Some people call me Spider; however, my name is Clifford
Cornwall Harper. In the spring of 1948, the Ontario Provincial
Police charged me with abandoning my four children in an
isolated shack in the dead of winter.

If praying is only a means of self-expression, perhaps Arlene's
technique of asking me all those questions and writing the
answers like a story is just as useless an exercise. It has not
stopped the nightmares and indeed, I now have memory to haunt
me - the death of Arlene. The big question remains: would the
world be a better place if I had never been born? If the answer is
yes, is there still time to change that answer? At over eighty years
of age, I do not have much time left to make amends. If the answer
is no, perhaps all I can do is hang around to see if my kids or my
grandchildren might need me. I think it is just my dog and me
now. At least he does not talk my ear off by posing questions
about the past.

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