It's said that Daddy-Long-Legs have the most lethal venom of all spiders, but they're not deadly to man because their fangs are too weak to pierce human skin. My mother told me that my aunt was found dead from a spider bite, and the only spider they found in the vicinity was an innocuous-looking Daddy-Long-Legs. Consequently my mother purged our house of all possible offenders - mashing, spraying or stomping on all potential eight-legged culprits. To this day I don't know if the spider was to blame.

Forgive me, I digress. For me, time is a particularly finite resource and speed is crucial. The point I am trying to make is that this apparently harmless spider was accused of murder and summarily put to death due to circumstantial evidence. Like myself.

I say that because I, too, am to be executed for crimes I didn't commit. My name is John Harcourt - perhaps you've read about me in the newspaper, or seen the shamefully biased reports of me on television. Until two months ago I was an anonymous school teacher, unmarried, approaching middle-age (as my increasing gut and decreasing hair will testify), living in a modest flat in an equally modest suburb of this city. That was until I met Frank, bought a bed, and watched helplessly as my life destroyed itself around me.

Life as a teacher isn't - wasn't - too bad, really. It's boring, after so many years; but I played golf once in a while. My lifestyle, by its sheer lack of the interesting or bizarre, convinced them that I must be abnormal and therefore guilty of all the things they said I did. But that's neither here nor there. I'm running out of time, so back to it.

I don't have any 'girlfriends' (another piece of evidence used against me) but I sometimes plucked up enough courage to ask a lady out. This was usually successful for one date only - for some reason they never agreed to go out with me more than once, which is still a mystery to me. I'm very quiet, you see, and perhaps women don't like that, and my tiny flat wasn't at all glamorous at the best of times. That was, until I met Frank and his bed.

The bed was completely amazing. It was larger than king size and really far too big for my tiny bedroom, but at the time it didn't seem to matter. When Frank spoke of it, nothing else mattered - nothing except having that bed. It was a four-poster, draped with pale blue silk which fell gracefully from the frame of the top forming a soft canopy. The mattress was deep and incredibly soft, and Frank told me it was a woman-magnet, and after all, Frank would know. He owned a small furniture shop only two blocks from my flat, and though I'd not spoken to him before that day I had often ridden my bicycle past the window on my way to school. He was almost always there, a woman draped on one arm (sometimes one on each) using his salesman smile to convince them to buy his wares. Frank told me there wasn't anything on earth he couldn't sell, including himself. On this particular day, I was riding past when I noticed the bed in the window. No, not so much noticed it - was entranced by it. It filled the entire display area with its decadence, and I couldn't help but stop and stare at it. I was captivated by the deep warm red of the wood, the way the smooth lines of the carved head-board followed the delicate curves of the grain. I had to have it, and completely forgetting that I had a classroom full of sixth grade boys waiting for me, dropped my bike and went into the shop.

As I said, the bed was far too large for my flat and it was monstrously expensive as well. However I had a small sum saved for a rainy day and now it seemed that I knew why I'd saved the money. I bought the bed, of course, and returned to my flat to eagerly await its delivery.

Mrs Hughes, my landlady, was almost speechless when she saw the size of the thing I was proposing to put in the flat. After a lengthy struggle amidst the cries of 'don't mark the walls' and 'if you break anything, you'll have to pay' from Mrs Hughes, we manoeuvred the bed into the tiny bedroom, where it took up all the available space, and more. I had to move my set of drawers and portable TV out into the cramped living room/kitchen area, but it didn't matter. I had the bed, and a feeling of triumph completely inappropriate to the occasion made all other matters pale into trivialities.

Even though it was only ten in the morning, I couldn't resist the urge to climb between the cool blue sheets and rest my head on its pillows once the delivery men and Mrs Hughes had made their exits. As I sank into the incredibly deep, soft mattress, totally naked (my cotton box-print pyjamas uncharacteristically absent) my mind seemed to cloud over and my body demanded sleep. I gazed up at the billowing canopy of silk above me and drifted off.

I don't know how to begin to describe the nightmares I suffered that night and for the seemingly endless nights following. I don't often dream of women, but in that bed I seemed to dream of nothing else. My sleep was filled with visions of myself with beautiful, elegant women. I'd be having dinner with them, dancing with them, and I'd eventually bring them home, to my flat, to the bed. Then the dreams changed; my dream-sight became clouded and the images distressingly chaotic and confused. There were flurries of white and blue and red, and then I'd wake, drenched in sweat, exhausted, to find the mattress bare, the sheets and pillowcases (sometimes even the pillows themselves) missing. When this strange occurrence first took place, I searched the flat convinced there had been an intruder, questioning Mrs Hughes on the off-chance that she might have changed the sheets while I slept. Mrs Hughes, of course, knew nothing and replied that I was suddenly acting very strangely.! !

I searched unsuccessfully for the missing bedding, eventually shrugging it off as something I must have done while sleep-walking, although I'd never suffered from somnambulism before. They would turn up, sooner or later.

I ran out of bedding after the third or fourth night of this, and began to borrow from Mrs Hughes, hoping that the missing sheets would somehow turn up. They didn't, and soon I had also used up all of Mrs Hughes' bedding. Out of necessity I bought another supply. I noticed that the mattress was no longer as comfortable as it had first been, and as I searched for a reason I discovered a line of stitches on the side of the mattress where it had been repaired along the length of the bed. I resolved to see Frank - I'd try to convince him to take it back and give me a refund. No, I said, it hadn't turned out to be a 'woman-magnet', and I'd not had a single good night's sleep on it. He soothed me, flashing his salesman smile, assuring me that I'd get used to it, sooner or later, and I believed him. On leaving the store, I mentioned (in passing) the missing bedding, and his salesman smile faltered slightly. I assumed he thought I must have been going a little barmy (he wasn't the only one) and thought no more of it.

Two days later I returned to the shop, two days more exhausted and minus two more sets of linen, hoping that Frank would simply take the bed back. I didn't want my money, I just wanted the damn thing out of my flat. I cycled up the road, only to find Frank and his furniture gone. A 'For Lease' sign hung over the door and when I enquired, the agent claimed to have no forwarding address.

Alone again in my flat, I stood at the bedroom door and stared at the bed. What could I do? I couldn't bear the thought of sleeping on it again - every morning I woke exhausted, every muscle and sinew aching, some parts of me bruised and stiff. I'd lost weight and my usually neat appearance had degenerated to the point where Mrs Hughes was threatening to evict me for making the place look disreputable. Of course the missing linen didn't help, and every now and then I caught her giving me strange sideways looks when she thought I wasn't watching. Once, she made a cryptic comment about all my late-night comings and goings. Soon she was complaining about the smell coming from my flat as well, although I can't say I ever noticed anything. I didn't understand most of what she said, and assumed she was trying to find excuses for getting rid of me.

I stared at the bed for a long time before deciding what to do. Eventually the solution to my problem came to me. I left my flat and walked out to the back garden, where Mrs Hughes' husband kept his tools in a tiny shed. I took an axe back to my flat and began to work on the bed. I'm not a very physical person, and the wood was strong and stubborn, but after a few minutes I was in a chopping frenzy and in a short time I had reduced the bed to kindling. The silk made a strangely familiar and satisfying sound as it ripped, and after the work was done I sat in the midst of the rubble, axe in hand, surveying my achievement. Eventually the thundering in my ears faded, and above it I heard Mrs Hughes banging on the door, demanding to know what I was doing, making all that racket.

Pleased with myself and eager to show her my handiwork, I let her in and proudly led her into the bedroom. At first she stared, and then she began to scream.

They found the sheets buried in the garden. They were covered in gore, just like the mess they found in my bedroom. Half the original contents of the mattress were there, too, tufts of filling matted together with blood. They took the bodies away, seven in all, and then they took me away, too. They claimed at the trial that I'd killed them and stuffed them in the mattress, just like my mother claimed the spider had killed her sister. They said they tried to find Frank, but they never managed to, of course. I don't think they really tried.

It's nearly time now - I can hear movement down the corridor. My cell's quite comfortable. The mattress isn't quite as thick as the one I'm used to, of course, but my sleep is deep and dreamless, for which I'm thankful. There's a Daddy-Long-Legs in here with me, you know. His name is Frank and he keeps me company, two condemned souls together. I think I'll take him with me and keep him in my pocket - I wonder if you can electrocute a spider? I suppose I won't be around to find out, so that's another mystery.

Well, I've written it all down, and it's time to go. I'm rather looking forward to it, as a matter of fact. The trial was so wearisome, and waiting for death has taken its toll on me. When they sit me down I'll be strapped in, of course, and the priest will lean over and ask me if I have any requests, any final questions before I go.

Yes, I'll say. Is it true what they say about Daddy-Long-Legs?