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Ivan could not remember a time before the five legged moth.
The moth was a fragile little thing – white stained glass wings torn in so many places that it couldn’t fly, one seeking antennae bent out of shape, its five remaining legs scrabbling wildly for purchase at the base of a discarded plastic jar.
If not for the flickering street sign by its side and the neon light reflected from the dust coming off its frantic broken wings, he would’ve missed it.
Later, under more steady light, Ivan would realise its fifth leg was abandoned in the muck at the bottom of the plastic jar he brought it home in.
Poor five legged moth.
What was it like, to yearn for something badly enough to break itself over? What was it like, for circumstances to stop being something endured, and instead to be overcome?
What was it like, to be so consumed by the light, until nothing else remained?
Back then, in Ivan’s short life, there were few things he knew, but there were also a certain few things he knew, too – that he couldn’t understand the aimless, futile struggle of this little insect; that being human, sometimes, meant that it was simply easier to accept it, and live through it.
Ivan only found out what it was called years after he’d been given back his name, his meals, and his warmth – a meteor shower. It wasn’t a regular occurrence; a stray asteroid being obliterated into countless shards, burned to naught in an unforgiving atmosphere.
He remembered the sight of those glowing specks, like glowing dust lifting off a moth’s wing, rising out of nowhere and up towards the horizon marred by rusty broken buildings. It was the most beautiful sight, like any moment if he shook his leg free he would rise with them, to meet them at the end of the world.
There were a few things that were for certain, in Ivan’s short, pathetic life – that life was wretched, and life was futile – that like his moth he was merely a bug to masters who couldn’t understand the allure of the void from which stars fell and burned.
Ivan didn’t know why other children always said their favorites were the panting dogs, or the purring cats, or why they called him weird for liking ants, or slugs, or the moths and their vacant eyes – after all, sometimes, gazing into a mirror, he saw them in him, too. He didn’t know why humans were bugs, and why they were all living in pretty glass jars – only the fact that they did, and they had to endure.
He remembered one particular girl pushing him into the dirt after she’d seen him picking at a brightly coloured butterfly – how she’d glared at him like he was scum, even though the insect was still alive and clawing at the loam. The other children had stared, and stared, even after the creature stopped moving, and he gathered the pieces of the broken butterfly in a pile, as if it could put itself back together and magically come back to life, and he realised then, that he couldn’t tell anyone else about his moth, or how brightly he had made it burn.
He only found out the boy’s name after enough time passed and he kept his hands to himself – Till. It came on the end of a swear, directed at a boy yanked across the serene grass by his strangling silver collar,
and Ivan realised it was familiar;
– the boy flinging himself against his keepers, baring fangs, drawing blood, fighting tooth and nail for his life, his freedom, all things Ivan knew the names for but never how they felt, or what they meant –
Ivan had only ever seen aliens, humans, and creatures that lived, and endured, and tolerated. His moth had ripped its own wing out from under Ivan’s nail where he’d had it pinned in its mindless struggle towards a nearby candle, and then later clambered on the finger covered with its slime and dust when he turned the jar.
For the first time, Ivan wanted to reach his hands out and touch –
His flame, his falling star.
There were things he knew, like how if he shook the jar in water just right, he could force the moth into a smaller and smaller and smaller shape, until there was nothing left but a shimmering veil of faintest bubbles clinging to the fine hairs of its entire body. It never seemed to die, and Ivan could never rid it fully of its air. It never seemed to fear the second bout of water, or register that he was the one turning the faucet or sealing the lid shut.
Sometimes, back then, he used his hands; other times, a stick or a pen.
All insects lived and died the same; they endured, and endured, until they could endure no more.
Till fought, even though it was so much easier to endure.
Ivan learned this abruptly one day, when he touched Till’s neck for the first time and the boy had reacted out of instinct and panic, and it had given Ivan a thrill unlike anything else, to see something so big and alive struggling to get free, using everything he had, his teeth, his hands, his voice –
Oh, his voice.
Ivan remembered it keenly – the throbbing in his neck, pulsing in time to the thin vein shining through Till’s translucent skin –
He knew what it meant, in the same faint, distant way he’d regarded those falling stars – Anger. Rage. Disgust. Words supplied to fit the situation, words for things he’d never truly feel for himself.
Ivan was stronger, he had always been, but that didn’t stop Till from fighting, even though it was so, so much easier to endure.
It made him realise;
Till was different – from insects, from other aliens or people or other living things,
from Ivan,
from the fire that fell from the sky.
Ivan knew few things in his short pathetic life, and made use of it – it was how he learned that Till had his own stars to count at night, and they didn’t include Ivan, or anything in the least related. How Till’s keepers preferred him drugged, or unconscious, and how it confirmed his thoughts that it was simply easier to keep his head down. How certain aliens were just large, hulking, slobbering insects that followed trails of honey or turned towards the light; and how despite staring into the maw of certain death,
Ivan had only ever seen creatures and living things that lived, and endured,
but Till fought –
until one day,
he stopped.
Ivan never knew light could scald, or how cold his blood could run –
He learned this one day when Till’s star disappeared, leaving a man perfectly dressed on stage, a perfect doll.
And Till’s voice… oh, his voice.
Ivan didn’t know much, but he knew how to pretend, to draw the spotlights to him, away from the flame flickering weakly in the rain, as if any moment, it would bend, and go out –
Till, your voice.
And after Ivan, only silence followed.
Till, you –
Ivan thought about his jar, and his moth, and his fire –
There were a few things he knew in his short, wretched, pathetic life. That this was how it would end, and there was no better way. That this was selfish, and shallow, and wrong, but nothing had ever made him feel so whole, as lightning crashed by overhead, and rain mixed with the taste of Till’s saliva and sweat and blood. That when Ivan fastened his hands around Till’s neck it still throbbed the same way he remembered, except it felt different this time, with the hammering in Ivan’s chest –
Till had endured, and could endure no more.
Ivan’s hands shook, from exertion, from pain, he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t feel his breath, his hands, his shoulder; his flame was dying, and he was trapped on the other side of a scratched plastic jar;
and as his world narrowed to nothing but the horror in Till’s eyes, he remembered his five legged moth,
and how after he’d let it burn up on a smoldering candle, he’d squashed the pitiful melted thing with his thumb, and wiped its dust on whatever was nearby –
and he felt it then, keenly, a feeling that could perhaps have been called sorrow? For once? A few long moments, condensed into his being, like a falling star,
Sorrow
For a boy that couldn’t lie
For a boy who couldn’t cry
For a moth that could never fly,
for a creature destined to die.