Marlowe, the cellar spider who has been living behind my beside cabinet for the last 18 months, disappeared a few weeks ago, but I wasn’t too worried as (s)he’d done that before and then turned up again a few weeks later, fatter and of greater span.
On Monday, however, Alex found Marlowe’s mortal remains beneath the bathroom radiator. Marlowe is no more.
Rather than an undignified flushing or binning, I thought an undignified burning was more in order, given the Viking weather the UK is currently experiencing:
Marlowe was well supplied with grave goods – origami flowers, a votive offering of a dead fly, and a ceremonial hemp web – for his-or-her journey we know not whither:
Purifying fire released [some of] his-or-her elements [particularly the carbon] back to the air whence they came [somewhat indirectly, being a secondary consumer]:
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Farewell Marlowe. May your spiderlings inherit the Earth.
