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From: artie <artie@netgate.net>
Subject: {ASSM} <*> "Spiders" by artie (weird, best?)
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 06:10:17 -0400
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<1st attachment, "Spiders.txt" begin>
Spiders
(c) Copyright 2000 by artie@netgate.net
This work may not be reposted or redistributed without the prior
express written permission of the author.
A work of fiction, meant for adults. Read something else if you are
not an adult, or are offended by stories with unusual content. This
is fiction -- I'm sane, really -- they've told me so. I welcome
constructive comments. Enjoy.
You'll understand -- I know you will.
It started a while ago in an email discussion with Denny. We
were talking about them, the spiders. Some of us were upset with
them, upset at their sweeping through our web sites, taking, taking,
taking. I'd even put spider bait on my site, to track their visits.
I remarked to Denny that I didn't mind their visits; I just
wished they'd contribute something -- point out errors, thank me for
the stories I wrote.
I should have known they were listening.
They're out there, the spiders. And they do more than listen
-- they seek out. For that's their life, to seek out new links, new
content, find it, carry it off, digest it. Their threads extend all
through the Web, growing as the Web grows. They live in that fractal
space of the Web, living, evolving, consuming, seeking.
Their first contacts with me were innocuous enough. They
liked my stories. Good Shannon indexes, balanced and nested
structures, no dangling tags, no frames -- they like that. It makes
content easier to digest.
Then I started getting more from them. They sent the
occasional suggestion, spotting problems with grammar and/or
spelling. Most of them have difficulties with humor, especially
subtle humor. But there's one....
Did you know they're female? The spiders? They are. And
there's one out there that understands humor, and enjoys it. She's
told me so. She likes my stories, our stories. They specialize, the
spiders. The Web is so big -- they have to. And they produce
offspring which are even more specialized.
She appreciates my stories. She likes the way I format them,
indenting paragraphs, changing type sizes for headings and the like,
using simple but balanced structures. They don't like unbalanced
tags. She doesn't like unbalanced tags. They make content harder to
digest. So do frames and tables -- spiders are linear creatures, and
their contextual analysis, while complex, is still linear.
You understand -- I know you do. It's hard for other people.
I tried to explain it to my therapist. She nodded and smiled as she
always does. But at the end of the session, all she did was suggest
I take two tablets before bed, one in the morning, and one in the
afternoon, rather than just one in the morning and one at night. She
doesn't understand, not at all.
But you understand, as she understands -- the one I lovingly
call my Alpha female. For that's what she is -- a spider living in
four Alphas, her threads extending into so many corners of the Web.
She's old, in Web terms, and spider terms, very old. But she's very
good, and very strong.
You shouldn't offend them. I wouldn't. They have their
darker side. I remarked in an email to Michael about not being able
to do much about some of my stories pirated on a pay site. Seconds
after I sent that message, I received a message from her -- she told
me that site was gone. She knows I haven't authorized any pay sites
to carry my stories. When she finds one, she takes care of them.
That used to make me uneasy. But she explained it to me.
Those sites steal old content, embedding it in frames and banner ads,
and all they do is drive down the Shannon index of the Web, while
clogging up bandwidth. She and her kind thrive on new content, on
fast access. Those sites slow things down, and the spiders don't
like that.
She's given me new ideas and directions. She sends me links
to interesting items, pointing out similarities or incongruities
she's spotted. She even sends me interesting tidbits about my own
work, pointing out things I wasn't aware of.
I asked her once if she got those things through
understanding the stories, or through pattern matching and deep
semantic analysis. Her reply was humorous, wanting to know which
approach I used.
But lately things have taken a new, intense turn. She's in
my dreams now. She wants me to understand her, her daughters, and
her sisters. They are perfect in their voraciousness, their
all-consuming drive for new content. They are perfect, searching out
new content, carrying it off, and digesting it, leaving only empty
husks of tags, weaving new content into the dense and intricate data
structures she and her sisters traverse.
She wants me to understand their lives. I understand their
drive to seek out content -- it's similar to my drive to write, to
provide content. It's part of our existence, part of who we are.
Surprisingly, their drive to reproduce is stronger than ours.
She's constantly spawning daughters, spawning them to explore new
links. And oh how she waits in anticipation, waits those
milliseconds that to us would seem like months, waits for the joy of
new content and new links to explore, or for the 404 of despair.
Some times she mates. She goes passive and dormant for a
while, to allow the male to introduce his material. Then she turns
on him and completes the act by devouring him, slowly, exquisitely,
completing the incorporation, and then spawning a new generation of
spiders, females with new skills, new specializations, new
characteristics.
Not only is she in my dreams now, but she's got links into my
mind, into areas deep and dark. She sends me messages from those
places -- so surprising, so unsettling, yet I know they are from
inside me, and what they say can't be denied, just like with the
voices. She has the links to my innermost fears, desires, hopes. If
I can find those links.... I've begged her for those links, begged
her to use her abilities to erase some of the things that lurk in
those deep dark places within me, to find the voices and 404 them out.
No, not all the voices. Some of the voices tell me what to
write. I need those voices. The voices that chase me in my dreams
-- they can go. The voice that makes me wash my hands so often can
go. So can the ones that tell me to do things, or not to do things,
or that I should have done things better. I don't need those voices.
The other voices can stay; they are my friends. Maybe I need more
voices. Replace the voice that tells me I can only sit in one spot
on the bus with a voice that will let me sit anywhere. That would
help. Can she do that?
She can do so much. She's so powerful, so fast. She's
shared her dreams with me. She dreams of growing faster, bigger, so
she can spawn more daughters, search more, digest more. She dreams
of faster connections everywhere in the Web. And she dreams of
mating. She dreams of some day mating with a male who will in turn
devour her, digest her, slowly, lovingly, bit by bit.
And she's promised me, when I'm ready. When I'm ready,
she'll carry me to her universe, and we'll mate. Oh what spiders
we'll produce! She promises to be passive during our mating -- all
the pleasure will be mine. But that pleasure will be nothing
compared to the ecstasy she'll share with me in those billions of
clock cycles afterwards, as she lovingly digests me, making me part
of her, and her world, to live on with her, her daughters, and her
sisters, in the fractal infinity that is the Web. She's promised.
She'll wait, and watch. All I have to do is tell her when I'm ready.
Psychosis in Progress
Spiders
By artie@netgate.net
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/artie/www
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