You'll get used to it

Preface

Those who do art sometimes see themselves as fake artists. Those who possess skills see themselves as if their skills were fake and people who admire them are deceived. And thinking that these pursuits and goals are meaningless leads those who live on Earth to think that they live fake lives which could free them from the internal judgment or drive them into despair. The state in which human dwells has always been between the ultimate zero and the ultimate one. Basically, this is the only navigation in life that we have and it has been represented in our language, religion, culture and pretty much everything. The ultimate zero is too easy to devolve into while the ultimate one is unreachable and has been represented by sun that gives us the light and yet is too dangerous to even directly look at. Therefore, the state of the human is mainly mediocre and this mediocrity feels so familiar that it becomes attractive in our eyes. That is the story of somebody who was made in the image of human but was neither an animal nor a human.

I

Keith's mother was neglectful of him. That's why her sister agreed to look after him and have him live by her side. As he grew up he became interested in roleplay games but had no one to play with him. Eventually, this lead him to be interested with bugs and other insects.

It's hard to say whether children have distinct personalities on their own. What is actually a personality afterall? A number of traits? If so then I could present to you Keith as a child with interests like most of the children. It's not like he was completely apathetic. But he was rather mute. It might be lack of attachment to his guardians. And here he was lucky to have such a roommate.

One day a spider called him by his name and he started to feel funny. The spider convinced him to get the flesh and milk for it to become a new creature. Then after few weeks it has used spidersilk to wrap itself in meat and wait. That's how the world met a new creature.

It was early March and the air felt very fresh and almost made you feel slightly drunk. It did make Claudia feel like she could do anything in this world full of people obsessed with their daily races. She was hanging around, fucking with garbage in an abandoned mall in the suburbs. She felt almost euphoric but then it came to her that Keith is going to return from school very soon. She went home or at least the house that she owned de facto.

***

She had no idea how to bring this up. "I guess, you are motherless now, kid", she said to a 8-9 year old with a dutch-boy cut. "I mean, auntless, like, yeah... Huh". Keith was in some kind of abstraction from status quo since he was a personal servant of her hedonistic spider mistress and didn't mind her manipulations at all. "So... What now? Shall we head towards this grocery store over there? "

***

"What's up? You don't even want this coca cola? ", Claudia asked pointing at the bottle. "I don't know. I want everything's back". "What so you mean by everything? I can be your everything, kid. You've got such a cool sister like me. You don't realize how lucky you are". /p>Claudia was trying to head out of the suburbs and never see that damned house again. She wouldn't like to continue walking around this area knowing that there's a house in which that happened. "Quick! ", she said. "I've got a sled for you. We're going to find some nice place to snooze in".

She used to tell him he was a mere cog. But he didn't understand her witty comments, as he considered them. In reality, she was just an edgelord being excited about the fact of having somse sort of a butler.

Now as she was pushing the sled in which her houseboy was sitting she thought about everything on earth. Mainly how to shoplift another thing for her own pleasure. "There are lots of apartments and yet none of them is free. Well. Maybe there are still some that people decided to live just for me to live in", she thought.

The rent in the town has been going up lately and people were forced to seek other places. Nothing new really. Of course sociologists would try to elaborate on these curcumstances further and say that such conditions may cause people to leave their social group and become marginilized therefore engaging in crimes and ruining the whole new generation being unable to receive needed social skills but we won't get into such details.

They got to the district where there were little if any people. An apartment building made out of brick appeared, the windows, if there were any, looked shattered. The building itself was screaming "Don't you even dare". "It looks eerie", said Keith. Claudia answered: "That's bullshit. We've got so much space to explore! Let's come in". They entered a deserted appartment through the window to find a surprisingly tidy for an abandoned building place. Well, there were some bookshelves lying on the ground around a bunch of old books. Claudia was actually happy notwithstanding the fact that these apartments were definetely looted for the purpose of selling everything metall. The only thing standing here was a modest-sized potbelly stove made out of steel or iron which looked miserable but was just enough for them. "Oh, we're going to have a comfy-homey-domey-little stove over there", she declared.

You probably wouldn't expect spiders to be devoted lovers or man's best friends. Spiders could actually eat their relatives if they are smaller. This is how they survive. And Claudia was no exception, but in the human world she found the wastless joy of sweets as one of the ingredients for her physical body were some sweets as well. The carbohydrates are essential for our organism and yet Claudia has developed some strong passion towards these diverse sugary sweets coming in all shapes and sizes.

"Do you like it here?", she asked. Before Keith could even answer she continued: "I've got so many things to do. I just feel like it. This place looks comfy. Well, just like back in the days. Wait, I'll go around and bring some firewood". After a while she was back with a stack of promised firewood. She lit the stove and even Keith was enchanted by this sight.

"You will help me and I will help you", she said trying to encourage the child. You won't believe how everything will turn out.

II

At the very morning Claudia felt very exhausted and sore despite sleeping quite comfortably on the floor covered with all sorts of blankets. The spring air broke into the apartments and brought the cold moist with it. Claudia looked around her comfy nest and then on Keith. "He is still sleeping", she told herself.

She felt butterflies eating out her insides.

Claudia did know how vulnerable and innocent children were. The only warm feeling that she had towards him was when he did what she told him to do. She decided to search his rucksack for something and found a mediocre fantasy book. Among other things there were some playcards made out of carton but she admired his creativity. "Well, anyways, he's got a little cash!". The spidergirl was happy as she didn't want to cont inue shoplifting for now.

***

She went to a "happier place" as she called it. Different shops were feeling her with a strange kind of rejoice as she is not really hiped up about buying things but enjoys the atmosphere. Still, there were some people giving her strange looks because of her tall figure. To the monster that she literally was people in public were the strange ones. The cafe that she entered was surprisingly full of people chatting. Claudia realised it is the weeked and people are trying to forget about their occupations. It did contrast a lot with the dead mall from the suburbs. The place near the window caught her interest. She took a seat and stared into the window that was dissolving into void.

After a while she noticed a small company of two teenage girls around her age talking with each other. She decided to turn on her social self and try to befriend them. While she was planning that out the other girl left the cafe leaving her apparent friend alone. Claudia decided to take the opportunity.

She approached the girl that was now reading and decided to start a casual conversation.

"Hi there, what have you got there? A book?", Claudia began trying to appear as friendly as she could. The brown-haired girl with a comfy-looking sweater gave her a judging look and then answered: "Yes, it's about architecture. I'm an architecture student". Claudia told her that it must have been an honor to study architecture and got a response that it is but it caused her a lot of stress recently but now she could enjoy some time in this cafe which was a rare occasion. "Ah, you know, I also like to be here", said Claudia continuing her light hearted narrative. They soon switched to the town that they were living in and Claudia got some view of an architect on some of the buildings that she liked the most.

For the most part it was like examination where she could get some answers wrong. Still, it was more of a small chat between strangers that could be forgotten. But Claudia, hungry for people, wanted to take one more step. Some kind of dark energy wanted to possess people as if she was collecting their personalities. Stamps do not differ that much from each other, they have different colors and images. That's it. But it's still interesting enough for some collectors, and yet humans were much more interesting.

"I'm Claudia, it's pleasure to see people of my age in this town", she was, in fact, a foreigner here. So it was great for her to establish this relationship even though the girl that was named Helen didn't want to force acquaintance with the pale-haired teenager further. She left the cafe feeling content. Snowflakes started to fall onto her shoulders. "What now?", she thought.

III

The sun has melt some of the snow from winter revealing old bleak grass. There was a hill in wasteland and on top of it was loocated a small building made out of concrete. Nobody knew exactly for what purpose it was built but there were also remains of barbed wire indicating that it could've been something important. But now it was just a place for youth to hang out.

The sky was bleak this day although there were some sunny days in March. A thick layer of clouds, just like a school of big soft fish made out of milk, was floating in the air covering the whole sky.

That's when Claudia and Keith were there. Going up the hill, the boy asked "Why are we going there?". She quickly replied: "Because I said so! Now stop asking dumb questions and keep going". He went silent. Once they entered the deserted building they sat down exausted. Claudia was enjoying the view of the wasteland and the town nearby.

"I think Helen would like it here", she began, observing the garbage left by other visitors. A reasonable question arose:"Who is Helen?". "Err, a friend of mine, I guess". They noticed how hard wind blew, touching the withered grass, making it look miserable. Why would Claudia choose such a miserable place devoid of people? After a minute of silence she continued: "I mean, it wouldn't be a tragedy if we kinda stopped talking. She is busy because she is studying things, I also study things...Like this book for instance!", she said picking up an old book probably meant to be burned alongside with others. She went through the foxed pages and discovered that it was an english translation of some German poet. "Do you like poetry? You see, this poetry book can be poetic itself. It could've been thrown into fire and yet here we are enjoying the sacred knowledge of humankind", while telling this, Claudia couldn't help noticing that she was not truly honest with herself as she didn't care that much about the sacred knowledge. Anyway, she decided to take the book with her to impress Helen with such taste. It was hard to remember the name of this German poet but apparently his "germaniness" was quite noticable because of the bittersweet mood of the poems. What a good find. They continued observing the circle-shaped building without ceiling. Claudia noticed a piece of a mirror and gave it a smile only to find out that she has cavities.

IV

After a few weeks Helen invited Claudia to visit her place where she could meet her other friends as well. That was surprisingly flattering. "Why can't we meet at the same cafe? It's nice in here", she withstood but Helen convinced her that her dorm room is much more comfortable and she could offer some coffee drinks as well.

When the sunday evening came Claudia arrived and experienced being treated like a member of society probably for the first time. She was welcomed by Helen and sat down in the kitchen where she was making coffee.

Soon her friend from the college Brian came. After introducing each other they began talking and he was killing her with the kindness. She wanted to punch him or make him look miserable in some way but she restrained and nodded at what he was saying not really taking in to what exactly he was talking about.

"So you are into poetry?", he asked trying to find another topic for discussion. "Yeah, it's just refreshing to find yourself in this flowing of words", she was trying her best to appear as if she was an avid bookworm. Her use of vague metaphors from the old firestock book pleased Brian's ear. "So he actually believes me", she thought. It convinced her that he is an empty shell of a person because nothing interesting was about his appearance or personality. But the realisation of that made her more willing to participate in this funny puppetry.