the massacrist of moths
Everyday I wake up to a massacre. My morning sleepyheaded-ness coincides with killing en masse. Grains of coarsely ground coffee in hot water yield to gravity in the french press while I eye my prey. It's like an artsy music video. Each day, sometimes before going to bed too, I kill soft bodies.
With a valid excuse as foolproof as an EU passport, I meticulously wipe away the larvae on the ceiling. At any given moment of inspection there are at least ten, eleven of them. By the upper corners, near the blinds, over the sofa we had no place for, nor could throw away that blocks the entrance of the kitchen…
This killing is legitimate, I repeat like mantra. The wiggly worms are delicate. Frankly I put my life on the line by getting on the wobbly chair and swiping a wet paper towel gently over one so as not to smear the contents of the tiny immature body on the whitewashed ceiling. When they are captured intact, I take pride in my insectarian efforts. I am an empathetic human. They can live in the garbage can. They can be stored there another eight hours till the garbage is disposed. Then they are free to climb other ceilings if they will or dwindle down or reproduce like they nonchalantly do. Just not in my dutifully rent-paid cubical territory. I came here first.
The grown moths are a messier affair. There is no plump pale squirminess to them. They fly away. They stain my hands with powdery residue from their wings. Their carcass is an alien and with their physical advantage of defying gravity they go against my kind hearted let live. They must die. Either they overtake or I see them to oblivion with a cruel, cartoonish smile. I am a villain with a cause and a carte blanche to exterminate. No moth messes with a massacrist. The world, after all, is immense. Why can't they just go back to where they came from? It is the fault of the oatmeal.
Every now and then I see a larva making its way down the wall into the areas where I roam with my rightful presence. Possessing no navigation tools but a will to do as I do, it seems enchanted by the crumbs of my earlier feastings. Where it came to be -I assume it's behind the radiator's pipes- there was no such abundance. It simply wanted a better lifestyle. It wanted bits of our hard earned wealth. I scoop it a little too fast and it curls in the paper towel staining it as if it were jelly. It parishes. Nothing to feel guilty about, it's just an unlucky hazard. In such moments of awkward collateral damage I get a little sentimental. A perfect creation's perfect transformation is interrupted in my hand. Then I remember Estella in Great Expectations:
With a valid excuse as foolproof as an EU passport, I meticulously wipe away the larvae on the ceiling. At any given moment of inspection there are at least ten, eleven of them. By the upper corners, near the blinds, over the sofa we had no place for, nor could throw away that blocks the entrance of the kitchen…
This killing is legitimate, I repeat like mantra. The wiggly worms are delicate. Frankly I put my life on the line by getting on the wobbly chair and swiping a wet paper towel gently over one so as not to smear the contents of the tiny immature body on the whitewashed ceiling. When they are captured intact, I take pride in my insectarian efforts. I am an empathetic human. They can live in the garbage can. They can be stored there another eight hours till the garbage is disposed. Then they are free to climb other ceilings if they will or dwindle down or reproduce like they nonchalantly do. Just not in my dutifully rent-paid cubical territory. I came here first.
The grown moths are a messier affair. There is no plump pale squirminess to them. They fly away. They stain my hands with powdery residue from their wings. Their carcass is an alien and with their physical advantage of defying gravity they go against my kind hearted let live. They must die. Either they overtake or I see them to oblivion with a cruel, cartoonish smile. I am a villain with a cause and a carte blanche to exterminate. No moth messes with a massacrist. The world, after all, is immense. Why can't they just go back to where they came from? It is the fault of the oatmeal.
Every now and then I see a larva making its way down the wall into the areas where I roam with my rightful presence. Possessing no navigation tools but a will to do as I do, it seems enchanted by the crumbs of my earlier feastings. Where it came to be -I assume it's behind the radiator's pipes- there was no such abundance. It simply wanted a better lifestyle. It wanted bits of our hard earned wealth. I scoop it a little too fast and it curls in the paper towel staining it as if it were jelly. It parishes. Nothing to feel guilty about, it's just an unlucky hazard. In such moments of awkward collateral damage I get a little sentimental. A perfect creation's perfect transformation is interrupted in my hand. Then I remember Estella in Great Expectations:
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