Spider Bites

“WAG #11: Scaredy-Cat”
Another people-watching exercise! Choose a stranger and observe him/her for a little
while. Now give them a phobia. A full-on, jump on the chair, scream like a little
girl,
unreasonable
fear. (Or however you imagine them to respond.) Try to choose something that fits
the person you’re watching, and let us know what it is about them that clued you
in to their secret fear. The object is not just to describe the fear, but to make
us understand why it fits with this particular person.
Special thanks to
Christine Kirchoff
for this week’s topic idea! Email NixyValentine AT gmail DOT com to contribute topic
ideas. It’s very helpful!
Post the results on your blog, and
read this post about the group for information on how to notify me
so your post will be properly included in next week’s list. (Note, please include
WAG #11
in the subject heading and tell me how you want your name to appear! If you do not,
I will use the name as it appears on your email.) Deadline: next Tuesday, May 12th.
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So I’m at a party over the weekend. We were all gathered in the kitchen around the food and drinks. The windows were open, stirring the tangy smell of spicy ribs through the house. The bluesy sound of sax warbled over the desultory buzz of idle chit chat. Just as I was elbowing my way to the living room to find a seat, a nerdy looking guy in a pair of thick horn rims stopped me, striking up a conversation. It turned out he was an exterminator.
“Yeah,” he went on in his nasally voice. “Gotta catch ‘em buggers before they get out of hand. Spiders and cock roaches breed like rabbits. Gotta zap ‘em dead.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, the food on my plate suddenly far less appealing than it had been seconds before. “I’ll just be on my way.”
SWAT! He slapped his arm. Then he jabbed his forefinger into his horn rims, catching them as they slid down the bridge of his long, straight nose. “Even after three showers, still feel like those spiders and bugs are crawling in my skin and hair.”
“I’ll just be on my way,” I said, feeling a bit itchy my own self.
SWAT! The force of his elbow had me jumping. If I do say so, I did a mighty fine job of balancing my food.
“Like I said,” he gave himself another good hard swat for good measure. “Feel like ‘em buggers are still on my skin.”
“Yeah,” I said, finally breaking free of the nerd. “Good luck with that.”
I dumped my food in the nearest waste can, my stomach queasy. I left the party, still stuck on the bugs. I couldn’t shake them loose from my brain.
As I crawled between the sheets that night, I visualized spiders and roaches in my hair, on my skin, nesting and breeding like rabbits. A little shudder went through me. I swore I felt the beginnings of hives breaking out on my arms and legs. My eye began to twitch. Just the thought of such a thing had niggles of fear skittering down my spine. Then I laughed out loud. Somehow the nerd in the horn rims had managed to pass his bug phobia onto me. If that didn’t beat all. I drifted off, realizing that phobias were all in the mind. But still, I thought, ideas stirring. It would make for a good fantasy thriller—or a writing assignment. The possibilities were endless.

Want to join Nixy’s WAG Writers Adventure Group? Here’s how:

http://www.nixyvalentine.com/index.php/2009/02/writing-adventure-group/