(Optional: Instrumental to be read with music. Right click Video and select 'loop'.
For mobile phone, please hover over video and click minimise to continue reading. May not beable to select 'loop',

Chapters chopped for video loop ease)

I knew I was different when my Mother tried eating Dad but failed and I ended up keeping the wrong parent. All my friends had Mothers who's Fathers were known only as heroes of consumpted legend, providing food for the family by sacrifice of their bodies. But Dad said you didn't have to die to be a hero and that nothing was keeping him away from me. So unlike everyone else I had my Father to bring me up, and just like he promised, he provided for me in every way possible. As for the hero part, well, Dad preferred a quiet, more boring life, reading scraps of collected newspaper strips, pretending he understood the printed symbols. He'd rather spend his time appearing to look clever than live the life of a hero. Many times he told me the tale of when he chucked my "Mother Dear" to the Cat when she tried to eat him, and each telling escalated in enthusiasm and dramatics from the telling before, as if to persuade me of the triumph. Because to Dad, that was his heroic moment and I had to ask how it helped at all when all he did was fight against his duty.

Dad turned to me then and lifted me up from the rotten wood beam so that all my toe tips were dangling, walking us directly underneath the immense light of bulbous glass. It was so hard not to blink as I stared into its awing brilliance, and I squirmed with discomfort, but Dad kept me held up anyway. All I saw of him, looking down, was his silhouette and floating coloured spots around his head, light twinkling in his many eyes, much like dust particles sparkling like glitter.

"I was fighting for you, Eiguh-Ht. When you were just a little Spiddle wrapped in your weavel and I saw you for the first time, I lifted you up and held you under this very light bulb, scrutinising and inspecting you to make sure you were all correct. And do you know what I said?"

I shook my head.

"I said, 'You'll do'," and with that he plonked me back down on the beam and went back to his comfy place to continue reading his newspaper scraps. I watched as Dad contently !icked an arm tip and turned away one paper scrap to start reading the next in pile, [his crispy, disintergrating, old, decrepid pile.] Dad seemingly had collected every scrap and strip of newspaper available to find and so he read and re-read them over and over again, trying to decipher their meanings. He loved a good puzzle, and apparently these were the best kind because they'd kept him busy and enthralled for most of his life. I'd rather he just played with me more out here on our wood beam, but Dad wasn't the playing type and he was always busy with 'things'.

I somehow knew that he wouldn't take to my new idea of an adventure. I was eager to see my Dad be the hero I wanted him to be, and everyone else was going to where I wanted us to go. But Dad wasn't having any of it. We were to stay at home and face the winter.

"Are you going to finish your dinner or let it waste?" he asked as I inched my way back towards it, coloured dots still obscuring my vision as I went.

"Dad, you've changed the subject again. Why can't we go like everyone else, as 'Hero and Son' battling on a magical journey and surviving in the wild together?"

"Eiguh-Ht, I've lived in this Nook for fifteen years. Your Mother's memory is here. We're not just upping wood splints to go running from Nook to Cranny."

"We'll be the only ones left behind! The Winter gets colder every year and heat hasn't risen to us in so long."

"It'll come back eventually, it's one of life's many tests."

"Our bulb stays on continuous and there's never any sounds in the depths below us. I'm starting to think the woman down stairs is dead, you know."

"Don't be so dramatic, I've never seen one die, yet."

"Well Frub says they can."

"The day it happens outside our window, I'll believe it. Your grub must be cold by now. I didn't hunt that for the hell of it, you know."

My grub was cold. I didn't want to tell Dad that it was already cold from when he unwrapped and handed it to me from the wrapping packet, because he had to travel further for our dinner now that it was getting colder. I'd have eaten it just to show appreciation but the taste wasn't what it used to be.

Noticing his one locked eye on me I raised the food to eat, but then the idea to pull Dad's trick back on him, tactfully changing the subject, came to mind.

"Can you imagine a huge white square, ribbed, and full of heat with toasty under bars for us all to gather on, warm and happy, untouchable to Winter's biting cold? All Insects, Bugs and Arachnids united and basking together in blissful warm delight? Imagine all the new friends we'll meet, ...there's no one left here anymore. Dad, this amazing place exists and everyone's talking about it! Everyone's going to it!"

"Apparently exists, Eiguh-Ht. This 'Radiator' rubbish is just silly tales which you shouldn't take any notice of."

"So we have to freeze while everyone's else is leaving in search of it?"

"Nonsense, Eiguh-Ht, the cold in my bones make me stronger. Look at all these hairs on my legs. One day you'll have just as many hairs on yours."

An iced chill seeped into the Nook then and Dad remained stubbornly rigid to its effect. A small blow of icy wind came travelling in a moment later and Dad still remained stiff while I shivered. Only as I turned away could I have sworn to catch him quiver a little. Dad was stubborn and convincing him to leave home for a chance of a warmer one was not going to be easy.

"What have we got to lose?"

Dad's forehead creased and he snapped his paper stiff as if he couldn't get any peace to read.

"Dad?"

"All of our stuff for a start, along with our home. Others will move in and steal what's ours and then what'll we do?"

"We wont need any of it once we have the Radiator," I muttered.

Everything inside and out of our Nook was scenic with various web debris and splintered wood crumbs. I didn't have the heart to point out that we owned nothing but the nooked hole itself and connecting wood beam. Our only possesions were Dad's paper pieces.

"Ah ha, here it is!"

Averting my gaze back to Dad I watched as he held out a certain newspaper scrap between two tips and smiled gleefully at it.

"Just here, four bars down and four symbols sets in, is the symbol set I chose to name you with, see, 'Ei. G. Ht'...Eiguh-Ht."

"Dad its cold. I don't want to live here any more. And it's not just crispy cold, it's fiercly stinging cold."

"Your Mother wanted to choose 'Sho-uld', but I told her-, I said, you'd definitely be more of an Eiguh-Ht. Well, you know what your Mother's like, she wanted her name and I wanted my name-"

To be honest I didn't know what she was like. I hardly remembered her. Everything I did know was through Dad's telling of her.

"What could be so bad about trying to make a better life for ourselves? The journey will be fun and challenging and at the end we'll see the most incredible Heat Square looming over us in all its glory."

"We've already got an incredible 'Bulb of Light' to keep us amazed. No one else has a bulb of light next to their beam. We own that, Its on our plot."

There was nothing I could say against our precious bulb of light, it was a great comfort. It's power was serenly brilliant and it did raise our status. But for all it was worth it's light heat wouldn't keep us warm enough to get through this harsh coming Winter. Dad may have had hairy legs, but I didn't.

"'The Radiator' would keep us all warm. There'd be no more Winters to suffer through. We would find another great bulb of light and always remember this one fondly."

Rubbing his chin with an arm tip, frowning at his paper scrap, I could tell that Dad didn't like what I'd said. He had great respect for our Light.

"Let me tell you a story, Son. When I first moved your Mother and I onto this stretch of wood beam, long long ago before it was flaky and splintered, and way before you came along, that Bulb of Light wasn't here. I'd chosen this particular wood beam because it had a good sized wall-hole attached to it, perfect for keeping us sheltered."

"And you called it the Nook."

"And I called it The Nook. We had a Nook and Beam. We got lucky, your Mother and I. We chose a good area. It didn't matter what beam face you stood upon, you had a great view. The vast Window exposing the great wide world behind a safety pane so you'd never miss out on anything from the comfort of your own home, the draft sunken room to watch the exciting scenes below, the gloom snug loft of wonders. We'd found our place. Watching your Mother race and scurry the length and faces of this very wood beam made her eyes sparkle. And do you know what I said to myself? I said, I'd do anything-"

"To see her eyes sparkle every day."

"-to see her eyes sparkle every day."

"And then the Light came."

"And then the Light came. You don't choose the Light, Eiguh-Ht, it chooses you. We just woke up one morning to a comforting orange glow and there it was, alit and glorious."

"And Mother's eyes sparkled every day from its light."

"Every day. It must've heard my wishes. Your Mother may not be with us anymore, but that Light still glows for us every day. It stays on for you and me, until our time comes. When your Mother will be waiting for us. "

"Dad..."

"Eiguh-Ht?"

"I know you don't wanna leave Mother behind, and just like you I'm scared but-"

"Not scared, Eiguh-Ht, its called common sense. If you're not eating your dinner can you please wrap it back up and chuck it away, I dont want bodies littering our home. "

"Didn't you ever want to go on an adventure, Dad, not even as a Spiddle?"

"Only nitwits would say goodbye to everything they have on a silly adventure."

"Frub and his family have gone and they're not nitwits."

"Frub's daft and so is his family. What will they eat?"

"They're going to pilfer food along the way."

"Bigger bugs will eat them."

"Dad, don't say that about my friends!"

"Thats the reality of it, Eiguh-Ht. They'll eat smaller bugs who are also on their way to the Radiator, and then bigger bugs will eat them as they're on their way to the Radiator. They'd have been better off staying put, just like us. Everyone knows their place and system here. We've got a good life."

I couldn't help wondering how good life would be when we were the only ones left.

"There wont be a place and system soon. There wont be anything left for dinner. We're top of the food chain. If we go we wont starve."

"Think about this, Eiguh-Ht. If we go and we get there, what system will they have in place? Will the edible bugs want us there? Will we be welcome?"

"We'll help set the example. Because no one eats each other at the Radiator."

"And how do you know this?"

"Everyone's been saying how it will be."

"Gossip then."

"Everyone's agreeing with it so it'll end up true."

"And bigger Spiders will do as they're told? They wont start eating the weak? ...or us? There'll be bigger Spiders than us Eiguh-Ht, have you thought about that?"

"That's not what happens at the Radiator. Every one basks and enjoys without threat. It's bliss for everyone."

"There's always someone bigger than you, Eiguh-Ht, and not everyone plays fairly. To round up so many creatures in one place would be carnage."

I knew Dad wouldn't get it. He had an answer for everything and he just didn't understand. He didn't understand how it would be. He hadn't heard everyone going on and on, saying this and that and what it would be like and how they all agreed. He hadn't felt the magic or envisioned the dream and I obviously wasn't expressing it enough for him to see. But then Dad never saw much past his scraps of paper. He kept all of his eight eyes for reading the same symbols. He didn't realise how cold it was for me, like it had been for everyone else. He didn't seem to realise that everyone was running away from the threat of Winter, with no inside heat left to rise. All our neighbouring beams were now vacant. We were nigh on the only one's left, but Dad wasn't budging. This Nook was our home and apparently we were staying in it forever, because Dad was stubborn.

Rewrapping my unwanted dinner back into the scrap paper that Dad had used to keep it warmer for longer, I threaded it back up and inched towards the nearest edge. I couldn't chuck it off with venting frustration because Dad had his one eye still watching me, so I could only nudge it off subtly, feeling guilty over his wasted efforts. It whizzed up into the room above me, vanishing without even a soft thud to the patterned carpet. Dad didn't like wasting food and I knew he was dissapointed after his efforts, but he never said a word about it. I just knew that he'd never be as selfish as me, wasting not only the food that it was but the life it had been. Dad eating his dinner, was not something I'd witnessed in a very long time. Either he ate his still warm on the hunt or he didn't eat at all, making me not eating mine twice as wasteful.

My excuse seemed feable.

"Sorry, Dad. It tasted already dead."

Flinching from his read, Dad darted all eight eyes to me, "Now don't you worry about that Eiguh-Ht. Its just the cold on the way home. I stun them good and proper and wrap them up, yet the cold still seeps through, you know how it is. I'll not let us get into a state where I have to bring home the only dead grub I can find. Don't you worry about that."

The chill wind blew around us, collaborating Dad's explanation. Scrunching up rigid to shield myself as much as possible, I let the icy chill pass over me, hoping it would hurry up and rush away again.

"Eiguh-Ht."

Dad beckoned me over then and we sat huddled together through the evening night beneath our light, Dad telling me stories he'd told me many times. But I didn't mind because his voice was comforting and I had alot of my own thoughts to manage. As the night became colder I crawled in beneath Dad's legs and let his hairs keep me warm.