Between the twigs of a big oak overlooking a yellow field, there was a cobweb. And there was Spider, who stared at it, unpleased. 

        “For what use it is to make pointless cobwebs all day and night,” Spider complained to himself in dismay. “I cannot run, nor jump, nor swim, nor do anything but make silk threads just to catch unfortunate beetles and crickets!”

        One afternoon, while Spider was lying on a branch, his mind bustling with depressing thoughts, he spotted something strange. 

        There was a man! 

        With a bristle white beard. Right under the oak tree. He had a wooden stick in his hand and a cone for a hat. How very strange.      

        Brimming with interest, Spider scurried down the tree and scuttled towards the old man.

        The man peeked down at the little spider. His eyes glistened in delight. 

        “Why, hello there. What I can do for you today?”

        “You look a lot like the men in my friend Owl’s books,” the Spider blurbed out, “with a 

hat and a stick and a robe!”

        The man chuckled. 

        “I am a wizard, after all.”

        “Can you do magic?” Spider asked in awe.

        “No, but my mirror can.”

        How very strange, Spider thought.

        The wizard held Spider’s gaze, reluctantly reached deep into his robe, and drew out a flat piece of glass. It did not look more than a broken shard of metal.

        Spider looked at it doubtfully.

        “How does it work?”

        “It is the Magic Mirror,” the wizard answered gingerly, perhaps weighing his words. “When you tell the mirror what your heart desires, it grants you five wishes–five, and no more. That it was you get, that is, but it comes with a price. You see, what you once had in your hands of possessions will vanish. That is the magic everyone hopes for,” he casted a quivering look at the mirror. “Yet, I am sure you are wise, little spider. I bet my spectacles you would understand it is not worth it.”

        Spider had not only listened to a fraction of the wizard’s words. He did not care for anything the man had said because his eyes were attached to the glimmering glass by invisible strings.

        Come, the colours in the mirror beckoned. They shone and flickered in the sun a vigorous gold. You long for something, oh yes, you do. 

        A rustle in the bush fetched Spider’s attention again as Hare hopped past and leapt over the little puddle of a pond. Spider had been sure Hare had vanished into the highlands of the heavens when she landed on solid ground again. 

        Incredible, Spider thought.

        Spider knew what he longed for.

        “I do long to hop, and jump, and spring high up into the air like the hare,” he told himself. He repeated his silent thoughts in determined, spoken words. Was that all the mirror required?

        In the flick of a fish’s tail, Magic Mirror glowed like the rising sun; minutes passed and finally, the light was ushered away by the crisp air.

        Did it work?

        Boing! Boing!

        Spider saw every corner of the world: the fields dotting the ceaseless horizon, the peaks of the trees nearby, the tiny droplet of the seaside. 

        Up, down, up, down.

        Spider leapt and leapt. Surely he could now reach the sun!

        “Unbelievable!” Spider cried out. “ I am in the midst of a dream!” But he knew that this was not at all a dream and that this was all unquestionably true.

        So the sun sunk and rose again the following day. Again, Spider voyaged from his little web to the wizard’s mirror. The wizard he had met yesterday was not here today.

        What else could Spider wish for?

        Just then, Bison thundered across the field, dashing with the feet of the autumnal wind, his head grew two mighty horns. It took only mere seconds for Bison to disappear from Spider’s sight of awe completely.

        Spider understood what he longed for.

        “I long to be quick and strong and mighty as the bison,” he chimed.

        The mirror shone, the mirror granted, and the Spider received yet another talent. He zipped off the sighing field to boast to his friends.

        Now, for the few days to come, Spider stalked to Magic Mirror to expand his pool of special gifts. He could sail across the glassy pond like a salamander, sink into and jut out of the dirt like a squirrel, and whiz in the breeze like a bustard.

        Spider nodded to himself in satisfaction; he had everything, at least most of the things, he had longed for.

        The days rolled ahead, and soon, Spider’s stomach rumbled and demanded to be fed tasty prey. He waddled back to his home, discovering that his old web had been torn down by the wind. 

        “Not to worry,” he told himself. “I could make for myself another one, a better one.” 

        So he set off to search for a suitable place to build his cobweb.

        But wait. Hold onto your reins.

        Why could he not do so?

        Spider stood motionless.

        It was as if the needless recipe of a cobweb had sneakily snuck out of Spider’s mind! But why?

        A realisation dawned on Spider. His gift had been stolen by the mirror! He could not make silk! He could not make cobwebs! 

        He could not eat!

        Spider spun around and hurdled to the mirror patiently perched on the side of the tree. 

        “Silk,” Spider demanded. “I long to make cobwebs!”

        But all that answered Spider was the aroma of berries in the air dismissed by harvest season itself. There was no light that had once glowed like the sun and that had once answered Spider’s every order. 

        “I can jump, I can run, I can swim, I can burrow, I can fly too!” Spider mustered, perhaps more to himself than the lifeless mirror now, “but I cannot make myself a filling meal without my cobwebs!”

        “I need my sixth gift–which was in fact, my talent!”

        My sixth gift…

        Did the wizard not speak of gibberish about the number of gifts–or wishes–one could 

possess? The words of the wizard hummed in Spider’s empty mind. 

        Five wishes–five, and no more. 

        What you once had in your hands of possessions will vanish. 

        “Well, what am I to do, old wizard!” Spider snarled. But he knew the wizard had done not the pinch of a thing wrong. 

        He had made a mistake, as much as he loathed to admit it.

        Spider scuttled in circles to search for the wizard, but he knew he had left. The man had long gone and all that remained was the dreadful souvenir of Magic Mirror.

        It was futile. Spider had no choice.

        No choice but to live like the crickets–oh how shameful! Spider must be like a cricket, who fought strenuously every day for a chance of survival.

        So the sun sunk and rose again the following day. Spider was the hungry caterpillar. He slept on a stomach as empty as the starless night sky. The seeds and pollen he gathered miserably had long been emptied from his stomach and had left no more good than harm.

        So the sun sunk and rose day after day, and Spider was condemned to feeble seeds and pollen that did nothing to put an end to his starvation. 

        Between the twigs of a big oak overlooking a yellow field, there was no cobweb. 

        But there was Spider, who was now more unpleased than ever before.