Imago

City night warm, city night greys, city night brown and soft embrace.  Balcony doors wide open.  Lights burn, all the dark. A moth, him-her again, across the park.  And shocked me, sillied me, caught me on the doorframe.  There and big, way too furry-big, still-silent and weird.  Butterfly but with night soul, keeps his-her grey brown mystery and doesn't flap, doesn't show, not feared. 

Precious wingdust is flutter-splatter pitter-patter pattern at a print.  Dream vector, feeds on sleep?  Touch him-her now furry and want to keep.  Doesn't move when I stroke.  Mystery still.  Photo-phone and fascination.  Is love-like, little-boy and yes, I will.  A trap.

But moth is not words and won't be written, is feel-texture-hear-sound of soft muffle greyfur and sturdy, pushback and my fingers apart surprisingly strong though plump-spindly too. 

Now action.  Picture-thinking and sense remembering ends, snap-back-into-lastic and English, native-narrative, returns.  Back to inner monologue, focus.  Tell the story and make it happen. See - I can do it if I try.  When I have to be understood, and get along in the world of other people.  See.

So, I contacted the Department of Entomology at the Natural History Museum.  They'll identify insects - for free if it's easy, or for money if you wake up sick next to something poisonous that bit you in the night, who you didn't even buy a drink for, but whose name you'd really like to know.

This is what I sent them*:

I live in London near a large park.  The lights in my flat have attracted a large and unusual-looking moth which I have trapped in a transparent plastic shoebox.  The moth is dark grey-brown with two sets of wings with serrated edges like a butterfly.  Including the wings it is wider than it is tall, perhaps 65x45mm or a little narrower than a credit card. Can you identify?  I can e-mail low-res digital picture.

I try to feed the moth.  But what does it eat?  Leaves.  Privet?  Privet hedges I can find.
Or is it aspen? or ash?  Or are they the same thing?  I gather some leaves from the trees outside my window, and some more from the hedge at the bus stop.  I scatter them inside the shoebox, but the moth doesn't seem interested.

Some commenters thought that, despite my denials, my encounter with the girl I woke up sick next to would leave a mark on me.  You were right.  You people know me better than I know myself.

I call her.  Sorry about what happened.  We arrange to meet again.  Fancy restaurant, her sushi-favourite.  End up drinking too much and arguing in the car, miss my train and stupid phone battery shit what am I doing, none of that should matter. 

On the way back I promise myself, again, that this time I really don't care.  She's out of my life and good riddance. 

After a few days I'm starting to worry about the moth.  It hasn't touched any of the leaves I've offered - I desperately need to know what it eats.  It must need water, at least.  I try splashing a little inside the box.  The droplets just hang there, and later start making the leaves smell.  It flinches when I prod but nothing more.  Seems to be slowly withdrawing from life.

Moths eat old clothes.  I try a sock.  Doesn't bite.

I leave her about a month.  But the itch won't go, and grows.  I send her a text.  I miss you more than I thought.  She doesn't reply, then a few days later, I lose my phone, again (don't ask, again).  Lose my phone and her number with it.

I e-mail her.  No response.  I think she's moved job, not sure her e-mail has followed her.

But even if she's getting my messages, it isn't going to work.  It's pointless.  The relationship can't be saved, and never could.  There was no love, just sex, and just once.

Return from work one night this week and find the moth dead.  Stiff in situ, depsite all my efforts.  Probably been dead for days.  Surrounded by curling, brown, untouched leaves.

That same evening, the Museum get back.  It was a Poplar Hawk Moth.  It's an imago.  A mating stage, just a vessel for the propagation of DNA.  I couldn't feed it, because it doesn't eat. 

It doesn't even have a fucking mouth.

===
*You know some of the stuff I write here is... adapted.  This isn't.  I genuinely sent those words to the Natural History Museum.

Comments

[isabelle]

This makes me sad, and now I'm thinking a roman à clé of insects and chrysalis and dust on wings you shouldn't touch......

Velvet soft , little-girl, love-like, I always wanted to stroke, but was told it stopped them from flying. So I collected chrysalis instead , in jam jars , and tried to watch them emerge, but they were always gone when I got there.

[An Unreliable Witness]

Moths are stupid creatures. Beautiful but vacuous. That flame is all it lives for. It wants to die because it wants to feel itself sizzle info ashes, and it doesn't want to be saved, no matter what you try to do to persuade to turn round and flutter back out of the wide open window to even wider open freedom.

Moths are stupid, and even inconsiderate of other people's efforts in their stupidity.

I have a lot of sympathy for the humble moth, in its sheer pointlessness of existence.

[clarissa]

I told you it once before. And this one makes me think it again. the styalistic similarity with cummings ... or is it just me? Similarity ... just a reminiscent shadow because the style is really all yours. But I have to know if I'm just thinking nonsense because I haven't really read any cummings in years. My blog reading seat today is advantageous. I don't have to get off my ass. I just reach over to my right and voila, I have it: 100 Selected Poems. And now to investigate: Am I right?

-- 5 minutes of investigation ensue --

I am right. The shadow of reminscence is there. I have examples. But fear leaving them in a comment box will reek of twatdom.

[Peach]

oe, say after me: "I. Am. Not. The. Moth"

clarissa - I get the cummings refs for sure - oe cummings?

[pocketpunk]

ahh you've changed you're categories .....avarice you say .

maybe you should've put me in Sloth cos i am such a tardy bastard of late...time to update me with news of trips up North to Geordie land

[clarissa]

hiya peach. ee

[oe]

Isabelle - I was told that about touching moths too. Once I brought a chrysalis to school. The class watched it all summer. On the day I was off sick, it hatched and flew away. When the other children told me, I didn't believe them.

Witness - I think moths love for the moon... but cheap, slutty, earthly lights steal their love away.

clarissa - I'd never heard of cummings until you mentioned him, thanks for both the introduction and the comparison. And do not fear twatdom.

Peach - I. am. not. the. moth. The relationship is the moth...

pocketpunk - always good to hear from you, and always greedy for more

[An Unreliable Witness]

*considering a dreadful pun about cummings and goings, but deciding that Overnight Editor is far too classy a blog for that*

[peach]

clarisssssa - was making a joke, innit (!)

oe - that's good to hear.

uw - you just can't help yourself can you ?

[Ariel]

It hasn't got a mouth but has it got an arse? Interchangeable in some species, humans notwithstanding.

[Lillipilli]

Why do we do these things to ourselves?

[oe]

UW - this blog is never too classy. Smut I tell you, smut.

Peach - responding to other people's comments in my mine? That's virtually leaving your underwear on my radiator.

Ariel - It laid eggs... One day I'll tell you about the eggs...

Lillipilli - hello, I'll pay visit.

[peach]

Cripes! And I only popped in for coffee, how FORWARD of me. Anyhow, is it dry yet?

[An Unreliable Witness]

I leave underwear on people's radiators every day, liberally draped across the worldwide internet superhighway thingummydoodah.

Except for those leopardskin briefs. I deny all responsibility for those.

[clarissa]

you guys are cracking me up

[clarissa]

and, peach ... doh! of course and how so not totally appreciated until embarrassingly late!

[peach]

I am virtually wearing your jeans now

[oe]

I've given in and just bought a bigger virtual duvet.

As an aside: A true story. I once briefly shared a flat with a pretty but buttoned-up Danish muslim girl. One evening I came home from work and was intrigued to find what appeared to be a tangled pair of black shoelaces drying on the radiator. On detailed inspection, they revealed themselves as the skimpiest set of underwear I've ever seen. If it had been a sitcom, she'd have walked in at that point. She didn't. I returned them to the radiator with a feeling of confusion and horror that recurs each time I recall the incident.

[Peter]

"...just a vessel for the propagation of DNA."

Doesn't that describe all (heterosexual) males?