I enjoy Fallgrade's grainy physics-defying city almost as much as I fear its foggy giant spider
It is said that to name a wild thing is to tame it, to delimit and temper it, to defuse its menace. The giant, vaporous spider in Fallgrade is called Karl. Know any Karls? Are you a Karl? I wonder if it's Karl as in Karl Marx. Perhaps it's a reference to arachnid imagery in anti-Communist propaganda, though arachnid im...
It is said that to name a wild thing is to tame it, to delimit and temper it, to defuse its menace. The giant, vaporous spider in Fallgrade is called Karl. Know any Karls? Are you a Karl? I wonder if it's Karl as in Karl Marx. Perhaps it's a reference to arachnid imagery in anti-Communist propaganda, though arachnid imagery isn't the exclusive preserve of anti-Communists.
Myself, I tend to associate the name "Karl" with paperweights, for reasons my brain refuses to explain to me. And yet, for all these steadying associations, Karl the spider still gives me the willies. Nothing tame about that thing at all.
Original reporting appears on the publisher’s site.
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