Tag: moths

I like to think we’ve become dab hands at murdering the moths that encroach upon our expensively-rented-but-decidedly-modest flat.

We have all manner of trap and deterrent about the place. We’re also swift at smiting them the old-fashioned way when they’re not wearing their invisibility cloaks.

This morning, however, I spotted a moth in the base of our wardrobe. I pressed him with my index finger, which is usually enough to obliterate their fragile insect bodies but something about the action didn’t feel right.

I’m not talking about morality here. What I mean is that it didn’t feel right, physically, on the pad of my finger. I’ve become so accustomed to moth murder that I could tell by touch that his soul had already left his body and fluttered away to Moth Afterlife.

(I very much hope Moth Afterlife is a different place to people afterlife. I do not want any kind of reunion, thanks.)

I tend to assume, optimistically it seems, that we kill the moths shortly after hatching, but today’s moth had clearly died of old age. I hope he was happy living out his golden years in the Moth Florida of my silken suit linings. Moths tend to shit silk though, don’t they? It’s equals-pequals really.

AJ from New York is staying over. Kicked back on the chaise this evening, he suddenly sits bolt upright. A moth has landed on his eye.

I don’t say this at the time, but I actually saw the moth en-route. It came up from a gap in the the floorboards and went straight for his eye. Direct flight, no connections.

I still think our rent is too high.

Cooking together in the kitchen, we’re surprised when a clothes moth appears seemingly out of nowhere. We do not dwell on what the little bleeder is doing in the kitchen.

The moth scourge is known to all who live in old Glasgow houses and, while they’re easy to smite when you catch them in repose, they’re surprisingly difficult to twat in mid-air.

They have a crazy tendency to turn invisible (perhaps the light hits their wings a certain way or they fly too close to your eye or something) so once they’ve got your attention, they hold it for a while as you try to spot them again before they escape. It’s mildly annoying and it happens at least once day.

Tonight’s moth had apparently become invisible to Samara but not yet to me, so when I lunge and squash it against the tiles of the splash guard, I look like a genius. “Your power!” she says, “It’s real!”