It could have been my radioactive moment

Unlucky enough to walk underneath an egg sac at the precise moment the sac burst into scurrying life, tiny spiders repelling down their own tender lines right onto my head. Thousands of them.

I shook. How I shook. My hair, my clothes, my fear. Panic passed faster than it should have but I was relieved to find myself walking down the street, shedding tiny spiders on wires like artificial stars, only mildly closer than usual to nonplussed.

I didn't feel any bite or sting but wondered mildly if this was my radioactive moment as I dipped a tiny spider with my ticket on the bus. All through the supermarket the tiny spiders repelled from limbs and extremities to meet either cardboard cereal packets or instant death. The spiders jumped without thought appearing and appearing as though I was sweating or dreaming them into being.

People started noticing when I lifted up my arm for cat biscuits that the webs were beginning to form wings. I thought about honing my technique, shooting tiny spiders as visible lines of resentment, disappointment or anger depending on what was happening. Maybe I could store dead flies in my pocket and train them to come back again. Maybe they would behind me in the exact shape of my shadow, second to second, turning only into whatever kind of spiders they are when I make the secret signal and they swarm.

One tiny spider span a tender little line from my hair to the collar of my shirt and began to run down my arm. I pointed at an annoying person in the supermarket, willing the spider to jump in his general direction instead it turned and began to make for the slotted opening between buttons on my shirt.

I pushed down on the spider with tip of my finger. Its whole body crushed into less volume than a single drop of water, I wiped my finger on a nearby box of muesli bars. My shirt remained unstained. It was that moment I made for the pesticide section and gave myself a bit of a spray.

Public alphabet causes mild humiliation in shopping centre

Grizelda was standing next to the display shelf right near the front of the shop, which isn't very interesting until you learn the next part, the part where I tell you what she was saying. She held up a pink sparkly pencil and very clearly and loudly explained to me how to hold a pen. I attempted to emulate her but apparently I got it very wrong. She went on to give another demonstration before grabbing my fingers and making me practice writing letters all the while giving loud instructions and corrections.

You see Grizelda has recently discovered that I hold my pen 'incorrectly'. I think it all began when I asked her to correct my chopstick technique to minimise soup splashes on my white shirt. What makes it worse is that Spencer agrees with her. He also thinks I hold my pen incorrectly, which is how I wound up in Smiggle receiving a public lesson on writing letters of the alphabet then purchasing a triangular pen-grip holder to 'help' me. I don't think Grizelda would have run so publicly wild if she hadn't have had Spencer's support on the matter.

I can not even begin to describe the intense feeling of embarrassment I felt standing near the display shelf at right near the front of the shop while Grizelda waved around an over-sized pink sparkly pencil. I wanted to yell, 'I am only being docile about this because I am writing my manuscript by hand and it hurts. My hand hurts!'. But a quick scan of the sniggering twelve-year olds in the shop kept me quiet.

I don't know if the shop incident was merely a coincidence but today I began to type. Before today any effort made towards writing the damn thing on the computer was thwarted by an insistent inner voice that said, 'you must first write this by hand'. Today the voice was absent so I went digital and began the work of typing it all out. It is depressing how reams of handwritten pages shrink down when they are typed out,  like mushrooms in a hot pan. I never cook enough mushrooms but fortunately the manuscript is not finished. I have no idea how the whole thing goes which is almost the loveliest part. There aren't too many things left where I get to discover something brand new every step of the way. Don't vomit yet, I'm not turning into Anne of Green Gables I'm just saying that not all art feels bad to birth. That part of it, the pain part, is at least partially a myth. If it didn't feel good, apart from the unexpected public alphabet humiliations and the odd day of horrifying slow-progress torture, I'm quite sure we wouldn't all be doing it.