Too Many Legs

I have figured out my arachnophobia, it’s not the multiple eyes or the seen or imagined hairiness of the body, or that torso-less squishy bag. Apart from we bipedal life-forms four legs, one on each corner, seems about right. Eight is a nightmare. I try to imagine a Koala Bear with eight legs, or a Rhinoceros or, heaven forbid, a crocodile. Somehow nature got drunk on its own ripe berries, somehow, 8 became its own demented trick played upon we giants. We instinctively leap away from that ancient stillness, a crouching threat that at any moment could burst into that fast stiff shuffle. We watch dismayed as it carries its own vulnerable package of horror on all those ratcheted hoists and cranes itself fearful even to be seen.