Moth to a Flame

The darkness sits before you, a looming void, a piece of the universe chiseled out of the sky and layed out on a platter before you. The flavor of stars is missing. The man next to you is living, although the automobile you sit in may not be. The lights have just suddenly cut out, leaving the grimy dirt road ahead of you to the imagination. The car keeps moving but the man next to you slows its looping wheels, careful without headlights. You consider suggesting to turn back, head toward the vibrant lights of the city behind you, but you know he will be angry if you do. And so, you just keep your eyes fixed on the dark in front of you. Looking where there is absolutely nothing to look at. Threads of paranoia slip their way into your mind, cross-stitching their way between the lumps and ridges of your brain, stabbing at the inward side of your skull. Your eyelids are nonexistent, the anxiety having shriveled them back into your head. Your eyes are open. Your eyes are looking, scanning the black road before you. You look intently for a menace, a villian, a creature in the blackness. Just as a scream causes the avalanche, you find one, looking back at you. 

The deep, candy apple eyes reveal themselves slowly, rimmed in crimson. They appear as if the night itself was looking at you, the flesh concealing them disappearing slowly into the darkness around you. They are possibly stop lights down the road and you consider asking the man with you if he has noticed them but something about the shade of red locks your teeth together, your jaw is firm. The eyes are approaching, you were unsure before but you know now that they are in fact eyes; fixated on you, static as they wait for your vehicle to approach. They are feet away. They are inches away. They are a mirror that you don’t want to look into anymore. The man next to you stops the car slowly, as the red ovals tilt themselves carefully, examining the metal contraption before it. The man next to you begins to speak, some confused expletives meant to be heard and answered calmly, as you have done many times before. Just as he speaks, the machine surrounding you, decides to play a sick joke. In an instant, the headlights flood on, filling the surroundings again with light. 

Its flesh is a matte gray, rough and textured. But the skin is difficult to see, patches of it occasionally shimmer in the light but the mass of it is covered in fur and feathers; each a unique shade of dark ink, spilling into each other and blurring the lines of the night sky. In a second, it launched. In a second, it shrieked. In a second, it is in the air. You feel the world go quiet for just a millisecond. As it launches itself in the sky, the shriek that bursts itself from its mouth cut short for a moment as it shoots upward. You think you’ve gone deaf in all the panic. You only hear the creature's absence. Silence, empty road. 

Crash. 

It lands again, pushing a crevice in the baby blue hood. The vehicle jumps around you, shuddering at the thud. Your breath turns to a shaky It screeches again and from the light of the dashboard illuminates its mouth, its teeth. It doesn't seem to have a head, just a sphere holding those red eyes that blends right into its body.

The man next to you begins reversing the automobile rapidly. The creature slips off, its gripping claws not tight enough. But its wings spread to full size in the headlights as it catches itself in the wind. For a moment they are splayed out before you, they are angelic, and it is bathed in some holy light; the wispy hairs of its head are a halo. You are bewitched, for just a moment, this creature is something. It suddenly feels so solid, so real, so intensely physical and so intensely close to you. Breath fills your lungs and for a moment, all you see is your dim reflection in its burning sunset eyes. 

In an instant it's over, the fixation snaps in two and drifts off into the night. The terror fills your body again, coursing through your veins like a venom. The man next to you revs the engine. The speedometer increases in time with your heartbeat, thump, thump, thumping up in intensity. The vehicle swerves, spinning into drive and rushing down the dirt road, back to the direction you came in. You glance into the rearview mirror and see the thing lurching forward. Its wings slam against the road, serving as quick launches into the sky. It gains momentum and occasionally blasts forward, gliding through the crisp night air at you. The man next to you cries out, slamming the gas pedal as hard as he can. You brace yourself for disaster as the creature, draped in thick shadows spurts forward again. Closer, closer, gone. 

The screeching stops, and you look in the rearview mirror again. It is not behind you. The man next to you chuckles slightly, reliefeif exhaling from his mouth. You do not breathe. You hold the tension in your body close to you, as if it is a strong metal shield. The man next to you begins to speak, saying some immediate excuse as to what this encounter could have been. At the time, it doesn’t occur to you that the comedy of humanities need for a reasonable explanation; this won’t happen for many years. Merely, at the time, you are acutely aware of the scent of impending death that lingers around you both. 

Moments pass. It descends again, once again crashing on the hood. But this time, its wings flutter forward as it drops, and splinters the glass on the windshield like marbles scattering timidly across the floor. A scream bubbles its way up through your neck but gets lost somewhere under your tongue. The man next to you lets it release from his throat, the sound waves mingle with the screeches and chatters of the creature. It blocks the lights so you find it hard to see but in an instant, the man is no longer next to you; the thing launches again, swooping into the sky, the man gripped in its clawed feet. Your head throbs with how shaken you are. The headlights feel distant and far off, their gaze only wide enough to see the edges of a scene. Your heart thumps, making your whole body rattle. But one thing becomes clear by the swaying of a nearby tree; the light only occasionally captures the view of his shoes, swinging in and out of sight. You squeeze your eyes shut, a whimper rising with your random bursts of breath. You sit for a while, listening to the branches sway, heart beating in a palpable panic. 

You take a deep breath, and move your hand to the door handle, it clicks as you pull it. You slide out of the car cautiously. If you walk, you will make it back to town by dawn. In an ideal world, the creature doesn’t follow you home. The door stays open as your hand leaves the cool metal and parts the dark. You step slowly, off the dirt of the road and into the cool itchy grass of the hill. Below, a river runs quickly, and the water slows your breathing. 

Slam. 

The creature crashes down again, this time on the roof of the vehicle. Its eyes look purple on the reflection, the blackened sky making a perfectly blue mirror for it to look into. You recognize the horror of it, yet you feel yourself transfixed, hypnotized, locked in by the swirling colors. They look galactic. It crawls over the roof slowly, bending the metallic sea into sharp waves. Ignoring the sight of the open passenger side door, it positions itself once again on the hood. The creature settles itself in the crevice it had previously carved out and dangles the top of its body over the edge. Its eyes peer in opposing directions, each one locked on one headlight. In the stillness of the moment, you notice, for the first time, it’s breathing. Its breath fills and empties from its lungs, desperate to be there. It breathes like it’s never done it before; and so do you. You let yourself breath as you quietly venture further and further from the creature. Down the dirt road and back toward home. 

You look backward, paranoid, every few seconds. It doesn’t move. It stays put by the headlight. 

*

“So, would you say your sleep schedule has been disrupted?” The doctor shifted his legs, sliding forward on his cushy brown chair. He opened a fresh page of notes and clicked his pen, ready to go. 

“Yes, you could say that.” The patient said. He curled his legs into the chair and hunched. The bags under his eyes wilted as he moved, the shadows of the evening light creeping in from the window and latching themselves onto his tired eyes. 

“You sound as though you disagree?” 

“Well not so much disrupted. More so eliminated.” 

The doctor chuckled, and began jotting notes. The patient glanced out the window and watched the sun crest over the tops of the concrete buildings. The golden light pooled in windows and puddles, before slowly drifting out of the sky. A pink dusty haze was left behind and the air seemed to cherish it, like it was a sugary confection to be savored. 

“Has much changed since our last meeting? You had mentioned some paranoia about the nightnigth, would you say that is an element of this insomnia?” the doctor asked, looking to get into the heart of the discussion. The patient sighed awkwardly, looking to avoid doing so. 

“It’s not insomnia. I could go to sleep if I wanted. I don’t want to.” 

“Nightmares?” 

The patient stayed silent for a moment. The darkening sky washed over the room in waves and after a moment the doctor leaned over and switched on a small desk lamp. The patient shivered at the word. Nightmares. 

“Not quite. They’re– too real to just be nightmares.” 

“What do you mean? Are you having hallucinations? During the day?” the doctor asked, pausing his notes. He mind flipped through the files in his drawer to one that could be of use. 

“If I tell you something that makes me sound like a lunatic, you won’t think I’m crazy right? Because everything I'm about to say is true.” The patient asked, his voice slightly panicked. 

“Remember what I told you in our first session together? Crazy is not a word we use in this room. I am here to help you with whatever is on your mind, even if it may sound delusional.” 

“Okay, well three weeks ago, some buddies and I went hiking. Thought we’d drive out to the forest around sunset and see if we could hike uphill at night. Stupid, I know. 

“We were having a good time, walking and messing with each other and we only had two flashlights. I had one and I don’t really remember who had the other. It's not important. Anyway, I was in the back, the other light was in the front, and while we were walking I started hearing this noise. It was so strange. It sounded like an insect, maybe a moth or a cicada, was making this sound almost like laughing. I turned around to listen and there was nothing there, it felt like the tree’s were the ones laughing, like they couldn’t get enough of the fools hiking at night. I asked my friends but none of them had heard anything. I stood still and looked into the tree’s behind us for a while and my friends kept walking. I said I'd meet them in a minute, that I just wanted to check something out and none of them questioned me. I don't know how long I stood there, moving the flashlight back and forth through the trees, before I caught a glimpse. High, high above me. It looked like the tallest tree around. There was a man. He was completely caked in shadow and I couldn’t make out any part of him. 

“I felt frozen. It was so odd, strange. He looked at me, right at me. And his eyes were so vivid, so bright in the pitch blackness of the night. They were red, such a real red, explosive; a dying star. He looked right at me and twitched his head. I could only see his body by the slight shimmery light of the moon, which was often obscured by clouds, so the man in the tree faded in and out of the picture. Well, I guess it was around this time I realized he wasn’t a man. No man could get all the way up there in the dark. No man could blend so seamlessly into the night. No man had eyes like that. I had the light in my hand but something told me not to shine it, not to disturb the guy. So I stood and waited. Eventually he made the noise again. That insect laugh. It wallowed through the trees and landed on my skin, making me itch. Doc, I know I'm sounding like I'm making this up as I go but I'm not!”

“Please take a deep breath,” the doctor interrupted, seeing the frantic look in his patient's eye. The man across from him did, and with his exhale loosened his limbs and sunk into the chair. As he did so, the doctor began to open a drawer surreptitiously, and search for a file. Eventually he found what he was looking for. 

 “By this point my friends were gone completely and it was just me and him, we were the only things in the whole forest. I-I got impatient. I slowly moved my flashlight up; higher into the tops of the trees. The branches were thick and the foliage blocked most of the sky from the light. Eventually, it reached him. I only got a moment to see him before he launched. He was all black and gray, he looked like he was covered in feathers, or fuzz, or–I don’t know. He didn’t really have a head, it was more like a round body that had eyes at the top. No arms, just—just wings,” the patient was cut off by a sudden shudder of tears, an unexpected flow down his face. The doctor moved aside the old telephone on his desk to push forward a box of tissues. The patient grabbed a wad and dabbed at his eyes callously, before tucking them in his pocket for later disposal. 

“I don’t want to interrupt the story but I think maybe we should break to talk about steps forward.” The doctor opened the folder he was holding and began to flip his way through the pages, pulling out ones he thought necessary. 

“Doc, I'm not crazy.”

“Of course not, no one is ‘crazy.’” 

“More importantly I haven’t finished the story. I haven’t gotten to my problem yet!” 

“You haven't?” 

“He came at me, he flew at me. He glided through the air like it was nothing, like it wasn’t even there, like he was swimming at me, in the air. He scratched through my shirt, ripped up some of my skin. I still have the scars!” The patient began to rip the collar of his shirt down to show his doctor. The doctor winced at the slightly taught red flesh that exposed itself. 

“Okay, I believe you. Let’s continue on, please.” The doctor said. The patient rearranged his shirt. 

“Please, trust me. Anyway, it attacked me and I dropped the flashlight. Well, I more threw its thaen dropped. It went flying into the dark. The man flew after it. He flew right into the nothingness of the forest. But the aftermath was worse. My friends found me, carried me down and took me to the doctor. We said it was some wild animal. No one asked any follow up questions. I tried to forget but the next night, I had this dream. In the dream, I was watching a little girl drown. She was in her pool, her older brother was right next to her and her parents were lounging on the side. And she was underwater, and couldn't breathe. At one moment she looked up at me and I saw her eyes. They were just like the man from the forest. Red, and dripping with light. I watched her die, I couldn't move. I woke up so unsettled and the next day there was a coroner's report in the paper. Bianca Dupont, age six; drowned in her neighbors pool. It was the same girl from my dream. I had never seen her before.” 

“So is that what you came to talk about today? This dream?” 

“These dreams. I’ve had more. A few days later I dreamt there was a long dirt road stretching into the dark. A car drove along it, a couple with three kids. The car was packed full of luggage and the trunk was held closed with a bungee cord. It was bulging, stuffed full. Like it was a cartoon, it suddenly flew off the road. Smashed into a tree and rolled down a long hill into the stream below. I couldn't see the water but I knew it was there. I saw the sinking red glare, slowly disappearing out of sight. Three days later, the Michaelsons went on a camping trip. Died on impact 10 miles outside of town; long dirt road.” 

The doctor exhaled. In his forty years as a counselor he had never faced a patient with this much to work through. He needed to recommend a psychiatrist to get him medicated, reach out to his family to get them involved; all while precariously handling the subject so as to not make him feel crazy. 

“Okay well, I think we should discuss the steps we need to take to move forward. Have you ever been on medication before?”

The old phone on the desk began to ring. The doctor reached for the phone. 

“You don’t want to answer that.” 

“Oh, my apologies. It will be brief, I promise.” 

“Last night, she is asleep. There is suddenly a loud bang and she wakes up. It's a dream. It doesn't make sense because suddenly there is a man with a shotgun. Barrel to the sky. He shoots it. She bleeds on the covers until no more red can dye the earl gray sheets brown. It dries too quickly to be real. And yet, I am bleeding too. I am bleeding ‘till I run dry, and she looks at me. Her eyes dead. Her eyes red.” The patient rocked back and forth while he told the story. He was a child, soothing himself to sleep. 

The phone rang again, splintering the thick silence that had sunken into the room. The doctor cleared his throat, and reached for the phone. As he picked it up, he heard a muffled sob on the other line. The patient across from him shook his head violently. He mouthed the words, ‘not my fault, not my fault’. 

“Hello? Oh hi Dan, I’m sorry I'm with a patient right now do you think I could call you back? Yes, I-I just, yes, I understand this is urgent but—what? A burglar? Maureen is–dead?” He paused as the man on the other line spoke in soft buzzes through the receiver. 

The doctor clicked down the phone with a heavy hand and stared for a moment at the shaking man in front of him. 

“I’m sorry, my–my wife– just died. She was, she was shot.” As the doctor explained, a realization dawned on the wrinkles across his face. His eyes glistened and his puffy cheeks began to pool with water. The droplet poured down onto his session notes and smeared the ink of his pen. 

The patient lowered his head and covered his ears. His mind was split in two. He hoped sleep would not come tonight because he knew another premonition awaited him. He hoped sleep would come quickly tonight to stop the shrieks of the creature that still lingered in his head. 

*

In the eternal universe of the night, I am endlessly fascinated with the moths drawn to the flame. I sit on the edge of my porch steps and watch the pale evening moths bounce up against the lamp hanging near me again and again and again. Each time, they are drawn in by the white light, the effervescent passion of hurling oneself into the oblivion of temptation. They must know there is no good to come of the light, I believe every living creature holds at least a pouch of common sense. Yet, repeatedly, they crash into the lamp. Or in more extreme occasions, the flame. If I were a moth, and watched multiple of my kind die in the heat, the burnt smell of this hypnotic passion, I would not follow in their footsteps. Or…wing…flapping…pattern. 

But maybe it is hypnotic. Maybe it is intoxicating. Makes the mind go blank. They see a singular light and all knowledge, all genetic evolution flies out the brain and all it can think of to do is follow it. Maybe it's like the moth religion; the secular fire is what impassions them. An achievable heaven, only gifted by sacrifice. Maybe they know exactly what will happen when they fly too close to the flame and they love it. Maybe it's a peace, maybe it's a pleasure, maybe it's nothing; a clear headed mainframe sweep. Brand new blank hard drive, be reborn into a whole new life. 

I waste my time pondering moths because what else is there to do? The quiet of the night has crept upon me quite suddenly, and the darkness is broken by streaks of the lamplight; it buzzes occasionally as the moths jam against it. 

A large bird circles a newly risen moon, its wings outstretched, scooping the air into neat ripples. It skirts off to the left and then drops a few hundred feet. It's closer now. But, it looks big. Bigger then I would have guessed. Maybe an eagle? Or an exceptional hawk. 

It swoops down again, getting closer to my spot. It starts chattering, like it wants to talk to me. The closer it gets the less bird-like it sounds. In fact, it sounds a bit like the moths that chirp and rattle near me. As it approaches closer still I realize how large it actually is. Almost man-like, its shoulders bulge slightly and its two legs are long and pronounced. 

With a thud, it lands. It's in my yard, just feet away. A panic starts to fill my chest. It is completely shrouded in darkness; I can just maybe make out the silhouette of its ovular head. I begin to stand, deciding maybe today is not the day to test my fate. Just as I start to rise, it mirrors my motions. Its shape is shown by the moonlight and I see before me a creature of my greatest terrors. The kind of face I saw as a child when I closed my eyes. 

In an instant I'm taken back to a memory I didn’t know I had. I was sleeping in my childhood bed. Ten years old and afraid of every shadow. I awoke in the night to a sudden clacking of branches outside my window. I sat up and crept over, sliding the curtains aside and staring intently into the night. I was a fearful child but a curious one. The desire to understand always outweighed the desire to stay alive. I scanned the tree line before spotting what was making the branches sway. A man sat in the tree. Not a man. Men don’t have red eyes. At least none that I knew at the time.I stumbled back in fear, falling and smacking my head on the floor. It twitched and flew away. Up untill now, all I remembered from that night was my mother’s comforting warm skin rubbing my bruised skull and soothing me back to sleep. But now the memory unfolds itself in full. 

It lurches forward at me. No, not at me. At the lamp, swinging slightly from the edge of the porch. I grab the lamp and it darts at me. I meant to throw it as far as I could, get the creature away from me but it's too fast. It is holding me and I'm in the air before I could even move my arm. 

I scream. 

It shrieks. The sound is deafening. 

I drop the lantern in fright and the creature follows my example. It drops me. I didn’t realize how high we were. I'm falling 

Falling. 

Falling. 

Falling. 

The only thing I can see in the blurry darkness is the lantern below me, turning end over end. The thing darts out and sweeps it away. The creature flips around and I see its eyes again. Those dazzling rubies blur in the darkness. It swats at me and hits my throat. The last clear thought I have is; funny how self destructive the moths are, willing to kill themselves to fulfill a mindless desire. 

Snap. 

Thud. 

Easy Jack Portman, Grade 11

Creativing Writing Major