You are the spider in my web. Eat! spider, all I catch for you. Eat up, grow bloated with my knowledge. Finger wags, the dry voice wavers yet rushes on. You are the spider in my web, my little one, my disembodied hand. Mosaic city of spider’s webs, in plan as one vast web. Spiral and radiants. The Fly Trap Club, the sign hung weblike above the door, immediately descends down the stairs, dark and narrow, lined with boys. The club a network of black passages, boys against the walls. Through all this see only glistening of teeth bared in break-my-heart, the alluring smile. Narrowed eyes flare open wider. So put yourself into this place my sacrificial lamb. Spider boys eat lamb boys, the notice reads. If they want. Fishface paused before his pupil’s eyes, distant now, no longer following his line of thought, the old man’s near toothless ranting. I am dying, he said, the boy. I am dying too, on soft young lips, voice lilting and sad, a small stream of tears. The old bugger, his eyebrows jerked, eyes bulged, jaw dropped. Sitting side by side amidst a sloping meadow field. Its descriptions stopped, heedless their vision fixed upon each other. The boy cautiously, mouth opening in short attempts. Said nothing. Air pushed out in brief determined bursts. Aspirated, ha, ha, ha. They laughed at this. A great splendid feast of laughing. False alarm.