I’m sitting on the sofa in the living room reading a book with a simple blue cover, that uses a simple writing style, which I’m enjoying the style and rhythm of, when my wife comes out of the shower, into the living room, still dry, having not yet entered the shower, wrapped in her dry bath towel. I look up, see she is about to speak, put the bookmark she bought me, which is my favourite bookmark, on the right side of the open book, so that I know I’m on page 158 and not page 159 when I start reading again. I put the book on the side table, its simple blue cover, with only the title of the book and the author on the front, and no image, face up. It’s a simple looking, beautiful book, in my opinion.

‘There’s a spider in the shower. Can you get it please?’

‘There’s a spider in the shower? Where in the shower?’

‘It’s on the wall. You can’t miss it. It’s a big spider. Can you get it please? It’s big and I’m cold.’

‘Let me see it first. So, I know how best to get it.’

‘Use your book, your book will do.’

‘No, I’m not using the book. Let me see it first.’

‘Okay, please go and see the spider first. I’m cold. It’s big.’

The spider is big. Bigger than I’d expected and one of the biggest spiders I’ve seen in real life. I estimate its body is the size of an egg, and a similar shape to an egg, but flatter, and its legs are thick, too thick for an average spider, the thickness of my little finger is my estimation. I decide I need a shoe to kill it. I don’t want to use the simple looking, beautiful book. 

My wife is sitting on the sofa, in the space where I was reading my blue book, looking at me with eyes that say will you please get rid of the spider, the big spider with the egg body, and finger legs. I go to the shoe rack to choose a suitable shoe to smack the spider with. A suitable shoe that won’t require too much cleaning, is not too heavy, and is thin enough to keep my eye on the spider as I move my arm forward to smack it. I understand immediately that my Dr Martens shoe is the opposite of what I need, the mush of a dead, big, crushed spider will clog between the treads, taking longer to clean and be more unpleasant, its weight might make my aim falter and not be fast enough to ensure an immediate strike, so I don’t pick up my Dr Martens shoe. My wife’s black, flat soled, work shoe is almost half as thin, much lighter, and has a flat sole, and so is a much better shoe. I take that shoe into the shower.

The spider hasn’t moved, but even though I’ve already seen it and how big it is with its chicken egg sized body, and finger thick legs, it seems even bigger now I’m about to kill it. I feel fear that if I miss, or if it moves away quickly, it could drop to the floor and run towards me, could run up my leg, could bite me, and I know I will freak out if any of those happen. I lift up my right arm, with my wife’s flat, black work shoe, the heel firm in my hand, with the toe end of the shoe ready to launch at the big spider, and I slap the shoe forward as fast as I can. The shoe connects directly with the spider’s egg sized body and I feel its body give way immediately under the shoe, making a crunching, squelching sound, and fluid and muck from its body spray a little across the wall. The spider is dead. I call out to my wife that I’ve got it, but to give me a minute to clean it up.

First, I rinse the muck and goo from the big spider into the sink, and rinse down the debris from it, then I take a large roll of toilet paper, about twelve sheets, and wipe the bits of the spider’s body, and legs from the wall. I get some more toilet paper to pick up the two legs that fell to the floor, and put them in the toilet bowl, with the previous paper, and flush. I take one wet wipe and finish cleaning my wife’s shoe, then take another to finish cleaning the wall, and do a second flush with both wet wipes. I check my wife’s shoe and the wall again and there is no trace of the big spider, so I leave the bathroom.

‘It’s all ok now. I’ve killed the spider.’

‘With my shoe?’

‘Yes, with your shoe. There’s nothing on your shoe now. It’s clean.’

‘Why couldn’t you use your book, like I said?’

‘It would be difficult to clean the book.’

‘Why my shoe? Why not your shoe?’

‘It would be more difficult to clean my shoe.’

‘I don’t see why you had to use my shoe. A shoe is a shoe.’

‘Your shoe doesn’t have treads, it’s lighter, it’s a better shoe for the job.’

‘I think you could have used your shoe or your book. I’m cold. I’m going in the shower now.’

My wife goes in the shower, and I sit down again. I pick up the blue book, with no image on the cover, just the title of the book, the name of the author, and I open where I rested my favourite bookmark, that my wife bought me, and I start reading from the top of page 158.

The next stopping point in the book is page 164, which I’ve checked before restarting reading, and when I get to page 164 I put down the book because I’ve decided to try writing a short story in the beautiful and simple style of the book with the plain, imageless, blue cover. I think about a simple story about a big spider in a shower, which my wife asks me to kill for her, which I do, but by using one of her shoes, when she would prefer I use the book or one of my Dr Martens shoes, and gets a little annoyed with me because I use one of her flat soled, black, work shoes instead, because it’s easier to clean, and I don’t want to damage the beautiful, simple covered book, and don’t want to use the Dr Martens shoe because of the cleaning time required, which will keep me from the book I’m enjoying for longer. Then, when I stop reading, and start writing the story, I have to remind myself that the story isn’t true, that I had the idea this morning, when I woke up, and I am writing it whilst my wife is in the shower, after coming back from her morning visit to the gym, and she’s in the shower that has no big, egg sized, thick legged spider in it. But, before she went to the gym, and before I read some of the beautiful, plain blue book during her thirty minutes at the gym,  I told my wife about the idea I had for the story, and that I wanted to write it in the style of the book I’m reading, and when she comes out of the shower, and is ready, I’m going to ask her to read the draft short story, to tell me what she thinks, and I hope she likes the story, so that I can send it off, and hope for it to get selected somewhere, and published, and she’ll help me choose a suitable name for the story, as she often does after reading my stories, as she has with most of my previously published stories, the name for which she came up with, and after she’s read it I ask her what she thinks and if she has any suggestions for a title.

‘I don’t know. It’s very simple. Very basic.’

‘It’s meant to be simple and basic. It’s in the style of the book I’m reading.’

‘It’s just that it’s very simple. And, I don’t think you should have used my shoe.’

‘If I’d used my Dr Martens, it would have been messier. That’s why I used your work shoe.’

‘I still think it’s very simple, and you should have used a different shoe. I don’t like the idea that you used my shoe.’

‘I’m sorry I used your shoe. Do you want me to use my Dr Martens instead?’

‘No, it’s fine. It’s not like you actually used my shoe. It’s a story. It’s fine, but it’s just very simple and basic.’

‘I know it’s meant to be simple and basic. Any ideas for a title?’

‘I honestly don’t know with this one. It’s just a very simple spider in the shower story.’

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