bite

There's a spider bite on the back of my hand. It was there when I woke up a few days ago and it's just slowly getting worse. For the most part I just keep it out of sight--people tend to freak out when they see it. I've heard some variation on "you should get that looked at" far too many times in the past couple days. I'd wear gloves but it itches like hell.

I know it won't kill me, though. Not like that, anyway. But sometimes when I'm having conversations there will just be this sound like a sudden downpour, and it'll drown out everything else, and my hand starts throbbing and it's all I can do to keep from screaming until it passes, after what feels like an eternity. And then they'll ask something like "what's wrong?" and I'll just smile and say "nothing" and we act as if nothing happened. But the fear is still there. One day I won't be strong enough.

My girlfriend asked me this morning why I've been cleaning so much lately, and I almost told her--but the rain came back and when it was gone she'd forgotten the question. I just want to find the spider. Not even to kill it, but maybe to understand.