A Thread of Silk

The interior walls had yielded all their silence. I slipped beneath the back porch door and advanced into the damp garden plot, seeking the hollow shelter of an inverted wheelbarrow. Under its rusted rim, a garden spider had anchored an orb web between a discarded clay pot and a withered twig. I crouched without breathing. With calculated restraint, I extended one long claw to lightly tap the dried twig. The tremor traveled across the silk. The creature paused, retreated into the shadows of the broken pottery, and remained frozen under my shadow. A textbook withdrawal.