spider bike

My mother and I are entering a park on bicycles with a dog. We pass through the parking lot bordered by a low split rail fence and onto a wide dirt path into grassland. The dog is excited, loping back and forth in front of my mother's bike. Eventually we come to a divide in the path. Both directions are gravel strewn and steep enough that we will need to get off of our bikes and carry them. Having never gone down the path on the right, we choose to go that way, but reluctantly.

My bicycle has a heavier steel frame which I carry with difficulty, but with the dog tugging at my mother's arm we are both clumsy as we scramble up the hillside. Soon we've reached the crest of the hill and the trail goes steeply down. Somehow going downhill is even worse and we both fall, scraping our knees and elbows on the rocks, our bicycles stab into our flesh. The dog gets loose, and easily tumbles his way down to the bottom. I discover that the front wheel on my bike has gotten damaged, so I remove it in order to inspect it better once I reach the bottom of the hill.

At the bottom of the hill the trail ends abruptly in a single lane of asphalt. We are frustrated to discover that we've left the park entirely. Rather than retrace our steps over this hillside, we realize we will have to go all the way around the hill on the street. Angrily, I stop to see what can be done with my front wheel and I am dismayed to find that the rim has crumbled away in places and the rubber of the tire is riddled with long thin splits. At this point, I notice cobwebs in-between the spokes. I hold the wheel out away from my body as a thick, juicy black widow dangles free below it. Now that I've seen the first one, I realize that the whole wheel is alive with spiders, so I put it down on the ground and step back. Four, five, six spiders wobble off the spokes and into the dirt. The dog comes over to sniff at their bulbous black bodies.

We both are frightened by the spiders, but I shudder and brush frantically at myself hoping they're not crawling all over me too. Then we just stand there, pulling at the dog and worrying about where they came from and what to do about the bike. I didn't wake up at this point, but this scene faded away into some other scenario.