of my vision. I try to steady my breathing so that I don’t pass out. My clothes cling to cold sweat. Bile is finding its way up into my throat but I can’t swallow it down because of all the cotton inside of my mouth; I swear it’s lined with cobwebs. I feel the sticky strands pulling my throat closed. I don’t want to die like this...not now. The tangled ball of upturned legs laying in the middle of the bedroom appears motionless. I feel like I’ve been watching it for hours, waiting for it to twitch; but it never does. It’s the third one I’ve killed this week and my nerves won’t be able to survive another one. I stare at it through my tunnel vision haze as I sit on the cold terrazzo floor, my back against the wall. God, I hate those things--the fangs, the unblinking eyes, the plump hairy bodies--but most of all, I hate the legs. I hate the way they splay out across the wall or the ceiling, just before pouncing. Sometimes I can hear the big ones scurry across the floor during the silence between television commercials. That’s when I simply call it a night and go hyperventilate through a paper bag until I pass out, asleep. Tonight might be one of those nights. My ravaged nerves plead for me to close my eyes, just for a moment. But I know that if I do, that ball of legs will somehow untangle itself and scuttle off into a dark corner, to torment me another day. The tingling sensation in my hand reminds me that I still have my shoe in a vice grip. I let go and flex my stiff fingers. After a few more deep breaths I gather the courage to move. I stand up and back out of the bedroom, making sure I don’t look away from the mass of spindly legs, because if I do, it’ll crawl away. I leave the light on and the door wide open for the same reason. I’ll try to deal with it in the morning. Tonight I’ll be on the couch. I round the corner to the bathroom and put my mouth to the sink faucet. The tepid tap water tastes like heaven. I look up at my pimpled face in the mirror. The yellow speckles on the glass make me look like I have reversed freckles. My face always breaks out after a panic attack, and picking at it calms me down. I focus on a mass of acne that erupted next to my nose last week and I pinch off the top layer of scab. It’s definitely getting bigger--probably infected. The sharp sting distracts my thoughts from wandering back into the bedroom--to the ball of legs. A yellow head forms at the tip and I squeeze it with my forefingers, releasing a discharge of fresh spackle at the mirror. I push hard on both sides of the purple cyst until sticky yellow custard percolates into the sink. Pain shoots into my sinus and I grip the edges of the sink. My eyes shut so hard I see a kaleidoscope of lights beneath my lids. The whole side of my cheek throbs and there’s an ache deep inside my face-- definitely infected. I press a wad of toilet paper onto the angry sore and contemplate driving to a clinic in the morning. I actually feel the inflammation pushing against my fingers--man, this is really bad. I pull the paper away to assess the damage and the tip of an ingrown hair comes out with it. Weird place for a hair, but then I recall hearing stories of teeth and fingernails growing inside people’s bodies. Must be why it hasn’t healed after a week. I pinch the end of the stiff black hair and take a deep breath. I close my eyes and prepare for pain. It’s just like pulling off a bandaid, right? I grit my teeth, and yank. The pain is unreal. I squint through watery eyes to see how much flesh got pulled out with it; but the hair is still protruding there--about an inch longer now--but still there. I feel spasms deep in my sinus and the hair begins to slowly draw itself back into the swollen pimple. I quickly grab the end of it and it pulls against me. I feel it bend at an angle under my fingertips. Gotta stay calm. With my free hand, I fumble through the medicine cabinet for tweezers. I pinch them at the base of the hair and pull two more inches out. The base of it is thicker and courser than any hair I’ve ever seen. Another part of it bends and the whole length of the strand twitches wildly like a tiny black skeleton finger. No no no no no this can’t be real! I push my thumb into my mouth, against the underside of the cyst, and the flesh there moves. Whatever’s in there has to come out, so I press hard with my thumb while pulling with the tweezers. Another thick hair works its way out of the wound, then two more. Then, I see something wet and black deep inside, with tiny unblinking orbs that seem to look at me from the mirror. It’s a... it’s one of them! My tweezers are trembling so badly that they lose their grip, and the thing begins slipping back into the hole in my face. No no no no no! I plunge the tweezers into the cyst and scrape at the insides. The pain is making me woozy but I keep digging. The tweezers drop from my sweaty fingers, so I continue digging with my fingernails. The thing is so slick and sticky that I can’t grab ahold of it. I feel it clawing further into my sinus. I can’t let it go deeper! I keep pressing my thumb against the inside of my mouth until it tears through the outer layer of the cyst. A tangle of black legs pushes out with my thumb. The spider unfolds from the raw cavity in my face. The legs splay across the side of my head as its black body slides from the crevice, and all I can do is tremble as the nightmare unfolds in the mirror. Do something...I’m going to die! I grip the sides of the sink and heave myself into the mirror. The spider is faster, and it scurries up into my hair. I’m dizzy and I see stars. The spider continues down the back of my head and I feel its awful legs clamp onto my neck. I can’t move; I can only brace myself with the sides of the sink and stare down at the kaleidoscope of glass and gore. I still can’t move as the pulsating mass of sticky yellow custard splits into a thousand tiny legs--each one scampering from its egg sac and up my arms. I’m jolted away from the horrible sight by a sharp sting at the back of my neck, and I gasp for breath. The spider loosens its grip and crawls under my shirt where its dark and moist with sweat. The searing venom burns its way down my spine. My body becomes weak and rigid. I only make it a couple of steps into the hallway before collapsing. I lay on my stomach, paralyzed, with my head turned toward the bedroom. I watch with unblinking eyes as the ball of upturned legs laying in the middle of the floor untangles itself and crawls toward me. I hear the legs scuttling across the tile in the silence between my heartbeats.