A character by

Olga's favorite places included the warm corner of a window sill, a dusty place in the rafters of a barn, and among the curled vines of a jasmine bush.

She enjoyed listening to the rain against a window pane, seeing the stars dissolve at dawn, and watching small embers flit away from their fire.

What Olga hated was that she lived in this world as a spider.

A spider.

She was a beautiful arachnid, spun intricate webs, and was terribly clever.

But she was admittedly miserable in her small, fragile body. She did not appreciate her delicate legs, the way her body glistened like a pearl, or how astoundingly perfect her design was for survival.

What she wanted was to be human.

A human - with a life, with a purpose, and with the experiences that came with being one.

She wanted everything the humans had: to fall in love, to build a home, to have a child, to grow old, to sit on a porch with a family among equals - not insects.

She cursed the Creator for squandering her potential by making her a spider.

She cursed the Creator often, in fact.

And one night, around two a.m., the Creator finally answered Olga.

The Creator blessed her with a gift: the ability to capture memories in her web like dew drops, and relish in them as if they were her own. And the Creator made her a promise as well: if she still desired to be human even after reliving these memories as a human would, she would find herself to be one.

Olga used the gift the Creator bestowed upon her to capture every memory she could, as they drifted into her web like dandelion seeds:

The childish thrill of flying into the grass from the seat of a swing.

The frightening fall from a horse.

Skipping stones on the surface of a stream.

Catching bullfrogs in the mud.

Falling in love.

Watching a child grow.

But what Olga found in her web alongside these lovely little orbs were other memories:

A fire that took her home.

The betrayal of a lover.

The loss of a child.

A terrible illness that took from her the ability to pursue her passions.

Having her possessions stolen.

A car crash.

Days passed as Olga used her gift of capturing these memories in her web.

When the Creator found Olga days later, she was sitting among the dusty places of an old barn. The Creator asked the spider if she wanted the promise fulfilled, to be human in spite of the memories she caught in her web.

Was life truly worth living, in spite of the tremendous agony man lived in? There was love, surely, but there was also hate. Excitement and tragedy. Life and death.

And yet, Olga knew exactly what her answer was.