Chapter 13
Aurelio Escapes
Aurelio eats the dog then runs away
Jordi kept his door locked, as Estel had advised. He thought about just keeping it closed at all times, but then he feared that Aurelio could open door knobs. Aurelio knew that he needed to keep out of sight, so he avoided the great room, instead sleeping in Bonito and Carmela’s room, which was usually warm. They also had a fireplace which was quite cozy for him to nest near.
This was an educational time for Aurelio, studying the intimate moments of Bonito and Carmella. They were deeply in love, and Bonito was passionate about pleasing Carmella. If he were able to write, Aurelio would have been taking notes about what moved a woman.
Bonito, unaware that Aurelio was in his room and wondering where he was hiding, had motion sensor flood lights installed around the grounds. Aurelio usually hunted early in the morning, but at the season’s changed and the nights got longer he didn’t want to wait for the early morning light. There were fires more often, so he would climb down next to the dying embers to warm himself up before heading out into the cold morning.
He knew not to take too many chickens—they would be missed. However, the wild foxes were fair game and maybe he would even be praised for killing them. Still, their carcasses were large, so he would drag them back into the forest and hang them from the trees. It didn’t take long for him to exhaust the local supply of foxes, and rats, and marmots. The wild boars were too much for him to handle, and trying to catch one of the piglets brought with it extreme danger from the protective mother.
Estel had ceased to put out meat for Aurelio as he didn’t touch it very often, so Aurelio took more chickens. Bonito reinforced the coop’s defense, eventually putting a lock on the gate. Aurelio couldn’t get in.
In desperation, Aurelio decided to go after the dog. Albondiga (meatball) was his name, but they just called him Diggy. Diggy was an old mastiff, starting to slow down but still active. Aurelio just needed to let him out of the dog run, and lure him out of the yard into his web.
Estel found Aurelio on the kitchen table hovering over the meat she had pulled out to thaw.
“AHHHHHH! Get out!” she grabbed the broom and waved it at him. “Shoo, shoo, shoo!”
Aurelio dropped to the floor and ran out in front of her sweeping. He kept his speed down, so as to lure her with him. Then he climbed up the the place where she used to put the bowls of meat. He pawed at the spot while he squeezed himself into the corner to appear submissive.
“Alright, alright,” she waved her hand at him as she went back to the kitchen, “I’ll get you some meat. You better not leave it laying around.” Estel brought back a bowl of meat, but hesitated to approach Aurelio. He backed up along the wall which she dashed in and threw the bowl onto the ledge.
After she left, Aurelio picked up the meat and took it outside. He gnawed it into small pieces, trying not to gag, and laid a path of the bits into his web. He just needed to wait for the night, and to let the dog out, so he tucked himself into the corner under the stairs, just by the kennel.
The night was peaceful and calm as Aurelio pulled back the latch and called to the dog. “Diggy, come here Diggy.”
Diggy bound out looking for his master, and the flood lights came on. This took Aurelio by surprise, but he thought fast, and changed his route to follow along the garbage can area instead of the coop. He kept calling Diggy along, who gave out a couple barks of excitement. They circled around the coop and were back to the middle of the path of meat bits, and Diggy went the wrong way.
“Yup yup yup,” barked the dog as he found the little treats. At the end of the trail he sniffed around pacing back and forth, then stopped and gave out a loud hawoof. He jumped forward, tripping the lights again, and hawoofed twice.
“Diggy, Diggy!” called Aurelio in a loud whisper.
Diggy turned and bound back up the path till he found the meat trail again.
Bonito, finally roused by the lights and barking, came out to the balcony and called for Diggy. “Probably just a bat or something,” he said as he shuffled back to bed.
Diggy was done for. He didn’t have a chance once he returned to the meat, which led him to a large sticky mat with a huge chunk of meat in the middle. At first he happily lapped it up, but it was stuck on one side to the web. He nose and jaw became entangled, and then as he tried to rub the web off his face with his paw he brought up more sticky web to his face. Soon his eyes were stuck shut and he was crying as he became more and more tangled. One paw was stuck across his nose, the other crossed over to the other shoulder. His hind legs were immovable, and as the poor dog gave up he sat down completely paralyzing himself.
Aurelio’s pedipalps rubbed together quickly, as if he were licking his chops, when he jumped down and completed wrapping up Diggy. A few bites and the dog was put in a stupor, making it easier for Aurelio to drag him to the trees where he kept his other carcasses. Aurelio was about the same size as the dog, but with 8 legs he was quite strong. It was cold, and the dog was still alive and still warm, so as Aurelio feasted he also kept his body close for the heat.
In the morning Bonito went to get his dog and feed him, but found the kennel empty, the door wide open.
“Diggy, Diggy,” he yelled out, “Jordi, have you seen Diggy?”
“No Dad. Maybe he’s with mom.”
“Carmela?”
“Not with me, honey.”
“Jordi, help me look for the dog, please.”
The two of them searched the grounds, then Jordi suggested the chicken coop. That was quiet and untouched, but they found a trodden path that they hadn’t noticed before. It looked like things had been dragged away from the coop breaking the grasses and underbrush, and making a narrow dirt trail.
“I heard the dog barking last night, but I thought he was just barking at the bats. The lights went on a couple times. I should have gone looking right away.” Bonito’s heart was pounding, he had a deep sinking feeling that Aurelio was involved, but didn’t want to say it.
The path went mostly straight, until they arrived at a large cork oak tree. The tree had grown in a clearing and was able to spread its twisted branches wide, it’s rough bark and spindly branches resembling crippled fingers reaching out in all directions. In the tree they noticed white sacks of various sizes hanging down.
“That’s, that’s spider stuff,” choked Jordi.
“Go that way, I’ll go this,” Bonito pointed in opposite directions.
“I don’t know, I don’t want to.”
“I’m right here, I’ll be able to see you the whole time.”
Jordi saw some rocks and picked a few up in his hands. They went around the tree on opposite sides, slowly rolling their feet to keep from making noise. Bonito grabbed a stick that lay across his path. They both saw Aurelio at the same time.
“Aurelio, what are you doing? What have you done?” shouted Bonito.
“Is that Diggy?” wailed Jordi.
“Get down from there.” Bonito jabbed at Aurelio with the stick.
Aurelio instinctively raised his two front legs facing Bonito. Jordi, thinking his father would be attacked, started throwing his rocks at Aurelio’s back, quickly running out of ammunition. In an instant Aurelio turned and jumped down towards Jordi, running at him with full speed.
Jordi was knocked down, kicking the spider back, while Aurelio snapped at him and laughed. “You think you’re so special? Do you? Looook at me, look at me, cries the sassy boy. I’m looking at you now!”
No human could even think of running this fast, but they weren’t far apart and Bonito was on him in an instant. Bonito jabbed at Aurelio, then grabbed one of his hind legs and pulled fast and hard. He heard a snap. Aurelio let out a cry, and turned around, still over Jordi.
“My special star, my sweet Aurelio, so precious,” Aurelio mocked Bonito, “What do you think of me now?”
“You really can talk!” Bonito broke the stick over his head.
Jordi kicked Aurelio’s abdomen a few more times, then scrambled back. He saw that Aurelio was dragging one of his legs, so he grabbed that leg again and pulled.
Already in pain, Aurelio let out a yelp and jumped up into the tree, leg dangling down.
“Attercop, attercop,” spoke Jordi in spite and anger. He had read in a book that this was very offensive to spiders,. “I knew you were evil this whole time.”
“Oh, not the whole time,” sneered Aurelio, “I was good in the beginning, but you made me bad.” He waved his leg at Jordi accusingly.
“How? What did I ever do to you?”
“What did you do? What, you ask? How can you not know how you stole all my attention. Every time someone came to see my beauty you always had to prance in with some boring trinket to show the people. And oh how they loved your stupid little hobbies.”
“Really?” Jordi was surprised, “Really? You just wanted all the attention for yourself?”
“No, you did! You wanted all the attention, and you stole all the attention. And what did I get? Chunks of nasty meat from a stinky old lady who would sooner swat me with her broom than do anything nice for me.”
“Enough!” boomed Bonito, “Jordi, go back to the house and get my gun. But first, hand me that big branch over there.”
“I can’t leave you here alone with him.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“If he bites you he can kill you.”
Aurelio looked back and forth between the two of them and decided that his best bet was to run. He jumped to the next tree, grunting in pain as his hind leg dangled and caught in the branches. Then he was down on the ground and running as fast as he could on six legs. He had picked his injured leg with the one on the other side so as not to drag it as he ran.
“Get him, dad.” Jordi yelled.
Bonito started to run after him, but in just a few steps realized that was futile. “What are we going to do now? We better go get those guns anyways. I don’t know if we can find him, but we need to try.”
“We can’t leave Diggy here,” he said, looking up at the swaying sack, the dog’s red collar showing through the web. Jordi started to cry. “That beast killed our dog.”
“We’ll take care of Diggy, but Aurelio’s obviously become a menace. We can’t let him roam free.”
They ran back to the house, and grabbing their guns ran back into the forest. Running for hours, collecting neighbors as they searched turned up nothing. Aurelio had climbed high up, and then moved quickly between trees.
They spent weeks hunting, continuing to call in friends to help with the search, but found nothing. They only pulled in their trusted friends, not wanting to cause a panic in the village. But they heard rumors for a few years that there was a spider-cow in the forest, or that a huge ugly fairy had a cave deep in a canyon. When they heard the rumor they tried to find the source and follow up on it, but eventually even the rumors faded away and they figured he was dead.
Escaping the forest
Aurelio had run into the forest, and after a few days of fleeing he found a cave behind some mossy roots. It was under a tree where the soil had eroded, so it was a nice warm cave that kept him safe and dry during the mined winter months. He was able to live off of the marmots, the ibex and occasionally vultures and storks. He molted multiple times off this abundant diet and outgrew his cave.
Another fall day there was a sudden cold snap when the winds had shifted and were blowing from the Arctic instead of the Mediterranean. Aurelio slowed down with the cold, and his joints got stiff. His hind leg, which had mostly healed, would to drag again in the cold. He had to leave the forest and find warm shelter. Before entering the village he rolled in a mud puddle to hide his bright abdomen—this made him even stiffer in the cold wet, but the warming sun revitalized him enough to push forward.
Back down at a nearby village he hopped to the rooftops and tried to stay out of people’s view from the sidewalk. Most people didn’t bother to look up. Aurelio didn’t see any place that he would be able to hide there long term, but there was a food truck in the village circle that had written on its side, “Flama Valliant” (Valient Flame) with a picture of a grasshopper. It sounded warm like his fireplace perch, and maybe had some small snacks for him, so as the day wore on he kept a watch on the patterns of people.
The chefs had cleaned up, and were gathering their cafe tables and strapping them to the back of the truck. This was his chance, so he mustered himself to move in spite of the chill, and snuck into the truck through the awning-window. He wasn’t able to crouch down completely out of view, but the two chefs were tired and distracted. They chatted on about the people they saw that day as they released the support bars for the awning, and closed it down over the window.
Aurelio relaxed, and stretched a bit to take advantage of the warming ovens and heater. He wasn’t sure what this truck actually was, or even where it was going, so he looked around to see what he could find. The menu with pictures read like this:
Bold food:
Cricket burgers: angus beef with cricket meal, all the works
Grasshopper Tacos: fried crispy grasshoppers, salsa, guacamole, coleslaw
Carrot Cake: Traditional Carrot cake made with cricket meal instead of flour
Bugs for food sounded good to him, and he wondered if they kept some live ones in there. Of course these would be not much more than a very small snack, but he would eat them if they were available. He read on
Fearless Food:
Mealworm slaw: crispy red cabbage with crunchy deep fried mealworms
Tostada: prepared with ant eggs on a bed of greens and roasted habanero oil
Cheese and fruit and bug platter: local cheeses, dried fruits, and a selection of seasoned insects
Daredevil Food:
Scorpion Salad: bed of greens, pickled asparagus, with 2 deep fried scorpions
Tempura Waterbugs: deep fried bugs with Asian inspired dipping sauce
Arachnid burger: cricket burger topped with a fried tarantula spider (who need tomato)
This last item, shown with a deep fried spider laying across a burger bun, inscenced and terrified Aurelio. Not that he was friends with any tarantulas, but at seeing this, feelings of kinship arose. He thought, ‘I haven’t eaten any people! But they have eaten my kind.” Visions of being fried alive twisted through his thoughts of how to escape from this truck and where he would go from there. It was all an unknown as he bounced along down the road, no windows to see what was passing.
Aurelio arrives in Barcelona
Aurelio had been hiding for the last month, hunger was becoming his enemy. At first, hunger had driven him down where the rats hid, but they had either been eaten or scattered. It had served him well at first to be in this deepest keep, no one liked to go into that dark, dank corner, so he had been content. Although it was a bit lonely, still it was free from the recriminations and looks of disgust. Now, that quiet solitude was driving him mad, and his stomach was always complaining. His legs only liked to hold him for short jogs then he had to rest the weight of his belly. Sometimes the cold stone was a relief, but now in his weakened state the cold damp floor stung his underside and made him jump up. One one web that he had feebly made upon his arrival was now hanging in tatters, and he didn’t have the energy or will to make another one.
He didn’t know what good timing he had, though he had watched the lights of the festivals on the ceiling of his room in the years past. Or maybe it was the noise of the festival that was calling him out, a curiosity, a dinner bell of sorts, a place of anger and hatred for the party goers who were the ones that had despised him. As he sprang up from the cold of the floor, he was propelled forward. His anger and hatred strengthened his legs and Aurelio crawled from the pit that he was in, guided by flickering lights of red, orange, and yellow.
Coming out of a subterranean window, emerging like a hard cyst popping, Aurelio squeezed through the small opening sending him splayed out and limp. Each of this tracheae struggled to pull in air, already exhausted he was greeted by an achrid cloud. Just beyond him, there was a crowd of people, and beyond them was a parade of grotesque creatures shooting off fireworks. The crowd was all facing away from him, cheering on the creatures, except for one wayward soul that was lost in his own thoughts brought on by drunkenness and a recent break up. That was the end of him, as the saying goes, “As a thorn goes up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable to the mouth of fools.” (Proverbs 26:9) For this lost soul the thorn was non other than Aurelio’s, and the parable had been the kind warnings of his friends to stay close or else be caught by the evil that paraded so close. It wasn’t the flying sparks that took him, but the hunger of the devil behind.
(CHANGE THIS TO AURELIO EATING EARLIER, SLOWLY, THEN NEEDING TO FIND A PLACE TO HIDE, WHICH BRINGS HIM INTO THE FRAY OF THE PARADE)
Aurelio made quick work of his snack, taking only enough for him to get back on his feet, and to jump into the parade.
It was more than 24 hours before the truck was opened again. They had parked where he could hear noises of cars and voices. There was never a break in the noises, unlike in the country, and he was on guard all night long. The next morning he heard the voices of the two chefs.
“You go park, and I’ll go pick up the vegetables.”
“Ok, don’t be long. I don’t want to be sitting there with people lining up and no food.”
“Our line usually isn’t long. Maybe we should have some non-bug foods too.”
“Nah. This is our niche.”
The parted, and Aurelio felt the movement, heard the sounds of street traffic. They arrived where there were many voices, and the truck moved forwards and backwards until it settled in this spot. Aurelio waited.
“Finally! What took you so long?” said the first chef.
“Don’t be bad grapes, I’m here.”
“Throw me your hand, and we’ll open up.”
This was Aurelio’s signal; the awning began to rise, and he pulled his legs in ready to jump. There was only a moment for him to take in his surroundings, that of groups of people wandering in all directions. The chefs propped up the awning, then went to the back of their truck to unload the tables. Aurelio saw stone arches, and flat building facades, small trees lining the streets. There didn’t seem to be anywhere to hide, but he couldn’t stay where he was.
He jumped as one of the chefs was bringing their a-frame sign over to the open window. He knocked her down, clattering the sign to the ground with a loud crash. People stopped and looked over, then gasped as the flash of light the proceeded to run down the sidewalk. Some people chased him, thinking he was one of the puppets heading over to the street arts in the Parc de la Ciutadella. Others, taken aback by his speed ducked and ran.
Aurelio noticed a dark opening down one of the side streets, and he ran for it. Down the ramp he found cars parked spreading out before him. He climbed between and over them until he found a dark corner behind some cones where he curled up.
He was trapped and didn’t know how to find his way out. ‘Maybe,’ he thought, ‘when it’s dark I’ll make my way through the city.’ He was able to catch a few rats, and ate them hungrily.
The evening was growing closer, and the sounds of crowds increased. A group of about 30 people, children through adults, all in green shirts with sashes tied around their waists were gathering. They had a leader that was checking in on each of them, making sure they were arranged and ready. Each of them had a drum strapped to the front, and with a yell and a rap-a-tap they all joined in with a cacophony of rhythm.
The hairs on Aurelio’s legs vibrated with such ferocity that he felt the sound as pain and tried to pull his legs under him all the more. He was painfully deaf from all the noise. There was minimal relief as they marched up the ramp, still pounding away with echos following them. Aurelio thought he was safe again, but then voices came down directly towards him.
“They said it was over here,” said the first.
“Why would one of the Drac be down here?” asked the second.
“I don’t know. People are people, and stupid is stupid.”
“Oysters! Look at this one. We’ve gone from dragon and demons to bugs and now spiders! What a beauty she is. How did they get these mirrors on so perfectly.”
“She is a beauty. Now, how do we get her out of here?”
“Don’t go looking for three feet on a cat, just push it.”
Aurelio felt it was best to go along with whatever was going on, and play the part that they were expecting. He walked along in the direction they were pushing. They brought him up the ramp and into a staging area where there were numerous drum corps all banging away at their own cadence, intermixed with the Correfocs. There were creatures tall—two demons, one a woman with bare breasts, dragons big and long, and some small for children to carry. There was a wild-eyed pig that had pierced nipples and a nose ring, and a mosquito, a colorful gecko, and a steampunk insect.
“Look here! It’s a new one, the men said to another who had a cart on wheels.”
“Oooh, nice! I’ll take her.”
He reached into his cart and pulled out some tubes and clips. The tubes he slid down over the hairs that stuck straight up from Aurelio’s knees and shoulders. On these tubes were clips. Here they waited as the procession moved along the street one group after another, following the two 10 foot demons that led the way.
Aurelio was not far behind the demons, a drum corp and a dragon in front, more creatures and drums behind. The noise was jarring to him, but not painful like in the garage where the echos drove him down. This felt a relief in comparison until he saw the men with carts clip something onto the demons pitchforks and set them ablaze.
Sparks were streaming out, up and down, a shower of fire that people rushed into and danced to the drum beat. The demons spun to spray as many people as they could. The dragons were also let up, and they bounced, danced and spun with the crowd. And then the man approached Aurelio with some cylinders that he attached to the clips. As they entered the Plaça he lit them up.
The crowd pushed in around the Plaça, guards had to push them back to let the parade progress. The people moved back slowly, like a bulldozer pushing large unyielding boulders bumping into each other. There was no escape for Aurelio in this crowd; his senses were overwhelmed by the severe vibrations on his legs, the smells of sulfur and sweaty people, the blinding flairs of the fireword. He moved because he was pushed forward.
Then the man lit up his fireworks, and his legs were sent into a flurry of kicking. The fireworks on Aurelio were spinners—the pipes that had been slid over his hairs were free to rotate and send the sparks in every direction. The sparks bounced off his exoskeleton, but burned into his eyes. He couldn’t run away from the pain as the crowd pushed into him trying to catch the sparks.
He was pushed on through the disorganized crowd of people bouncing in beat with whichever drum corp was closest. The covered La Leiantana, moving in and out with the passing monsters, drum cores, and the devils with their pitchforks full of spinning fireworks. The people were covered to protect themselves from burns by wearing gloves, pulling up their hoods, and putting on hats —except the bald men who didn’t have to fear their hair catching fire. As the drums beat, whistles blew, and fireworks crackled and banged the masses bounced and danced down the street following their favorite montrer. Aurelio’s clawed feet were almost crushed as the crowd surged back from the spray of fresh fire coming straight from the nostrils of the dragon spinning in front of him.
Parade watchers had gathered under his belly, dancing and jumping in beat with the drum core. They seemed unaware that there wasn’t any man inside him, and the two behind him stopped pushing when he started kicking.
Seeing the wild eyed pig in front of him bound and turn around, he imitated the actions and followed the flow of the parade. As the spray of the fireworks was relit it burned his eyes and the tender joints, and he would fling a leg out instinctively trying to skitter away. But he was able to take this momentum and turn it into a little dance that brought great cheers, or a spin that sent extra fireworks into the people who were staying on the edge of danger. This sent them ducking and squealing away, then bouncing back up with laughter.
When he realized that his dance brought these cheers, that he was noticed and actually celebrated he began to enjoy himself, to play the part, to terrorize the bystanders. His senses, being totally overwhelmed, had become numb so his attention went toward gaining the cheers and awe from the crowd.
“To the sea!”
“Drown you evil devils!”
“La Mercé!”
The sea? Drowning? Aurelio started to understand the path of this parade, and knew that he must exit soon or certainly be drowned. The crowd was thick on each side, the revelers jumping in and out of the parade while shouting and beating out the embers on their clothes. Aurelio was beaten back by the push of bodies entering, and tripped by the individuals jumping back out. It became a game for for the revelers, a dance with this particularly well animated costume, as they thought. If he got beyond their ranks, the crowd en massed around him, carrying him back into the flow of the parade. He couldn’t shut off his spectacle of lights, as he was just reflecting the others.
Just past the BCN Love shop that glowed with sexual advertisements was the Plaça de l’Angel, where the crowd thinned a little. Pulling in his abdomen as much as possible, Aurelio shrunk his reflection to a faint flicker, then quickly bounded over the crowd keeping his abdomen as low as possible. He lost control and rolled over the outer crowd into the Jaume 1 metro stairway bowling down a few confused spectators. Grasping at the top of the concrete wall and metal railing, he pulled himself out from the deep of the stairs back into the Plaça into a group of people drinking canned beer and smoking. Beer splashed into his eyes, as he scrambled to the narrow street leading toward Jaume Plaza. He wanted to climb up the side of the building, but knew that even with this excited crowd it would create a stir.
His vision blurred by the beer, the lights seemed dim, almost nonexistent compared to the fire run, making Aurelio feel nearly invisible. The previously injured hind leg had been severely scraped in that last tumble, so he held it up as he walked on his other 7 legs. You might have thought he was a large three legged dog, the way he so pitifully hobbled and limped down the road. He moved slowly, avoiding the revelers as they throbbed in groups with the beat, making his way into the plaza, then along Carrer del Call. The crows quickly returned to dancing in the streets with the shower of fireworks and the sound of the drums that pulsed through the bones. The thrumming of the drums echoed in the narrow streets as he blindly turned this corner and that, following a path led by what felt good to the touch of his legs. For one turn it was the cool breeze that met him, another was the dimmer light that would hide his form.
Past the graffitied metal shutters of small shops, he found his way into a mostly deserted street that was just wide enough for him to squeeze past the few people he encountered. They thought little of him, having seen the Correfoc, the big heads, and the strange art installations. Near the Basilica Santa Maria Del Pi he found a dark arched doorway. The door was old rotten wood, which he was able to push till the door lock cracked and gave way. It led down a long walkway into an abandoned garden, beyond which there was another doorway into what appeared to have been a home office.
-
He finds a lair in an abandoned office that is connected to the abandoned underground
Aurelio pushed the gate shut, propping the lock up so it looked nearly normal. He still felt exposed in this courtyard, so he dragged his injured leg behind him as he found the door. The window had a hole in it where a rock had passed through, making just the right size opening for Aurelio’s thin leg to reach in and unlock the door. It would have been too small for even a child’s arm and soft human flesh would have been cut. But Aurelio’s thick exoskeleton was tough, indeed it was probably time for him to molt soon. Thankfully he had had his snack earlier in the evening, for now was a time of hiding and staying alert. The parade had been the perfect cover for him, but he had deviated from the path to the sea, and would be suspicious without a drum core following him. But all was quiet, and the windows over this courtyard had their curtains drawn.
Inside he found some odd pieces of furniture: a desk, a swivel chair with a broken wheel, a couple office dividers leaning on one wall, and a book shelf. He imagined himself to be Bonito, sitting at the desk with people coming to him for his approval of their work. He would reach out a leg to take their papers and they would back up while holding the papers out as far as they could. Their eyes wouldn’t meet his many eyes out of fear and reverence. He laughed to himself at this silly idea.
The bright colored modern furniture was a harsh contrast to the stone walls made boulders mixed with smaller slabs, and brick arched ceiling. Aurelio pushed it all to the side, and explored further in. There was a small bathroom on one side, surprisingly with a shower, and further in the room cut to the right. There had been a wall build there recently, that is recent to the original ancient stones of the roman builders, probably in the last 100 years. It had since rotted and fallen away. A long rumbling could be heard followed by a cool breeze. He went on further to find a stairway that went up to nothing, a steel and concrete ceiling. Then beyond that a couple of escalators that went down into a pitch black recess. Another fainter rumble could be heard, again followed by a breeze. He climbed down the escalators tapping with his fore legs like a blind man’s cane. His eyesight wasn’t great in light, so darkness was a particular challenge. But as he went down his eye got used to the dark, and a dimness could be seen ahead. He landed on a train platform, but didn’t know where he was. He saw light from down a tunnel, two steel rods converging in the distance. Aurelio had never seen a train, so he had no idea what this long arched room was; he didn’t understand that the rumbling was the trains, that the breeze was the air being pushed before the trains into his new home. He didn’t like the rumbling or unfamiliarity, so he went back up the escalators. Near a window, like back at his castle home, he built a hasty web, and climbed into the center of it to rest.