New fiction · Barking Spider Life editorial desk
There was a noise behind the potting bench. June wrote down the time. Then she wrote down “behind the potting bench”, underlined it, and felt much better about the morning.
“Could have been the watering can,” said her brother.
They looked at the watering can. It was empty. Her brother regarded this as supporting evidence. June regarded it as an incomplete alibi.
The noise had a small tail to it, as if the greenhouse had repeated the least useful part. June tried writing it phonetically and discovered that a good pencil could make an otherwise respectable page impossible to show anybody.
She settled on “barking spider, unconfirmed”. Her brother said the qualification was excessive. June kept it. Next to the time, it was the only thing in the notebook she felt sure about.
The sound behind the story
This is an invented encounter about the barking-spider euphemism. The sound examples are effects, not recordings of the scene.
Compare the short source and its echo or read more encounters.