To kill a spider.
Is it as heinous of an act as killing a mockingbird?
For a mockingbird provides us, simple and shallow beings, with birdsong,
Gorgeous, lustrous birdsong.
And spiders, the prospect of venom.
Ahh, prospect. Potential. What a valid method of determining whether we kill! For a spider could possibly bite me, and cause me inconvenience so I will take away its life, an action that I’m not even remotely entitled to, because how dare another living being to enter my space.
But what the human race fails to see
Due to our crippling stupidity,
Is the sheer magic of spiders.
They balance delicate ecosystems on their magnificently engineered webs, a true marvel of Mother Nature. They are elegant, quick and intelligent.
But the very fact that I am on my hands and knees begging for their protection by justifying why they serve our species and fulfil our views on beauty
Is beyond disgusting.
For, dear human, you are not the centre of the universe! You are a tiny, minuscule part of it. And instead of celebrating the privilege and divinity of being able to live and sharing with that with beings in all forms.
You squash it. You kill it.
You end the celebration and instead make it about your very own pathetic ego.
If you’re beginning to taste the anger in this piece, it is because I AM angry.
For all the times in the classroom or playground, in houses and in spots of wilderness
I have shielded my fellow Earthlings with my very body,
And pleaded their case of why they don’t deserve to die simply for existing.
My fellow ignorant peers laugh and watch on as the giant oaf, a borderline Neanderthal raises his vile foot,
And squishes my innocent friend.
For truly no reason at all.
The human species boasts about their rare ability to practice empathy, it is exclusive to us and us only!
In reality, it is rare that I ever meet an empathetic person. A kind person. A person with perspective and humility. One without an unearned superiority complex.
You may think, as an egotistical being does, that this is blown out of proportion. But I assure you that it is not. For a single seed of injustice allows swarms of injustice to fester, and thinking that it is okay to exploit and kill animals is the reason that animal agriculture, deforestation and violence amongst our very own species and every other possible woe exists!
It all starts with teaching a child that is perfectly okay
To kill a spider.
Harper Lee poses an easy question. For only an unfeeling psychopath would dare kill a pretty and easy animal such as a mockingbird.
But in order to understand your very character and our shared humanity
We must ask what it means,
To kill a spider.
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