Bear with me if you will, just trying to exorcize a demon here.
I suppose it was a small event in the scheme of things, but definitely not to the moth it happened to or my son Max and I who witnessed it.
Moths are not my favourite bugs, if there can be such a thing. Clumsy, icky, hard to track; I swear if I were alone with one in BC Place it would eventually crash into my face.
This is what they do.
And so one night, as I was taking out the garbage, I left the front door open and this furry be-winged blimp of a moth invited itself into our home and proceeded to crash into walls, bounce off the ceiling with a blood-curdling fwack-fwack-fwack, drop to the ground, disappear, and repeat.
I ran around screaming like a baby child, because I knew it was destined to get caught in my hair or suck out my tonsils.
Max ran upstairs; it didn’t follow. It was me it was after – I felt this in my bones. I gripped a badminton racket to do battle but suddenly the beast vanished. Now this was unnerving – where did it go?
Days and nights passed, and my guard dropped.
Watching TV late at night in the dark, it felt like a shuttlecock bounced off the back of my head. More screaming, more fwack-fwack-fwack. Chaotic scary shadows cast on the ceiling from the blue light of the television suggested the moth had grown to the size of a bat. Lights back on, and it’s gone.
The next night, the moth was back. Max was with me. After it landed on a closet door I whacked at it with a duster but missed. It dropped to the ground, shot up with a trajectory like the great arch in St. Louis, and directly plunked into the business end of a lamp stand. It passed through the metal mesh but couldn’t escape.
The horror. Explosions of moth spewed forth, like volcanic ash, and then a slender flame. Seemed like an eternity passed before the struggling stopped. There was nothing we could do. I took the lamp outside to clean it out but there was nothing to cleanse, just acrid smoke hanging in the air and the trauma bond that Max and I share to this day.
A few weeks later, we’re enjoying a barbecue at night in our backyard when a luckier moth shows up, albeit much smaller. Max quickly closes the lid.
My son Noah knows what's up: “I smelt it burn from my bedroom upstairs..."
My wife was spared this poor creature’s ghastly demise, having been asleep at the time.
I never imagined I could feel sympathy for a moth but I do. It met an end that just shouldn’t be.
So count your blessings I guess. All life is precious.
