He paces around in circles and zigzags, up and down, left and right. There are 
no corners so all trips lead back to where they started. He is quite desperate to 
escape this place. He must feed, he must fuck. Life is very short and must not be 
wasted sitting around this containment.  He needs to be free. He longs for the 
sky to open and let him soar away on the wind, yet an invisible force holds him 
here. In between laps he would wonder why his fate is to be sealed in this void, 
but flies don’t every wonder why. He just continues to look for the door. His tiny 
wings carry him from top to bottom of the glass he is trapped under. His six legs 
have feet that can stick to even the smooth glass walls but eventually he tires 
and just sits down and dies.

Her plan is patience. She had been hanging around one spot for days before the 
scenery suddenly changed to this. First she checks the horizontal plane and 
soon decides that is a dead end. The smooth vertical walls are a challenge to 
climb, eventually eight legs prevail and she gets to the top and builds a home 
there. Now she hangs in her hammock and waits for something to happen. She 
waits for food to stumble into her web. 

This fly is four times larger than the spider so she ignores this frantic insect as he 
unwinds into slow death spasms. She has eaten one of his smaller siblings just 
yesterday and pays little attention to the larger fly as he folds his legs and falls 
onto his side for the first and last time of his life cycle. He has won this game by 
not being spider food, but he would have preferred to spend his last days on a 
pile of dog shit instead of inside an upside down drinking glass.

As she waits patiently in her web, her bigger sister is introduced into the glass as 
well and promptly eats her alive. Spiders are cannibals. While the first spider is 
being sucked upon by the second, the third even larger spider is dropped into the 
glass. It is only a matter of time before the largest spider is wrapping up and 
eating the second spider.

Now one large spider is hanging at the top of the glass and a new large fly is 
sitting at the bottom sharing the glass hotel for the night. The fly seems to know 
to avoid the big spider and is circling the bottom perimeter stepping over the two 
smaller dead spiders.

Morning finds this fly’s dried out body in an awkward position with his mouth 
stuck firmly to the ground and his body and legs wrapped in silk and suspended 
just above the ground. The spider is slightly larger now too.

All these creatures come crawling, creeping, and buzzing uninvited into the place 
I call home.  I admit to being unusually happy to find a new spider crawling 
across my bed the other day, a new gladiator has arrived. The new contender 
has considerably better reach with his long legs but his body is smaller than the 
current champion. A fight ensued and lasted for most of the day. All forms of 
spider fighting were used but no winner emerged by eating his opponent so they 
formed boundaries and went back to hanging around in webs as spiders often do. 
I don’t really want any pet spiders so I’m hoping a praying mantis or something 
will fly in soon.