The Killer Moth

He covered his face as he walked through the slums. Smoke assaulted his senses from every direction. Sleek black buildings stretched into the endless night like swords on a battlefield. People looked at him from every direction, some with eyes obscured by a visor and others still with far more eyes than he had. He’d heard it said that there was a woman who lived at the end of the Bix’l district who could cure any wound and heal any disease. The vendors heckled him as he walked past, a few buy-for-a-nights came it with curled fingers calling him, come hither and though he was tempted, he moved on. He was now firmly in the purple-light district where darkness seemed even darker and where all the neon signs that buzzed above him were all various shades of purple.

Between the tattoo shot and adult toy shop, there was a small antique house. Smooshed between two sleek metal buildings that stabbed into the night sky, the antique house was silent without any flashing signs. He knocked on the door first, but he could not hear the sound his fists made when they hit the wood frame. Afraid that the occupant would not be able to hear him over the din, he took the handle and, seeing that the door was unlocked, he opened it.

Once inside, the door shut behind him. It did not make a sound. A hush fell around him as all-encompassing as the noise had been outside the door. He tiptoed through the house, afraid to disrupt the spell of the silence. Not a peep came from anywhere in the house. Stalking silently, he found an empty room with a rocking chair in front of a green flame in the center of the room. The flame was encased by an invisi-field. The room was warmed and glowed with the faint light of the flame. He reached out to the fire, but he froze, his arm halfway extended, suddenly filled with an unshakable feeling that he was not alone. There was a shadow that was not being cast by the chair or any of the objects in the room. In one swift movement, he turned his whole body around to look upward to the corner of the room where a giant white moth-like woman sat perched in the very corner of the room. Its large compound eyes remained unblinking as its fuzzy antennae wiggled.

I’ve been expecting you, said a voice from within his head. He looked to the moth creature and saw that her antennae were now pointing at him. You have come to me, seeking healing. Many have come before you. Many have never left.

Some other force makes him look around the room and sees man-sized cocoons in the corner of the room and notices now the scent of decay. He gets the sensation that someone has removed blinders from him as if he could only see these things now.

I am not a cruel creature. Only a creature that needs to eat. But I am a fair creature – despite my hunger – and I will listen to you. If you can convince me you should live, then you shall, and I will heal you. But if I deem you unworthy…

So, he began to tell his story.

Wedding Day - Excerpt from Bittersweet

When I was seven years old, my mother married Terrance. We sat in a small room off the side of the sanctuary of a church I barely remember while ladies fused over my mother’s hair. I remember being overwhelmed with how beautiful she looked with her dark round eyes and her thick berry-colored lips. Her wedding dress was bluish-white and she had fresh cut flowers in her hair. Gardenias. Every time I catch a whiff of the flower, I’m brought back here to this moment. Recently, Fable had planted a gardenia bush in front of the bookshop in order to attract more customers. For me, all it did was attract old memories when I would pass them by on my way to the store. It had been two weeks since my first day here but my life before seemed as if it belonged to another person entirely. My mother couldn’t stop smiling on her wedding day. She had been a different person before that day too. After all the women fussing over her hair had left the room, I crawled up onto her lap, cradling me in her arms as she had done when I was much younger. She pinned back my crochet braids with a headband that had a large light pink flower on it that matched the tulle of my dress perfectly. At the waist, dividing the satin top of my dress and the itchy tulle of the bottom of it, a dark pink velvet ribbon with tiny fake white flowers all around it. My mother told me I looked like a little princess and I certainly felt like one in that dress. I loved that dress. I would take it out of my closet and wear it all the time, as long as it fit me. For my birthday, I even made my mother buy me a tiara to wear with it. The scent of the flowers even made me remember the way she had kissed me on the forehead, her lips as soft as rose petals.

“What’s on your mind, sweet pea?” She had asked, her voice was warm and deep.

“You love Terrance,” I stated.

“Yes, very much so.” I remember thinking that I did not recognize this woman who was holding me. She was a stranger to me. Love had changed her. After she met Terrance, she began to laugh more and yell less. My brother Jace and I seemed to get away with a lot more after he came along. It was like she had been replaced. As a seven-year-old, this scared me. Not that I didn’t like what my mother had turned into, I just didn’t trust it. “What are you?” I asked her.

She laughed breathlessly. “In love, sweet baby girl.”

“What does ‘in love’ mean? Does it hurt?”

She laughed again and pulled me closer. “You see, I ran from love.” I listened to her voice through her chest and began to drift off only slightly at the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. “Turned and ran as far and as fast from it as I could because love destroys you. It tears you in half and shakes you down to your very core. And I was afraid. It forces you to look at who you really are. Forces you to see the truth that you have tried so hard to deny. Love is a hurricane. No matter how fast you run, no matter how stubbornly you fight against it, love will find you. It will hunt you down and consume you. It takes inventory of everything you are and everything you’re not and accepts you unconditionally. Nothing in this world scared me more than love. And one day, baby girl, love will come for you.”

This notion scared me. Love became an entity, a monster that stalked me. Lying in wait, hiding in the closet or under my bed. It would take me like it took my mother and a substitute would be left in my stead. I began to have nightmares about this faceless creature, standing at an altar in a tuxedo. The face was a mask, one of those thespian happy masks staring at me with no eyes behind it. His hands were long and stretchy, they reached down the aisle to me and pulled me towards him. I would struggle and struggle but no matter how hard I fought, it continued to reel me in but I woke up before I ever got to the altar.

I kept a careful eye on my mother in the weeks that followed, afraid that she was an impostor. No one seemed to notice that she was different. That she had changed. I confided in Jace that I thought she wasn’t my real mother but he only told me I was being stupid. I couldn’t make anyone understand, it seemed. In time, I began to accept the impostor as my mother because she was warm and kind but there continued to be a part of me that didn’t trust her. Not until I was much older and realized how ridiculous I had been. Just the same, I made a promise that I would never let myself be changed the way my mother had been. I was stronger than that. I didn’t need that.

Admiral Halsey

I met my husband on my way home from my divorce. It was early in the morning and I felt irrevocably broken. After we signed the papers, my ex-husband shook my hand and pulled me in for one last hug. He said, “you want to grab a hotel so I can give you a proper send-off?” I thanked him for the offer but politely declined, hoping my disgust was not visible. I met my mother on the docks where she’d agreed to meet me. She was standing in a cashmere sweater and an oversized hat. Taking a drag from her cigarette she looked at me, appraising as she always did. I never measured up. She did not take my hand; our shoulders did not touch as I stood next to her on the docks. I wanted to let go, to let the tears flow but not in front of her, never in front of her. Then she put her arm around me, a rare display of warmth, and I told her, “mama, I feel like such a fool.”

She pulled me into a hug, placing my head on her shoulder, and stroked my hair. “Oh, no sweetie you aren’t a fool.” I clung to her like she was the only thing that was left. “You’re a failure.” She clarified.

I pushed away from her embrace and looked up at her. The tears that had been running down my cheeks had abruptly stopped falling. “W-what?”

“This will follow you around for the rest of your life. You’re a divorcee. It’s a permanent stain on your record and it can never be undone. The only way you’ll ever find love again is if you can find someone who is as broken as you are.” She laughed bitterly, “Good luck with that.” She tucked a strand of my stringy brown hair behind my ear. “I wish you’d use conditioner. Or anything.”

I got in my car and drove. There was no destination in mind, just drive until I felt something again. A part of me wanted to turn my car into oncoming traffic or a building. I’d plead insanity and get locked away forever but I didn’t. Instead, I ended up in Tarpon Springs, driving down by the bayou. I wanted to see the manatees. If I could just see the manatees, I’d be okay. That’s when I saw him: the man that would later father my two girls. Standing outside his house with some serious stubble, hair a mess, broken glasses askew on his face, in nothing but a pair of Yellow Submarine boxers staring up at a window from which clothes were falling. I pulled up to the scene real slow and noticed I wasn’t the first to arrive. He was shouting up at her, something like, “oh real nice Ellen! No- Not that one I just had it dry cleaned!” The woman looked out the window. Satisfied with the mess on her front lawn, she slammed the window shut. The man in the Yellow Submarine boxers turned to the crowd, dazed. They dispersed immediately all trying to play it cool as if they had all happened to be out on their lawns at that moment for unrelated reasons. I pulled up my car beside him and asked him if he needed a ride. He did not say a word as he stepped into my car, clutching a bundle of his clothes. He shut the door and we drove away.

He said nothing for miles. I asked him the usual questions: what’s your name, are you going to mutilate my corpse and dispose of my dismembered body parts in random dumpsters throughout cities in the county to ensure my murder never gets traced back to you? But still, he said nothing. He wouldn’t even tell me where to take him so I started driving towards a local hotel. Finally, I asked why she threw him out, and in a low whisper, barely audible he said: she killed Admiral Halsey. I asked him to repeat himself, thinking surely, I misheard him.

“She KILLED the admiral. I know she did.”

My first thought, after years of watching too many detective series, was that we needed to get to the police and we needed to report this. I was excited about the prospect of being involved in the caper.

“Wait. Did you say, Admiral Halsey?” I asked.

The man nodded.

“Like…from the Paul McCartney song?”

“I named him after it. He’s my cat.” He said irritated at me for not catching on quicker. “That vile woman murdered my cat, I KNOW she did.”

Here’s the part of the story where I should have gone, you know what? I’m out. This guy is unhinged and I do not need him in my car. Did I mention that I would later marry this man? I drove him to his office where he had a murder investigation spread out on his wall with red yarn, crime scene photos, and pictures of the late Admiral Halsey in a bow tie. I sat in his office for the better part of an hour listening to his deductions. You know what? I think she did kill his cat and I was going to help him prove it.