The Strange Spider Web

The boys were walking along a trail in the woods when suddenly a giant spider web came into their view. An equally large spider was at the middle of the web, waiting to catch a prey to fulfill its hunger. The boys were very much tired by the three mile walk, and they were thirsty too. The sound of water gushing in the stream in front of them made them want to walk straight through the spider web. About the only thing that kept them from doing exactly that was fear. Not one of them wanted to come in contact with the enormous spider, and who could blame them, they had had their own encounters with many a spider in the past. And they knew enough to understand that the spider in the giant spider web obstructing their view of the stream was no good. And they could easily have been right, almost. But this spider, the one in the giant spider web between them and the sweet stream gushing in the distance was special. It was not apparent to the casual observer that the spider was actually missing two legs of the eight it should have had, and that the eyes of the spider was slowly secreting some colorless liquid which was dripping down and making a muddy spot in the soil underneath the giant spider web. But one of the boys, the youngest of the group, noticed that the spider was missing two legs, and that it had watery eyes for reasons he did not understand. And so he thought about it. That is when he heard a strange voice.

“Help mee!”

In the next few seconds, the boy tried to pinpoint the direction of the voice, and was left puzzled when he could not. It took another few seconds for him to realize he was not actually hearing the sound, it was coming from deep within his own head–an eerie feeling it was. He panicked, and almost instantly started running toward the stream. But, only a few steps was all he could take. As he zoomed in toward the spider web, the enormous spider quickly moved to the upper left corner of the giant spider web. The moment the boy made contact with the giant spider web, he felt as if he were weightless. He felt that something of immense power but with the softness of a petal lifting him up, and suddenly he was in a place he had never seen before. All around him were some small bushes with long leaves like the ones in Dracaenas. But all of them had a bright-green color, silvery drops of water on them shined from among the bushes. The sky as he knew it was not present. Instead, all he saw was a shiny surface like a frozen lake, and he saw himself looking above in the reflection every time he looked up toward a sky he could not see. The thirst, the tiredness, was gone. The boy felt refreshed. He felt exactly the way he remembered he felt when he was playing in his younger days–probably between the ages five and seven. He knew it was strange that he remembered days that past with so much detail, and in a moment of reflection he amazed at himself rather than at what he saw with his eyes and what he heard with his ears.

From the corner of his eyes, the boy saw a something like a black ball coming toward him. It was a cat, not a full grown one, but a somewhat grown kitten. A kitten that was grown enough to walk in the bushes on his own, a kitten grown so much that he would sometimes ignore a wool ball even when you wanted to watch him play with it. The boy was now amazed to no end, and when the kitten spoke to him, there was no room in his mind for any more amazement. He just kept listening.

“Helloo stranger!”. Said the kitten.

“Why… hello!”. Said the boy.

The kitten took a careful look at the boy, the way most kittens do, and sat down on his paws, also in the way most kittens do, and gazed above the bushes toward a distant mountain that resembled a snail in its shape–unlike where most kittens would gaze at from their domestic enclosures.

“You must be tired.” Said the kitten.

“No, I’m fine.” Said the boy.

And so began their chat, one that would not last minutes but hours. The boy, who was ever so curious of what the little kittens back in his home were thinking all the time, had many many questions for the strange kitten in this strange place who could actually answer his questions. And the kitten, ever so curious why he never saw anyone like the boy even after all these walks of his by himself in the woods and roads, had many many stories to tell the boy. The two friends–they shared several qualities–had the conversation going in with a lot of enthusiasm when they heard a loud notice from were the snail-shaped-mountain was. The boy looked in the direction of the noise at once, but the kitten remained ever so calm, and even yawned a little, just like your kitten would do when you stroke his head a couple times and them suddenly stop doing it. The boy was concerned, and who would not, when they see what appears to be lava pouring out from a mountain in the distance. But the boy’s keen eye caught another tiny detail. Unlike lava, whatever that was presently coming out from a opening at the mountain top was brownish, and it resembled hot chocolate flowing from a giant chocolate fountain than lava flowing from a lava mountain. For once, he recalled a story he had read in a book about a boy and a chocolate factory, and wondered if he too was about to begin an adventure like the one the boy he read about in the book had.

While the boy was lost in his thoughts, the little marbles on the ground near the boy started to vibrate. The boy was afraid but the kitten was not. He knew exactly what was happening, because he had spent many many days in this place, for reasons he suspected the boy would not even begin to understand.

“Why are these marbles vibrating?”. Asked the boy with a puzzled look.

The kitten looked as calm as a summer sea. And replied to the boy in an even calmer voice.

“Simple, because you are not living in the moment.”

“What?”. Asked the boy who was even puzzled by the kitten’s reply.

As it was explained throughout the next several minutes to the boy by the kitten, the place they were in was alive. And with it’s queer ways, it responds to things it does and does not like. And the place obviously did not like the notion of a boy’s mind wandering uselessly, so it responded by vibrating the marbles.

“This is a strange place to be”. Exclaimed the boy.

“Indeed, it is.” Said the kitten, with a mild wag of its tail.

As further explained to the boy by the kitten, it is a waste to let a resource as critical as mind power diminish by letting the mind wander and think about useless and meaningless things. And so the boy thought that he would not let his precious mind power diminish for nothing by letting his mind wander without living in the moment.

But it was not as easy as he thought. So the boy was trying very hard to ‘keep’ his mind still that he developed an immediate migraine. The kitten, who understood this because he had a lot of experience dealing with strangers, told the boy what he was doing wrong. The kitten advised the boy to remember how he felt when playing video games, focused yet knowing that what he was doing was actually not very much effective for achieving whatever he wanted to do with his life.

“But I don’t know what to do with my life yet!”. Exclaimed the boy.

“I didn’t say you do”. Said the kitten.

Then the kitten told the boy while he probably did not know what to do with his life, he would soon find out if he focused enough on some work that would be creating value and making himself happy–both at the same time. He further said that if the latter was not happening, the boy would at least get some clues on what kind of things he did not want to do with his years. The boy almost understood this right away. After all, he himself had spent quite an amount of time on solving the riddle of life for himself, and the kitten’s advice was very insightful in his opinion.

“But what do you mean when you say I should create value?” Asked the boy.

At this question, the kitten understood that the boy was ready to begin his journey, and so he shared a secret he did not have the chance to share with anyone else before.

“You should find what is truly valuable for you, and those around you. This process of value creation can even make you quite successful in many aspects.”

The thought about creating value was something the boy too had regarded to be of use, but he just could not perceive it ever before like he did now. It was almost a revelation, and the boy became all the better for it–throughout his years.