Moth wings

Catching moths is surprisingly easy.

I learnt this as a child after my brother cut the palm of my hand open with our dad’s swiss knife. He licked the blade clean and left me to bleed out in our kitchen. Our parents were both out, I can’t remember where but I know we had run out of plasters. Afraid of death, I coated my hand in acacia honey, remembering about its allegedly healing properties, but when I saw that it didn’t stop the blood, I ran out to my neighbour’s house.

I had been lucky to live right next to two nurses. Once the wound had been cleaned and sewed shut with a heartstring, I returned home. But my fingers were still sticky with honey, and my skin still smelled of iron, and before I could reach the front door, a singular moth landed on my thumb.

She had wings of papyrus with a single crimson line running across them, a blood vein, it was called. Its namesake.

I had never seen such a small creature up close, animals seemed to avoid our area. So I studied the moth, looked at her little face, her onyx eyes, and elegant antennae. I was completely mesmerised until she bit me. She licked up the remains of honey from my fingertips and bit into my flesh for she could smell my blood.

I screamed, but she wouldn’t stop. Did moths have ears? I didn’t even know they had mouths, but this one had proved me wrong by trying to feast on me. I did the only thing I could think of to make her stop.

I killed her. I ripped her wings of her body and she let me go. I watched her fall from my hand onto the lawn, where her body would be hidden between blades of grass. I was slowly realising what I had just done, when I looked down at my hands, at my fingers that were still clutching her wings.

In the midst of my hysterics, I told myself I was a murdered, no better than my monstrous, insane brother. I eventually calmed down, but it wouldn’t be for another few years that I would truly learn how to control my emotions.

I thought of what to do. A moth’s body is small, if someone were to find it, they would assume a feral animal had killed her, but if they found her wings, torn from her body lying next to her, it would be clear this was the doing of a human.

Whoever found it would come knocking on our door. We lived in a small neighbourhood, where my family had a reputation, due my sadistic brother, and our parents who’d argue and throw furniture around the house day and night. I was the outlier, quiet, I stayed out of trouble. Even back then I knew that my best chance at getting out of there and away from them was for the world to see that I was different. It was the only reason the nurses next door even let me in. They’d have sent my brother back home to bleed out.

I couldn’t burn the wings; the smoke would attract a crowd and they’d think I was an arsonist in training. I didn’t have time to bury them, I had to be home on time for when they came back. If my parents knew I had left the house without their permission- I don’t even want to think about what would happen.

So I ate them, it was the only way to make them disappear. I Held my nose, tilted my head back and stuck my tongue out to attempt swallowing without tasting them.

But taste them I did, and they tasted of blood.

***

Other winged insects are drawn to honey too: bumble bees, lady birds, dragonflies. For years I’ve used it to coat my hands to attract them. Each one had a different flavour.

 Monarch butterflies and milk aftertastes, Brimstones with their acidic hints, Painted Ladies of bamboo…

I felt awful, but it could be worse, right? It’s only insects, there’s millions of them. Can they even feel pain? It’s not as if I were tearing limbs off deer and feasting on their flesh as they died in front of me.

I’m not my brother.

I can stop whenever I want.