CHARLOTTE

I’ve named her Charlotte. I can’t say why. She lives in the housing behind the mirror on the driver’s side of the Subaru Outback. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her and she won’t come when called. I must admit I didn’t actually discover Charlotte, rather, I more or less deduced her. 

 

 

We don’t often drive the Sube. Our little electric car handles most of our transportation duties. But about three weeks ago, I needed to use the utility aspect of the SUV and, as I was opening the door, I noticed a scant, silky network of threads suspended between the mirror and the window. With my ever-handy bandana, I wiped them away and resumed whatever task was at hand. Four or five days later, the construct had reappeared. Thoughtlessly, I again wiped it away. 

     In little time they appeared yet again. I spied them when stepping past the car on the way out for a walk with Jethro, the dog. This time I would leave the little structure alone. I looked at it again on my return. Checked on it the next day. Was it bigger? Not sure, but I did see a tiny knot at one point in their tiny universe. I peeked into the darkness behind the mirror and whispered Charlotte’s name. She didn’t emerge. Perhaps she didn’t know her name yet. I’d check again tomorrow.

     That tomorrow, a quick run to the garden shop necessitated use of the Sube. Not clearing her work away this time – it wasn’t getting larger, just a bit more intricate and the knot had been wragged open – I was taken by the fact that it withstood the 25 to 30 mile per hour wind to which it was exposed as I motored though town. So I decided I would check every tomorrow – perhaps when I’m going out for the paper at the foot of the driveway. Maybe I’d be lucky and catch a glimpse of Charlotte at work.

     Then came the day of a road trip entailing a couple of hundred slick and rainy freeway miles. Charlotte’s work had been in place when I shut the door and buckled in, but apparently the little web simply couldn’t endure the 70 mile per hour pelting of the precip. That evening, save for an errant thread or two plastered against the driver’s side door below the window, the construction site was as clear as it had been after I’d wiped it with my hankie weeks before. Immediately I found myself hoping Charlotte was somehow protected by the mirror housing.

 

 

I’ve been checking each morning and afternoon for the past week or so – thus far seeing nothing – always bending low to peer into the dark recesses of the mirror housing, gently, softly calling, “Charlotte…Charlotte… Yoo… Charlotte.”

     That’s what I was doing this morning – shivering in my slippers and jammies – simply checking on her while out to fetch the morning paper – when they came out of nowhere – swooped in, I tell ya – and scooped me up. 

     With my one phone call I was supposed to ask Candace, my wife and life partner, to bring me a fresh set of duds to wear, but before I got to that I asked her to check on Charlotte.

     That’s when the line went dead.

 

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Church of the Open Road Press

(With apologies to E.B. White)