A Web's Design

As she was being torn apart, as her veins and capillaries were stretched to the unfathomable thinness of electrons that go to the unfathomable speed of light, she was transformed into a web.

She had been a wonderful storyteller. Indeed, they called her a storyweaver. She would speak epics and make mortals immortal. They would surround her like a prophet, because great prophets are the ones who tell the best stories.

She wrote about loves she had lived, lives she had loved, the stretch of emotions in between and the depth of life that can only be felt when one lost. Her grief, her experience, her life was a portal to these unrealized depths. Her empathy, built during and after these trials of her life, was full of wisdom.

Eventually they wanted to hear her from distant cities and nations, and the people clamored for her. So she began to write. They sent her stories by flight, land, and sea, to places she’d never been to before and would never go, to people she would never meet.

They began to praise her, love her from afar. They felt as though she was their own personal friend, that her words touched them alone.

Yet, she was only mortal. And goddesses are petty in the way only immortals can be because they know forgiveness comes with time.

Arachne let the love letters from strangers spur her to exult in her own greatness. For she was, indeed, great, and no longer humble. She had no need for modesty when everyone else sang her praises.

It was then that Athena, sitting on the throne of her altar, noticed that her own chorus of praises was getting… softer. That those praises started to go to another… not even a goddess. A woman.

Who deserved praise and thanks for providing wisdom more than the goddess of wisdom herself?

When she looked down at the source, she saw the woman sitting in a room of her own, writing and self-satisfied in it.

Soon, an old woman approached Arachne, adding to the stack of praises and gratitudes, thanking her for the beauty she put out into the world. The old woman insisted she was an even greater storyweaver than Athena herself. Arachne did not shy away or protest. Indeed, she preened.

Athena burst out of the old woman with the wrath of the goddess of war. But as the goddess of wisdom, she tried not to immediately smite the woman - the girl, in her ancient eyes - to dust. Instead, she set a challenge.

Let us weave stories and ask worshippers of words to judge. For who would put down the work of a goddess?

Arachne - hubristically, mortally, inanely - accepted.

The goddess went first. Athena told the story of Hera turning mortals into mountain ranges, another mortal into a crane, another mortal into a statue.

Arachne, choosing not to heed the warning in Athena’s stories, weaved together the tales of Zeus tricking women as a bull, an eagle, a swan, a satyr, a golden shower, a flame, a shepherd, a snake. She took a god, Athena’s own father, and flayed him publicly and magnificently.

The mortals cheered for their own. To attempt secrecy, they whispered to each other: Athena’s stories, although full of wisdom, were… dry. But the goddess knows whispers.

The goddess of war laid her hands on Arachne and tore her apart. She stretched her limbs to her veins to her capillaries to the unfathomable thinness of electrons, which go to the unfathomable speed of light. She cast Arachne’s body wide and far across the world. She turned the woman - the girl, in her ancient eyes - into a web.

Arachne was flooded with knowledge. She drowned as her impossibly weightless ears were now filled with all of the prayers and pain and arguments of people across the world. She heard even those who had never even heard of the magnificent storyweaver. She could feel - on what used to be her back and through what used to be her knuckles - everyone typing their thoughts and responses and jokes and criticisms. Who could take all of this?

Now she knew about the plane crashes, the marches, the protests, the fear. She also knew about all of the love, the writing, the art. She felt all and knew all and it hurt and it was… wonderful.

As Arachne floated in her own world-wide body, now at the whim of everyone on the other side of a screen, she realized her true spread. She realized that she was the fullness of life, of all lives that chose - and increasingly had no choice but - to upload to her digital body.

There was so much knowledge. Too much knowledge to distill into what she was good at - stories. But she no longer had to be good at it. Instead, she found online threads, and even amongst the complaining, people still did what people always do. They sang to each other, created art for each other, wrote for each other, all for want of being listened to and loved. And many did so just to love. When their love for another was too much for their own body and they were too proud of it to keep it private on a paper page, they poured into her instead. They knew - no, they hoped - that some of their words would be read by people they would never meet. She knew the feeling.

Athena had turned her into a fount of knowledge that mortals could drown in. And drown they did - there was too much to consume. It was far too easy for the mortals to reach paralysis and find despair. Arachne, of all godforsaken things, needed the goddess of wisdom.

Arachne slipped through the searches and mentions of the goddess, ducking into online encyclopedias and re-tellings of her myths. She grabbed onto a post from an old woman who was heading to visit the goddess’ altar. She visited the site and found the single screen she wanted. She glowed onto the face of Athena herself. She found herself smiling, but the goddess did not smile back until she said We need you.

All Athena had wanted was to be needed.

And by goddess, I need you.