Harriet had been reading about zombie spiders, cave dwellers, who are infected by a fungus that makes them leave their dark home and go out into the bright open where they die. She was reading all she could, obsessing over it, and then staring at the wall, trying to imagine the sensation of something taking over from inside of you. An impulse that wasn’t your own, but that you couldn’t resist. Your legs moving you against your nature towards the sunlight.

She imagined it might be like the drive to eat again after you’ve just eaten. Or like automatic writing. And then she wondered if anyone knew what automatic writing was anymore, or if fans of the Magnetic Fields knew the band name was borrowed from André Breton’s book—she was thinking all this when her cellphone lit up with an incoming call.

The caller ID said it was her alma mater, and she assumed they were calling for alumni donations. She chose not to answer, and this felt like an exercise of free will. It was, of course, comforting to believe in the singularity of yourself and others, as beings who could make choices. Less comforting was the thought that the body may be a colony of smaller beings living in symbiotic coordination, vulnerable to disruption. She was not a spider directed by a fungus, but she might be a woman directed by a biome. Food cravings and repulsions, moods, love interests—if the bacteria willed it, who could she be?

Her freshman biology professor, mid-lecture, had once said, “That is, of course, unless you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Jesus Christ,” to groans and laughter all around. It seemed her professor’s biome was so satisfied by life; it did not need its host to hold the delusions that other hosts used to assuage the anxieties of linear time and conclusive death. Harriet’s own biome did not ask her to believe these things either, but as she was remembering those wretched 8 a.m. lectures, she did suddenly want a piece of pie and coffee, which she did not have at home, nor the patience to make from scratch.

She grabbed her keys and went to her car, where she paused a moment in the front seat to decide where to go, or more specifically, which diner to visit. This was New Jersey, so there were options. She settled on a classic—The Diner Car—which, one could easily surmise from the name, was an old train car cum local institution, known to serve a mix of American favorites and Greek specialties.

It was late afternoon on Saturday, so the diner was not crowded. The lunch and brunch crowds had gone and busboys were clearing away the last leftovers of the rush. She chose an entire booth for herself, an indulgence facilitated by the emptiness of the hour. When her waitress came over, she pulled an order pad from her apron, and Harriet liked that it was automatic, like the waitress hardly had to think about doing it. The waitress was not chewing gum. Hardly anyone chewed gum anymore, either, it seemed.

“What can I get you?” the waitress asked.

Harriet asked what pie they had and the waitress listed the usual: apple, cherry, lemon meringue, coconut, chocolate, and a seasonal strawberry-rhubarb number. Harriet’s biome wanted them all, but she imagined she knew better, knew the limits of what she could handle. She selected the coconut pie and coffee, black. The waitress brought a water first, then the rest. The coffee was hot and the pie was cold. It reminded Harriet of the coconut cake her grandmother used to make, and she wondered if coconut was more popular after WWII because so many servicemen had gotten used to it as an ingredient in the Pacific Theater. These were the sorts of questions that she thought the internet should be able to answer, but when she tried to look it up, she found mostly the history of coconuts as a crop and coconut oil as an additive. Little was mentioned about the sweetened, shaved bits that dominated so many mid-century recipes.

She finished the pie and decided that the diner had used real butter for the crust. It was tender and flakey, not the chewy texture that vegetable oils tended to impart. She knew because she had made pies a few times, for work events and to impress friends, with marginal success. When people remarked on it—oh she’s a pie maven—and it started to seem like making pies might be attributed to her as a personality trait, she abruptly stopped. Such declarations tended to annoy her, as if any person could be reduced to a singular interest or skill. The specialization that the job market preferred was more than enough to make her feel robotic. She did not need her amateur hobbies to do the same. Sure, she enjoyed pie, could make pie, and she even had opinions about what ingredients and techniques made a good pie, but she was not, did not believe she would ever be, a pie maven.

As she was thinking about the pie crust, she looked out into the parking lot from the dimness of the diner and saw a small spider at the window seam. The spider was very much alive, not infected with fungus, and it appeared to be deciding something. Harriet often took great pleasure in watching other creatures make decisions. She loved watching her mother’s dog choose a ball, or a squirrel fidgeting in the dirt as it buried a nut. Suddenly, the spider jumped from the window to a bush in the landscaping below, leaving a trail of web behind it. It disappeared into the leaves and Harriet wondered if it was making a new web or using its filament as a kind of insurance against gravity. If she were spider, would she have chosen that bush as her next perch? Or would she have preferred a nook under the awning? Somewhere else?

She decided to have another piece of pie. She wasn’t really hungry, but the pie had been very good, and now she wanted to know what their apple pie was like. Would the apples be a bit crunchy and fresh, or sweet, with that gooey cornstarch sauce that could adhere to a fork? Would they season it with cinnamon and nutmeg and allspice and clove or just cinnamon? Would they add a lattice top or a crumble? Or best of all—an entire additional crust, framing the fruit inside like organs beneath the skin?

When the waitress returned with the check, Harriet stopped her and ordered more pie and more coffee. The waitress nodded and returned promptly with a slice. Receiving the pie, Harriet asked gently if it could be heated? The waitress didn’t seem bothered, and complied, before disappearing behind two flapping doors to the kitchen. Harriet had noticed the waitress wore a small hairnet over her updo, webbed across the fine brown tendrils of her head like the spider’s own emissions. This reminded her that she had read about spider webs being used to dress wounds, and she marveled at the ways in which her own species borrowed from the ingenuity of others.

The pie was latticed. She took a warm bite and savored the familiar notes of cinnamon and nutmeg. If clove or allspice had been used, it had been only trace amounts. The sauce that covered the apples was gelatinous and thick—a sure sign of cornstarch. Yes, they had used butter in the crust and had taken care to ring the crimped edge with foil, so it browned at the same rate as the crisscrossing on top. She was delighted—more than satisfied. She finished it even though she was full and sipped her coffee to relieve the tightness of her stomach.

The spider had not reemerged from the bush. It must have chosen a place inside to build its web, or perhaps had used the bush itself as a waystation, an obstacle merely to be traversed. The species of bush was not known to her. It had that structural quality characteristic of the boxwood shrubs favored by English gardeners, but had not been severely trimmed into a box, or much at all. Gangly limbs sprung from the dense clump of branches, giving it the appearance, almost, of a large and terrifying spider. She laughed at the thought. Spiders everywhere.

When the waitress re-emerged from the kitchen, she purposely made eye contact and nodded to indicate that she was ready for the check. The waitress took her credit card and Harriet felt guilty for not bringing cash. Bank fees really cut into small business profits, she had heard. When she returned with the check, the waitress thanked her for coming and left the receipt, along with a pen. Harriet decided on a generous tip—what monster wouldn’t? The pie had been delicious, the atmosphere agreeable. As she stood, she set her napkin on the table beside her plate and grabbed a mint from the bowl beside the register. It really was so dark in here. She popped the mint into her mouth and stepped confidently into the sun, ready to meet her fate.