He held up the next card.

‘What do you see?’

I studied the symmetrical pattern of lines and blotches. I felt I couldn’t properly assimilate it, as though it were beyond the range of the two eyes I currently believed myself to have.

The doctor coughed encouragingly. He would brook no resistance to his empathy.

‘I see a spider’ I said eventually. ‘Eight legs spinning a web’

‘Quite right’ he told me. ‘You see a reflection of who you are. You are indeed a spider that believes itself to be human’

I saw no reason to disagree with him so I eat him then and there.

Damian Mark Whittle