nursing home story: Stella And The Spider

Author: Tanya Wilson

Leaning over the bars that help carry her weight scooting along in a slow creaking gait an eight legged creature that nobody cares for scuttles and stops, frozen before her

Quick grey eyes, keen for escape wizened and wary of the tricks played by fate pause and then focus on a means of salvation, a small plastic cup meant for medication.

Enduring the pain of traitorous bones, stiffening joints, hands heavy, like stones. Carefully, deftly, with barely a moan, she scoops him up gently to find his real home.

Now shuffling stridently, her eyes gleam with purpose, as she walks past the station of bemused watching nurses. "Don't go out there Stella! You'll break your hip!" but she ignores their fussing and bites her lip.

She opens the doors to fresh air and freedom and lets out the spider to live in her Eden.