Demon Stories

Violette: Red Spider, 1705, Italy

Violette

Red Spider

1705, Italy

"Let me down. Please let me down. I have a family. I have a daughter. I have a daughter!"

"I was left!"

"Please, that has nothing to do with me! Let me down!"

"Everyone wants to leave me."

You're a marionette manipulator. Surely you know what its like to be in suspension all the time. I'm like your marionette puppet, and they all hold the strings. I can't be without someone to hold the strings. I just need a little comfort, don't you understand? Or rather to be comforted all the time. Surely you understand.

Up there, you are suspended by the strings. All of the white strings hold you in place. I tied them to your wrists and your ankles, to your waist and your neck. Everything is spun intricately, so you can not move. Strings are attached to strings. A spider's web. It is my masterpiece. I thought of it when I saw your marionette show. 

This time, I hold the strings. If I let them go from my hand, disaster. Everything would fall down except for you. Instead, you would hang there by a single cord, like how I feel inside.

I feel like she tied a rope to my neck and let me hang. She left me to die.

Everyone leaves me without a word. They stay with me and use me, and when they don't need my love anymore they just leave. No good byes. No lingering look to even tell me thank you. Nothing. 

In the bright sunshine, I sat with the other children and watched your marionettes. You performed it in a small box theater, not much more than something you could carry around easily. You told tales of old, and more often you told tales you made up yourself. 

I remember in particular there was a day where the clouds were rolling in. The wind was picking up. The children were about to go home. Instead of finishing up, you decided to tell an old tale. This one caught my interest.

It was about a weaver woman in ancient times who made a contest with a goddess, but she lost. For this, the goddess turned her into a spider. It was lovely how you incorporated the marionette's strings into the show. When the weaver woman hung, she hung by her marionette strings and this was how you displayed her death.

Now it is your turn to hang. You hang the same way. But I kind of wish it wasn't you. Call me resentful, but there is another I would rather hang. Unfortunately, you are a worthy substitute.

"I don't want to die," you say quietly, pitifully weeping.

I'm underneath you, many feet between us for you are up so high. Your tears are falling on me one by one. My hands are above my head, the strings wrapped around my wrists many times to hold them down. In a grotestque way, it looks as if I am offering up to god, praying.