The Moths – by Gillian Britton
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
On the first morning of the moths there was very little rain. Other invaders had seemed formed of the rain, but the moths seeped in as if formed of stone or air. They appeared in the storm cellar, where Kepi was laying down bottles of the juice they had made from seaweed and nettles – surprisingly flavoursome. The moths were suddenly there, flapping ghosts of pale smoke grey that sent Kepi shrieking back up to the surface. When she took Meno down for a look – creeping quietly, peeking down from the top of the stairs – the moths had mostly shredded themselves on the coarse stone walls, leaving soft traces, like chalk markings. Black, wingless bodies covered the stone floor, some still writhing. But they died quickly.
So what was the point of all that, Kepi wanted to know. Meno shrugged and mumbled something about repointing the stonework. Meno was rarely enlivened by any event. They went down again later and together swept up all the dead, crustaceous bodies. They burned them, to be safe, in a drum outside. They stood over the drum and watched the fire take those bodies, turn them briefly into flaming wicks, then devour them. But would the remaining ashes contain enough of their spores to recreate them? In these times, it was hard to know. Certainly Kepi worried, but that was Kepi’s way. Someone had to worry, didn’t they, to keep them alive?
“They stood over the drum and watched the fire take those bodies, turn them briefly into flaming wicks, then devour them. But would the remaining ashes contain enough of their spores to recreate them?”
Meno repointed the stonework to calm Kepi, using a special concoction of clay and salt, these being the only two possible substances they had on hand. And for ages there were no moths. They forgot about them. Then, one morning, the moths appeared again, riding the thick summer air currents, skittering across the drifts, their wings as insubstantial as clouds, their bodies a black, biting menace this time, for they had caught Kepi and Meno in the garden, among the cabbages, and attached themselves, and would not let go. Thankfully, Vesta heard the commotion and travelled from among the trees and let out a great long exhalation which blew the moths away towards the sea. They flapped off happily enough. They had drifted off course, perhaps. Their arrival was not personal.
All the same, Kepi and Meno were covered in small wounds, to which they applied salt. The wounds healed quickly, but still. Consulting the field, they discovered that across the eons moths had been considered both portent and nuisance. Kepi fretted. Meno shrugged. No use fussing about moths; there was work to do. Vesta kept an eye out, being head and shoulders above the trees. Vesta was more of the trees than of Kepi and Meno, such was the nature of genes in these times. The trees thrummed, and Vesta among them. It was a kind of sex, although what would come of it, nobody knew, least of all Kepi and Meno. The field had nothing to offer on the subject.
Kepi and Meno got on with their work. The cabbages. The nettles. They were hoping for a kind of berry; they were coaxing it to life through complex grafting and sheer hope. Then there was the seaweed to gather and lay out to dry. And the salt to harvest. Sometimes they swam in the warm sea at the end of the long days, or went in search of Vesta. They marvelled at Vesta – what a creation! – they were in awe of what they had done there. They laughed to think of Kepi laid low during the incubation and opening wide to reveal the otherness which was Vesta, slipping out of that wet cave like a loose assemblage of constituents, ready to map themselves onto whatever world they found, taking immediately to the air and the trees, while Kepi’s nipples spurted irrelevant milk. They loved to tell these stories to Vesta but Vesta, like offspring all through the ages, wasn’t interested. Vesta was living a life they barely comprehended; times were changing that quickly, as times always had. But they knew they were of the doomed variety. The compulsion to individuate had nearly destroyed them as a species. Vesta on the other hand – there was nothing of Vesta that was not also of her surroundings, nothing that was purely Vesta. And it was a better world for that, they understood. They were lucky to be here, bearing witness to the implosion of life which had followed the near decimation of their species. An immense humility accompanied their existence now, which brought its own immense happiness. Often, out in the garden, they were moved to sing, but could barely find the words, for the old words were done with, except for the most practical of purposes, naming and so forth. But still, there was the urge to sing. They needed a language like Vesta’s but seemed unable to learn it. So they quelled their urges, mostly, and were silent.
“Often, out in the garden, they were moved to sing, but could barely find the words, for the old words were done with, except for the most practical of purposes, naming and so forth. But still, there was the urge to sing.”
And so were the moths silent on the morning they returned. They gathered themselves up from the bog and flapped in perfect accord, as of one intelligence, toward the bed of specially dried and thrashed seaweed fibres where Kepi and Meno lay, out in the open where they liked to sleep, there being only the cellar inside, which dripped with a residue of suspect constitution, the stones having borne all the ages of human depravity, in times when humans were defined as such – as human – and as of some self-impressed significance as a species.
Here though, on their brittle bed, Kepi and Meno are not significant. Look at how easily the moths devour them. No more personal than maggots, whose art is so remarkable for its transformative zeal. So too the moths provide such a performative act of cleansing that even Vesta, venturing out from among the trees, must accede to its purity. And it is hardly erasure. They are singing now. Hear them? They are not gone. They will never be gone. The earth hums – hear it? – where the spores of them are still, becoming. ▼
Image: Eva Funderburgh, detail from Swarm
If you liked this piece, please share it. And please consider donating or subscribing so that we can keep supporting writers and artists.