The Moth's Wings

Alright so... I'M BACK here in Holden Massachusetts.

There was so much stuff that went on in Colorado that I don't even want to begin to try and get into it on this blog. The posts would be endless and I kind of want to just do the daily thing. So if you want to hear about it that bad just let me know and we can have a nice long face to face chat about it.

So today something truly tragic happened. I really find this kind of disturbing so if you're an insect lover close this tab or page or whatever.

This afternoon I got up from the computer to go do something unimportant upstairs and saw that there was a small moth perched on the dead center of my t-shirt. Though I don't really have a fear of insects I think I've always had a slight natural aversion to them. But today I stopped and looked at the moth with a kind of fondness... maybe because it was so calm. I walked out the screen door and prodded it in hopes that I would scare it into flying away to a bigger less light-addicted home but it did not move. It took a few more pokes for the moth to release its grip however it did not bounce lazily across the air fulfilling the idealistic image I had creating in my head. Instead the moth fell to the next porch step, wings flailing hopelessly trying to gain control in the breezy air. I thought it very odd that the moth wouldn't fly away and would choose to allow itself to fall a good 4 feet to the hard cement.

Then I looked at the bottom of my shirt and saw a large amount of, what looked like, dust of some kind. My brain cross referenced the two (moth and dust) in my archives of useless information and pulled up the bit about how moth's wings produce dust for flight, protection from predators and warmth. My heart dropped with my eyes as I looked down at the little moth sitting on my step, wings flapping uselessly in the soft breeze. I stood there for probably three solid minutes hoping that by some miracle the moth would take flight, mocking my worry and fly about into the summer afternoon but it didn't. But it didn't. All that moved were its destroyed and now vestigal wings, moving back and forth with sicky July air.

I thought about this moth was going to do with life now that I had rendered its whole means of sustaining itself completely useless. It was only a matter of time before someone stepped on it, it being directly in the middle of the most commonly used enterance in my home. And as I stared there all I could think about was how it could no longer complete anything the typical moth was created to do (that being eating and reproducing).

Kind of distantly I felt something move my body over the step and I put my 165 pounds of weight on the moth and, prolonging the soft crunch that escaped from under it, slid my shod foot to the right killing it instantly. It was the worst thing I have felt in a long time. I can't really tell what made me feel so awful about it. It might have been that I admired the moth's bravery in the 17 seconds it took me to get out the screen door. Or how much thought I had put into the fact that it wasn't flying only to discover that it was because I had ruined all chances of it living a normal moth life. Or maybe because I was afraid that my instinct to "put it out of its misery" was wrong in that the moth could have recovered, or that it was simply sitting there enjoying the soft air. I don't even know it was awful. I can't even imagine being put in that position for a person. I shudder at the thought and am a little unnerved that my brain applied the situation another human.