The Moth-man probably

Terrible night. I spend the day on my own, but for butting neighbour, and do a fair amount of writing. It's rambling, shapeless and repetitive but it's well over the ten thousand words and I feel like I have barely scraped the surface of what I want to say. I will be scratching away at this for some time but it is, if nothing else, a labour of love.

I don't drink. A mistake as it turns out. The moths have been flocking into the house again. As I went to brush my teeth I thought I saw a figure in the mirror as I turned and looked it was not a figure but an enormous shit-brown, dirt-caked moth. This thing had weight. I'd need a shovel to take the fucker out. I err on the side of caution and slowly open the window and turn off the light, closing the door behind me, reasoning that with the temptations of the real world outside my bathroom would seem very slim pickings to your average moth. I don't know what they eat (children's breath? bad dreams?) but I'll wager they wouldn't thrive on a diet of toothpaste and pubes.

I go back to the bedroom. The moth is there; black as a keyhole on my pale curtains. Quietly terrified I trot back to the bathroom. The mirror moth is no longer there - it has somehow passed through the door and into the bedroom. I've had enough of this and crack at it with a towel but have no impact on its armoured shoulders. It lifts listlessly into the air - and down the back of my bed. I wait to see what happens. Moths seems to have taken on a peculiar significance recently and this Moriarty moth, this pumped up dinosaur moth is now my mortal enemy. But still it's three in the morning and I have guests coming later. The moth does nothing. I clamber into bed and attempt sleep. Sleep doesn't come. I toss and turn. I stare wide eyed into the darkness of the room, watching the accelerated diurnal lights of the cars move across the ceiling. Then I hear it; a crunching, rustling sound, like someone unwrapping a toffee during the quiet part of the film. It's moving! Is it eating? What's it doing? How can it weigh that much that I can hear its movements? How can it way that much and fly? Is that why it's walking now? Is it still growing, growing under my bed?

I leap out of bed and go and sleep in the spare room I had prepared for Jess' visit. I'm asleep by 6 and given to dreams of dread and oppression.


* * * * * *


Jess doesn't come in the end. She arrived at Stanstead feeling sick and anxious and as if she were going to faint and then goes straight back home again. Which is clearly the right thing to do - the baby has to come first. And frankly if I'd had the brains to work out she was seven months pregnant I would have put her off completely! Seven months? That girls a nutter! Take care, Jess. Or better be taken care of!