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A Spider, a Girl, and a Guitar

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Spider the artist is a mechanical creature whose sole purpose is to defend and repair an oil pipeline in Nigeria. Eme is a woman living in poverty in an abusive relationship. The guitar is her only escape from her physical and emotional despair. When she can, Eme slips away from her house and plays her guitar near a pipeline that runs through her village. The two develop a sort of relationship in which they have bonded over music. Spider was attracted by her guitar playing and built its own stringed instrument. The irony is that Eme’s husband, Andrew, makes some portion of his income by stealing oil from the pipeline—a dangerous prospect.
There’s an interesting interplay between the machine and Eme, who is a member of an economically colonized culture. They engage in a very tender and loving relationship, even though the nature of the machine is to kill humans who get too close to the pipeline. There are many of these mechanical spiders, all a sort of A.I. They don’t seem to have any freewill, yet, spider chooses to befriend Eme. The spiders are slaves, they represent an extension of their masters’ will. Spider defies that. In fact, He saves her life from a spider attack on oil thieves.
Has she stumbled upon a truth that our nation didn’t learn until many years too late? The prevailing wisdom, once upon a time, was that African slaves were chattel , legally defined as such. They were objects to be used, extensions of their slaveholders’ will. Despite that belief—arguably still held by some—they were thinking and feeling beings. Eme wasn’t in the power position and, consequently, was able to recognize the “humanity” in the victim of control.
In the end, the spiders set a trap for oil thieves. They allow a large group to congregate near a leak in the pipeline and use fire to kill many.  



The analogy becomes problematic because the “slaves” end up killing another subjugated group. Was it a work of will or was it a work of their masters? We will never know. What we do learn is that Spider and Eme maintain some sort of relationship after and Eme raises a child. There are even hints at some sort of hybrid family between them. .
 

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