Shortly before I left Japan, I found a visitor in my apartment.
Now, in Kyushu, the insects are numerous, large, and hardy, and they often found their way into my apartment despite their size and bulk. I had the whole range living in my space: small jumping spiders that didn't make webs, mosquitoes, the occasional dani (little jumping insects that live in tatami mats and bite), flies, cicadas, beetles, big slow stink bugs. Thankfully, I was never subjected to an infestation of cockroaches or poisonous millipedes, but I did have a veritable insect menagerie living with me at all times.
In the winter, the mosquitoes were fewer (but I had bites year-round; that's the trade-off for not having snow), and the small jumping spiders disappeared. I was sad to see them go, as there were at least 20 in my apartment at any one time, and their antics were frankly adorable. Every morning when I went into the bathroom, I'd open the door to have a little spider jump out and hop past me. They didn't bite and didn't make webs. They were great friends. They even ate my dani and kept the mosquitoes under control. In the spring, they just as mysteriously reappeared and began hopping their way around my kitchen again.
What I didn't expect was the addition of a rather larger friend to my collection. I came home one night, turned on my bathroom light, and cringed. I couldn't help it. I'm not afraid of spiders, and I'm often drafted by my friends to chase specimens out of their own rooms. But this one - this was beyond even my capabilities. It was grayish-brown, fat, and clinging to the wall next to my washing machine. It was easily three inches in diameter with legs splayed out. It was so big it made noise when it moved. Depending on your screen resolution, the picture at the top of this essay may either be life-sized or perhaps a bit smaller than life. Yes. That big.
I spent the evening wondering what to do; I couldn't just live with this thing. But it was bigger than any container of mine when it splayed its legs straight out, and I couldn't squish it. I mean, the mess would be horrible. I tried my best to chase it out, but it never went in the direction I wanted it to, and furthermore it made my stomach turn every time I saw it moving its long legs. We were at an impasse: the spider didn't understand how to get back outside, and I was too freaked out by it to move it outside by force.
What to do, then? Well, I learned to live with it. It wasn't easy at first, but in the process, I laid out my expectations with the spider. I came clean with it. It was a big enough creature that it seemed to demand my addressing it specifically, rather than a strange back-and-forth behavior that involved me scaring it off into the corner before I came into a room, so I didn't have to look at it. I was beginning to feel guilty about that. Perhaps writing a spider a letter is not the sanest thing to do, but who would have all of their wits about them in that situation?
Eventually, the spider simply disappeared. I'd like to think that it found its way back outside, and not into the apartment of another human with less tolerance than I had for large visitors with eight hairy legs and clicky mandibles.
An Open Letter to a Large Spider
Good morning, spider.
I see that you are still flattening yourself in that corner of my bookcase, your front legs bent back to accommodate pressing yourself there as completely as possible, while the back ones are splayed out on the wood behind you. You ran there last night, spider, when I surprised you by turning on the light in the living room when I came home. You surprised me too, all three inches of your long stiff legs in the middle of my hardwood floor. The sudden light was too much for you and you have been cowering in the bookcase ever since.
When I first found you the other day, you had assumed a threatening pose on my bathroom floor, your legs stretched out wide and clinging aggressively to the tile, motionless. I prayed that you were already dead, but upon inspection (poking with hairbrush) you jumped back to life and ran up the door, to about eye level. I screamed and beat a hasty retreat. A few hours later, I braved the bathroom again, and you were exactly as I'd left you. In fact, you seem to only move any great distance when I'm making a lot of noise directly behind you.
Listen, spider. You have nothing to fear from me. You're too fast for me to catch you, and you're too big to kill. The last thing I want is smushed spider in my house, especially with the amount of spider guts I'm sure your plump body is housing. I do not want your long spider legs lying at strange angles on my floor, detached from you. You lucked out when you came to my apartment, however you got in, because we are at an impasse. You don't seem to like me around, and I can't do anything about your presence here, save for occasionally chasing you behind the washing machine when I want to use the bathroom.
I think we can coexist peacefully, you and I, and I think it's better for us both in the long run. But if you are to remain here with me, there are a few things we need to discuss.
First, I think it's totally unnecessary for you to cringe and hide every time I come near you. We've already established that I'm even more harmless than you are, and it's starting to make me feel guilty. I don't want to disrupt you. For example, I feel uncomfortable thinking about you spending 16 hours in that same tense position in the bookcase corner, when you could've been eating bugs, crawling around, sleeping, clicking your mandibles, or whatever it is you do all day. I'm not a tyrannosaurus: I can see you even when you're holding very still. I'd have to be blind not to notice you. Given the choice, I'd go for any of the above spider activities over cowering motionless in a corner, and I can't imagine you'd feel too differently about it.
On a related note, would it kill you to stop making so much noise when you move around? I realize that you are heavy and this causes your legs to make that horrible skittering sound on hard surfaces, but spider, that's basically my entire apartment. It's really unnerving to me, and when I become jumpy, that makes you jumpy too. So could you just make an effort to be quieter?
Your size, too - you are as big as my palm, easily - is freaking me out, but I think I can learn to live with it as long as you don't start making webs on an appropriate scale. Or if you must, please refrain from making your lair in the kitchen or the bathroom, or in my bed. I don't think it's too much to ask.
Finally, I request that you please, please not crawl on me in my sleep. I see that you've kept a safe distance from my bedroom thus far, so let's keep it that way. I guarantee that nothing good will come of your scratchy feet touching me, and I wash my hands of what might happen if you wake me up with them.
As for me, spider, I will make an effort not to scare you so much, and I will stop chasing you with the tupperware that we both know is not big enough to trap you in anyway. I will stop making loud noises for the sole purpose of frightening you off so I can pretend you're not in my apartment. It's not kind of me, particularly since it takes nothing more than footsteps or a breath of air to make you run for your life. You are probably tired enough already from doing spider things, without me tormenting you at random intervals.
If you want to stay, then, I think I could eventually get used to your huge, creepy, but benevolent presence in my living space. You seem nice enough, but let's remember to be considerate of each other's needs. I wouldn't want to get our potentially lengthy relationship off on the wrong foot, or feet.
Yours sincerely,
the human.