The Radioactive Spider’s Last Letter

THE RADIOACTIVE SPIDER’S LAST LETTER

P.R.Thompson

Dear Lucilius,

As I write to you, I have fallen gravely ill with radiation sickness.

I’m writing—not to alleviate the burden in my conscience—but to warn you about the corrosive effects of greed. Have I been a good or bad spider? It was never so simple.

I admit that at crucial moments in my life, I was selfish and weak and let down thousands of my fellow spiders. Yet, I ask not for absolution. I doubt that our actions will be judged in any presumptive afterlife. In case there’s a judgment, this letter might diminish my punishment.

***

We lived in an oval mass whose exact location in our universe remained unknown. Most agreed that we floated near the point where gravity softens, and the curvature of time descends.

We lived in large cobble-webs trapped inside a gaseous bowl. Large columns of fumes and heat emerged from the ground. A dense fog covered our webs. We named our planet Ludus 001.

Over generations, the myth of our species’ creation remained unchanged.

“In the beginning, all was chaos. Darkness traveled across time, and Silence filled all spaces. One day, the God of the Light, the supreme creator of all things seen, and the God of the Darkness decided to create a new world in their own image.

They threw our primordial seeds, but the seeds landed amid thick mud and radioactive fumes. And the Gods saw that it was not a good thing. Then the Gods united their mighty powers and breathed their divine breath into our bowl, and lightning, thunder, and fire were created. The Darkness dissipated, and the Silence was forever shattered. Finally, life pulsated, and the Radioactive Spiders were born. And the Gods saw that it was a good thing. They then rested and marveled at their creation.”

For years, I believed the official version of our origins. Nonetheless, later I realized that it was a purely speculative and exploitative tale. Science proved that what we called planet Ludus 001 arose from the ashes of a previous civilization: the Humans. We rose from their ashes.

I now believe that our lives have been a repetition of the same struggles and tragedies that preceded our lives in Planet Ludus 001. Thus, no creation occurred.

Essentially, dear Lucilius, chaos gave birth to our civilization because energy can’t be destroyed; it can only be transformed.

Please forgive my self-indulgent and presumptuous digressions.

***

On Planet Ludus 001 lived two kinds of spiders, the Corvams and the Sernos.

The Corvams, previously known as Corporatum Excelsus, were albino looking. From the first encounter, a typical Corvam appears cold and aloof, overpowering others with their accusatory gaze. They were greedy, conning and cruel.

The Corvams moved sideways with slithering finesse if not for the fact that, like the rest of us, they had long appendages. Their entire anatomy was covered in super-sensory cilia and a soft, shiny shell.

The remaining inhabitants of Ludus 001, the Sernos, also known as Sernos Vulgaris, were smaller and thinner. They were hyper-sensitive, gullible, and prone to bouts of sentimentality.

Born from failed thermal reactions, our outer layer closely resembled mud. We had contorted skulls and sinuous, bumpy skins. Dark streaks crossed our yellow eyes; thus, we could not see well.

Unlike the Corvams’ shells, ours were clunky and stiff, hardened from our continuous diving in the mud.

I hope that I have not bored you yet.

We soon found out that Ludus 001 was inhospitable, the food scarce, and the temperature high. Our life expectancy was shortened by radiation, burns, or violence.

For a while, we managed by allocating resources purely based on need. The Sernos were satisfied, at times even happy. We deluded ourselves, believing that honor, justice, and love would secure and perpetuate our existence.

The Corvams, however, believed that the Laws meant little.

As they thought of themselves as creatures of a higher order, they took the reins of power by conning, deceit, and often brute force.

Their disinformation campaigns and rigged elections proved infallible. They implemented a state of lawlessness that ensured their enrichment. Chaos equaled profit.

Even I, Lucius Seneca, your humble interlocutor, benefited from that system. I sought business opportunities and took advantage of others’ work. I enjoyed big profits trading with rare metals.

Over time, the general state of scarcity threatened the Corvams’order. The Sernos started resenting the voracity and control of Corvams. The political situation rapidly became unsustainable.

The mathematics of the situation did not add up either. The Sernos worked on the mines and maintained the web’s structure, while the Corvams enjoyed a better life in the more hospitable part of the planet.

The Sernos’s discontent soon turned into violent protests.

“Kill them all!” said one of the Corvams’ generals at the Sernos ‘weekly protests.

“Yes, but there are too many to kill,” said another commander. “Besides. Who’s going to do the digging?”

Around that time, the T-Nexus was invented. Thirty-six hours a day means of communication, to display our trivial and inconsequential lives.

Because the T-Nexus became ubiquitous, it became the Corvams’ preferred instrument of manipulation and control.

But it did not work as the Corvams expected. The Sernos’ discontent exploded, and civil disobedience followed.

An all-out war broke out.

***

The Sernos had a numerical advantage but lacked access to advanced weaponry. Thus, at the beginning of the war the Corvams decimated the Sernos by the thousands.

They bombarded our webs without regard for civilian spiders, young or old. It was not uncommon to find broken shells and disjointed limbs on the grounds. Our nights were often punctuated by the screeching noise of dying spiders.

There was nowhere to hide. We ran and hid in the mines by the thousands.

The Sernos headed to a guaranteed defeat.

Finally, the Sernos’s Supreme War Council gathered for an emergency meeting. “We must find any Corvam’s vulnerability, or this war will be the end of us,” said the supreme commander.

The Supreme War Council of the Sernos concluded that the only chance to turn the war tide was to sabotage the mines, rendering Corvam’s weapons useless. Their weapons relied heavily on rare metals for target selection and accuracy.

A simple accident of our creation granted us the advantage. The Corvams, because of their albino soft shells and larger size, were constitutionally incapable of diving in the mud in search of minerals. Besides, such a filthy job was the purview of the Sernos.

And that is how I became relevant.

Over the years, I have mined rare metals and developed unparalleled expertise. Soon, I was summoned to the Supreme War Council. They explained that I needed to carry out the sabotage of the mines’ operations. And so, I did.

The operation was a success, but at a personal level, a miserable failure. “All for the cause,” one general told me after I complained that I wasn’t being paid enough.

It turned out that at one time or another, I had hundreds of spiders on payroll. My enterprise was profitable. I skimmed money from my employees’

paychecks, by cutting their hours short. “I’ll fix it next week. Don’t worry! There must be a glitch in the system,” was my preferred excuse.

Thus, the Serno’s victory was not working too well for me.

We fought the Corvams and pushed back hard with all the aggression, hatred, and force born out of envy, resentment, and revenge.

It was a glorious sight whenever a Corvam’s malfunctioning tank was stuck in Sernos’ territory. The Corvam soldiers often pleaded for their lives after the Sernos ripped their shells open.

Our total victory was near.

***

The Corvams did not surrender easily, as the Supreme Council expected.

The Corvams’ secret service was legendary, as was feared. They already had expertise in controlling millions of Spiders that outnumbered them at a ratio of one to ten.

I started getting obscure messages saying, “Opportunity available”. Also, strangers often bumped into me and left messages on my shell. “You can have richness beyond your imagination,” said one of those messages. I wondered what it was about.

Not to bother you with the details, I became the Corvams’ secret service number one target.

The Corvams knew that each Spider, no matter how loyal or devoted to the cause, had a price.

In hindsight, I now see that I was always very greedy. At the time, however, I considered myself moral and loyal to our cause. But I also had needs.

Lucilius, I confess to you that I was fascinated by all things Corvam. They were all that I aspired to be. I was enamored with their sophisticated manners and their clean, and elongated physiques. My list went on and on.

Now it shames me to admit that I did not find many redeeming qualities in being a Serno.

The Corvams’ secret service finally approached me.

One smoky night, as I was about to enter my web, a giant spider bumped into me. At first, I thought that I was being mugged. “Shhh, don’t worry,” she said. “We have a business proposition for you”.

“Okay. I’m listening,” I said once my shell stopped trembling.

To make a long story short, the Corvams made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse. In addition to a large sum of coins, they offered me what I coveted the most: citizenship.

They guaranteed in writing that my cooperation would legally make me one of them. The only caveat, they said, was that I needed to stay in the Sernos’ camp.

I had a hard time sleeping that night; part of me felt deep sadness over the death of so many young and old spiders. Yet another part of me was angry, with righteous indignation.

“You can finally get the hell out of here!”.

I am not embarrassed to say, but I became a well-paid informant.

I provided the Corvams intelligence reports, including the locations of the mining deposits and the transit routes.

The war soon, with my help, turned in the wrong direction. The Sernos were being butchered by the thousands.

Soon it became clear to the Supreme War Council that there was a mole in the Sernos’ camp.

One night, at a bar, I was approached by someone who I thought was also a Corvam agent. We struck a lively conversation that soon became intimate. I proudly, in hindsight, indiscreetly, told her of my arrangement.

She was a Serno double agent. My betrayal was uncovered.

I barely escaped my arrest and a guaranteed death penalty for High Treason.

The Corvams, as they’d promised me, provided me with safe passage. For me, there was no turning back.

The Sernos kept on losing battles, and soon enough, in Sernos’s fashion, they started praying. And be it stupidity or the harmful effects of our atmosphere, the more battles they lost, the more they prayed to the Almighty Gods.

Almost toward the end of the war, the Sernos had no hope of surviving the war.

“The day of rapture will soon come. The Messiah is coming to take us to the promised land,” the Sernos proclaimed in their secret meetings. “Hallowed be thy name.”

***

The Corvams’ victory was total, and our defeat, humiliating.

As the Corvams celebrated their victory, some of their generals’ impulse was to eliminate all Sernos’ lives in Ludus 001. But soon the Corvams’ calculating nature kicked in.

“One brown spider alive is better than one thousand dead,” read one report. Someone needed to clean the web and dive into the mud.

In the aftermath, my newfound patrons designed a better system for controlling the Sernos, not by brute force, but by reinforcing their prejudices and preying on their numerous taboos and fears.

Their propaganda efforts went into high gear. All that was heard and seen in Ludus 001 were T-Nexus messages about the return of the Messiah—who once crawled amongst them—to bring justice.

In my more than three hundred years of existence, the same delusional fairy tale has been repeated with great success. And I heard it from my grandparents, who heard it from their grandparents.

The Corvams were, once again, right. Their myth-making machinery was foolproof.

***

Lucilius, my letter is coming to an end.

A few weeks after the Corvams’ victory, I received a letter from their secret service high command. It simply read, “Your service is no longer needed. All your Corvams’ rights and privileges are terminated, effective immediately,” it said.

I instantly became a nomad. To this date, I’ve kept running and hiding from mine to mine.

***

In these latter days, the Spiders no longer had the energy or desire to devour each other. After all the destruction caused by the Corvams had taken place, planet Ludus 001 may soon implode.

Only thinly veiled vapors and toxic gases remained.

The Corvams, however, did not pray for divine intervention.

Finally, we, Sernos Vulgaris and the Corporatum Excelsus, agreed on something. We all secretly hoped for another radioactive accident taking us back to the mud we came from.

I, Lucius Seneca, finally understood how it all happened.

The Gods, creators of the universe, knew that life on planet Ludus 001 was an accident. They didn’t foresee a hazardous electrochemical accident giving birth to life.

From time to time, busy with other celestial affairs, the Gods turned their eyes on planet Ludus 001. But, frustrated and angry at the extent of our perversions and capacity for self-destruction the Gods grew tired and forgot about planet Ludus 001.

As I write to you, my dear Lucilius, the pull from our inner mud grows stronger. Volcanic eruptions occur with increased regularity, and the level of radioactivity is intolerable.

The disruption of Ludus 001’s natural cycles left us at the mercy of a violent universe. Once again, as in our origins, Ludus 001 became an insignificant speck of radiation amid billions of galactic dust.

Lucilius, I don’t want your sympathy, but I’m pressed for time. My life is escaping me with every breath.

My brown shell is turning ash-colored, and my appendages shrivel.

I can’t see my hands in front of my face.

I implore to whoever can hear, for my prompt disintegration. My pain is unbearable.

Lucilius, I want you to know that I don’t regret my decisions. It was not my choice to be here in the first place. I survived.

Now I understand that in our journey, no greater love exists than self-love.

My conclusion is that when each one of us departs, there will be no ceremonies, no memories of our journey through planet Ludus 001.

All the ideas, debates, and myths I heard over the years were only distractions from a guaranteed end.

My life, like planet Ludus 001 itself, never made any sense.

I know that you’re still young, but I hope this letter finds you well. May my words guide your journey.

Goodbye Lucilius. I wish you a healthy, long life.

With deep affection,

Lucius Seneca.

###

THE RADIOACTIVE SPIDER’S LAST LETTER

P.R.Thompson

Dear Lucilius,

As I write to you, I have fallen gravely ill with radiation sickness.

I’m writing—not to alleviate the burden in my conscience—but to warn you about the corrosive effects of greed. Have I been a good or bad spider? It was never so simple.

I admit that at crucial moments in my life I was selfish and weak and let down thousands of my fellow spiders. Yet, I ask not for absolution. I doubt that our actions will be judged in any presumptive afterlife. In case there’s a judgment, this letter might diminish my punishment.

***

We lived in an oval mass whose exact location in our universe remained unknown. Most agreed that we floated near the point where gravity softens, and the curvature of time descends.

We lived in large cobble-webs trapped inside a gaseous bowl. Large columns of fumes and heat emerged from the ground. A dense fog covered our webs. We named our planet Ludus 001.

Over generations, the myth of our species’ creation remained unchanged.

They threw our primordial seeds, but the seeds landed amid thick mud and radioactive fumes. And the Gods saw that it was not a good thing. Then the Gods united their mighty powers and breathed their divine breath into our bowl, and lighting, thunder, and fire were created. The Darkness dissipated, and the Silence was forever shattered. Finally, life pulsated, and the Radioactive Spiders were born. And the Gods saw that it was a good thing. They then rested and marveled at their creation.”

I now believe that our lives have been a repetition of the same struggles and tragedies that preceded our lives in planet ludus 001. Thus, no creation occurred.

Essentially, dear Lucilius, chaos gave birth to our civilization because energy can’t be destroyed; it can only be transformed.

Please forgive my self-indulgent and presumptuous digressions.

***

On Planet Ludus 001 lived two kinds of spiders, the Corvams and the Sernos.

The remaining inhabitants of Ludus 001, the Sernos, also known as Sernos Vulgaris, were smaller and thinner. They were hyper-sensitive, gullible, and prone to bouts of sentimentality.

Born out of failed thermal reactions, our outer layer closely resembled the mud. We had contorted skulls and sinuous, bumpy skins. Dark streaks crossed our yellow eyes; thus, we could not see well.

Unlike the Corvams’ shells, ours were clunky and stiff, hardened from our continuous diving in the mud.

I hope that I have not bored you yet.

We soon found out that Ludus 001 was inhospitable, the food scarce and the temperature high. Our life expectancy was shortened by radiation, burns, or violence.