The Little Girl And The Moth

Noa sat beneath the lamp, humming a song with no words. The bulb above her buzzed faintly, casting a dull circle of light that barely pushed back the shadows. It made the rest stop look like a little island. The shelter was empty but for her, the bench, the vending machine, the trash bin with its melted lid, and the moth.

...

The moth had come for the light, as they always do. A big one, at least for a moth. His wings, like burnished cloth, struck the bulb with what must have once been grace, or foolishness, or instinct. It was hard to say which.

The light did not blink; the moth did not scream. He only fell in a slow spiral and he landed right into Noa’s hands.

“I think you broke,” she said softly.

The moth opened his eyes—silver pinpricks in the fuzz of his head—and replied in a voice like dry paper folding.

“I was already broken, girl. That was just the punctuation.”

She blinked. Looked at him, then at her hands, then back. The moth did not vanish. This wasn’t pretend.

“You can talk?”
“Briefly,” he said curtly. “Don’t get attached.” She cupped him gently and stood.

“I don’t know what moths eat,” she admitted. “We don’t eat,” he said. “We dissolve.”

She paused. “That sounds sad.”
“It’s not. It’s simple. Much better than chewing.”

He winced as she sat and shifted him in her palm. One of his wings hung crookedly, like a flag in low wind.

“I could find sugar water,” she offered. “Maybe there’s some in the bin. People throw things out. I can check.”

He made a dry chittering sound that might have been laughter.

“You want to feed a dying moth a king’s banquet?”

“I’ve done stranger.”

The moth stared at her for quite some time and simply receded into a reply “Somehow, I believe that.”

The silence sat comfortably between them for a moment. Then he said, quieter, “Why aren’t you home?”

She scratched at a faded scab on her knuckle. “I am. Sort of. The rest stop is kind of like home. You’re not supposed to stay, but no one can make you leave, either.”

“Hmm.” He adjusted, barely, in her palm. “And your parents?” “Are somewhere else.”
“That’s vague.”
“I don’t like talking about things that hurt,” she said simply. The moth clicked his mandibles. “Then we’ll talk about mine.” “Oh?”

He tilted his head, or seemed to. “I used to live in a cathedral of night. Velvet leaves. Star-milk in the air. I was radiant. The last of the pale-winged monarchs, they said. Our bloodline touched by moons.”

“That sounds made up,” she said, but her eyes were wide.

“It is,” he admitted. “Mostly. But it’s prettier than the truth.”

“How about a name?” she asked.

“Names are for the living.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“It’s practical,” he said. “You name things you expect to keep.”

The moth was quiet for a moment. “Noa. It suits you,” he added.

She grinned. A small, real one and they both fell quiet again.

She leaned back, looked up. The stars were mostly drowned by the lamp behind her, but one or two poked through.

“Do you miss flying?” she asked.
He didn’t answer at first. Then: “I miss not knowing I would fall.” “Was it worth it?” she asked.
“The fall?”
“The flight.”
He tilted gently, as if considering. “Ask me again in a minute.”
...
He grew quieter as the night wore on.

At first, he would still quip, still scoff at her stories of school lunches, of pretending to be invisible in crowded rooms, of hiding the bruises with long sleeves and a smile. But after some hours, he spoke less, and when he did, his voice trembled like ash.

She brought him a grape soda cap filled with sugar water. She stirred it with her pinkie until it fizzed and quieted.

He sniffed it and said, “Fit for a funeral,”

She watched him drink, fascinated. His tongue unrolled like a ribbon, trembling. He lapped slowly, cautiously—too proud to admit how much he needed it.

But the way he steadied himself against the curve of the cap made it obvious. “Do you think it hurts?” she asked.
“What.”
“Dying.”

He tilted toward her fingers. “Only if someone’s holding on too hard.” She frowned. “Then I won’t.”

But she did. She kept him close. Tucked in her pocket. Whispered to him even when he slept. The air grew cooler, and the sky threatened dawn with its first breath of gray.

She wrapped him in tissue from a crumpled napkin. She looked at him for a long time. His wings had dulled, and his eyes didn’t reflect the light anymore.

The girl curled on the bench, the moth tucked beneath her chin, his body growing stiller by the hour.

Just before dawn, he spoke, barely more than a whisper caught in the fabric. “You were a good friend.”
“So were you.”

“I’d fly again,” he said, “if it meant landing here.” He gave a final breath that sounded like a hum. Then he was still.
...

Noa stayed like that until the light turned orange with morning. Then she stood, placed the moth, she now named Ember, in the empty sugar cap, and buried him beneath the mulch behind the vending machine. She used a popsicle stick she found as a headstone. It leaned to one side, but it stood.

Before she left, she whispered, "Rest, coal-heart. I’ll burn a little longer for both of us." And then she walked home. Or somewhere like it.

Tricia Lois writes as a celebration of aliveness, the odd, the aching and the in-between. She lives among a stack of half-read books and writes for the sheer joy of it. Her favorite things to write live in the small and meek details of daily life.