Eight-legged Jonah

January 2002

I was standing in the office after everyone had left. I had just remembered the bottle of water I brought with me — a blue plastic bottle bought at a camping store with a narrow neck and a blue plastic, screw-on cap.

I was glad to have the water. Too much stress and too much soda leaves a kind of tacky film on the inside of my mouth that nothing washes away like water. (Except perhaps a lot of uncooked broccoli, but that is another story.) I lifted the bottle and felt the cool inrush and, very faintly, almost imperceptibly, a little something else. Perhaps…