He had watched the spider die by accident.

That’s all there was to it.

He didn’t even see the spider, with its long legs as it stumbled under the strength of the sinks faucet. He didn’t see it, not at first. No, his first thought was that a piece of the sinks porcelain had deteriorated.

No, he didn’t mean to stand there and watch it struggle. His intention was for the faucets steady stream to sweep it into the drain. But that of course, didn’t happen. The spider, with its long legs seemed to latch onto the basin, fighting with whatever strength and gumption it had left. Fighting against the current and the man’s morbid curiosity.

The flow of the water continued. But the spider would not give. Even as the man used palmfuls of water to manipulate its way into the infinite darkness of the drain. Each leg gave at some point, but the spider resisted.

And then, abruptly, came the swallow of death. The flow of the water had brought the inevitable phenom, one that it could not wash away. And even after its death, it did not flow into the drain. Even against the man’s morbid wishes.

He did feel wrong in the end. He did not wish to use a tissue to retrieve its body, only to drop it in the toilet. In all fairness, he did feel bad about that. He didn’t think much of the incident after the flush.

Just another passing moment, brought on by the closing days of Summer.