Clare stirred in the middle of the night, awoken by her bladder. She arose dutifully to placate it, to secure the rest of the night’s slumber. On her way to the bathroom, she saw an enormous spider. Clare does not fear spiders, so it did not bother her. She did her business and went back to bed.

When morning came, she had her cheerios and coffee, washed, and went off to work. Nine hours later she returned, and slumped in the chair with a glass of ribena. She suddenly remembered the spider, and glanced toward the corner of the ceiling where she had seen it. Sure enough, it was still there. What has it been doing all day? she thought. I’ve been working hard to pay for the heating for it to enjoy living here, and it just sits. It didn’t even do the washing up. Without realising it, she began to glare at the spider, with the sort of resentment only a 9-to-5 can bring. After a few minutes of glaring, however, it suddenly dawned on her, the absurdity of being a spider. What must it be thinking? It is literally only interested in its next meal. It sits there all day, probably with maddening anticipation of the morsel that’s about to stray into its web. It’s probably gone completely bonkers just sitting there all day. She could just imagine its thoughts, mmm flies yes yummy flies come to my web cooommmeeeeee, for hours on end. She began to smile to herself as she realised how ridiculous that was.