A late-night breeze carries the musty scent of impending rain through the September air. The crickets pump ambient air into the atmosphere with their collective song. In the corner of a small house in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, a spider’s web, influenced by the musty-scented breeze, pulsates with the heartbeat of the evening.

Rocking back and forth, swaying with every slight change in the September breeze does the web, a structure of the same size and shape as the average hubcap. As it dances in the corner of the house, its threads glisten under the house’s outside light, revealing a pattern akin to the rings of a tree trunk.

It’s a trap, of course, an ornate and beautiful trap pulsating in the September breeze before rainfall.

In the middle of the trap, the delicate structure of death, the spider waits.

This spider – a dull orange spider about the size of a half dollar – sits in the middle of its creation. In its genius, this spider built its trap under a light, the perfect spot to catch a moth fluttering its way toward illuminated doom.

As the web rocks back and forth, so, too, does the spider. Bright-orange armbands decorate its hind legs, and charcoal-gray stripes mark its front appendages. Every so often, the breeze picks up, the web rocks, and the spider tightens its grip on its elegant creation. Sometimes, the web loosens, and four of the spider’s legs work, with mechanical speed and precision, to restore its strength.

And then it relaxes. It sits still.

It waits as the heartbeat of the evening rolls along.

The spider twitches as a stray moth zigzags its way in the web’s direction. In fractions of a second, on its orange and charcoal-gray stripes, the spider scurries in anticipation, plotting its strike. At the last instant, before landing on the web’s tree-like rings, the moth peels back, and the spider flinches in hungry frustration.

And then it relaxes. It sits still once again.

It waits as the heartbeat of the evening rolls along.

The rain arrives, a light drizzle growing steady. Soon, the web glistens with moisture under the house’s outside light. It grows heavy with each drop of rain that pelts its surface. The spider grows hungry.

A hole springs in the web, severing several of the tree-like rings. The spider springs into action, Two of its legs hold ends of the broken thread, and two more roll around the spider’s body as it ejects more building material.

After repairing one end, the spider rushes to another, applying the same desperation as the rain continues. When it completes its patchwork, the rain softens. The breeze slows, and the spider returns to the center of its web.

And then it relaxes. It sits still.

It waits as the heartbeat of the evening rolls along.