Develop knights before bishops. Create threats. Sacrifice wisely. I sat, concentrated, and reflected. I thought about the game as I started playing. I hadn’t played chess all that much, no, but I was interested in winning. My opponent had a mask on. It was cold out, but her mask was almost an act of rebellion. The white player moved his pawn to E4. I moved my black pawn to C5. The white knight moved his piece to F3. I moved my black pawn to D6. The white player moved his pawn to D4. I took his white pawn. The white knight came out to take my black pawn. My focus had become so intense that I didn’t see anything coming. I don’t just mean a chess move. No, because when I looked down from my computer, I saw something else moving towards me with a threat - something orange and hairy. I looked again. There, ⚊a tarantula was crawling up onto me. I blinked, but it was too late. I was now terrified of this tarantula.
This tarantula had large black fangs. It stood up and took a defensive position. I flinched, and its fangs pierced my skin. It stung. I screamed and shot right up. I immediately started rubbing my leg. I almost grabbed the Benadryl in the cabinet. It was such a strange dream. That’s all, it was⚊a dream. That’s all it could be. It was just a dream. There was no tarantula -not in my room. I had never seen one here either. No, but now I had dreamed about playing chess when a big tarantula dug its fangs into me. I sat in bed and started thinking. I grabbed my phone to look up the spider. It was an Orange Baboon Spider. Orange Baboon Spiders were considered more dangerous than other spiders. They were aggressive, and their bites were more intense. The main problem with the dream was that I had always been afraid of spiders. I wasn’t just afraid of spiders; I hated them. There was a history to my fear, too. When I was younger, my older brother did something many older brothers do: pick on their siblings. Yes, only he did the kind of thing that made you hate your older brother.
You see, when I was seven years old, my older brother decided that it would be fun to put a spider on my towel while I was still in the shower. I had a tendency to sing, and I guess I didn’t hear anything when he did it. When I got out of the shower, the spider was on the towel. I had no idea. The shitty thing was that I had just had a conversation with my brother about brown recluse spiders. Yes, and before I knew it, I had this dark spider crawling onto my naked body. Worse even⚊the spider was crawling onto my private parts. I couldn’t tell if it was a brown recluse, a wolf spider, or what. I had no idea. No, but I was naked, and there was a spider on my junk. I screamed the loudest scream that I had ever screamed in all my life. My grandmother walked in – My Grandmother. The whole thing was embarrassing. Finally, the spider crawled up onto my stomach. I shook it off. I ran into my room and shut the door. I heard my brother laughing in the other room. I have been afraid of spiders ever since.
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