I killed a moth in my room last night. For an instant, all I could see were the sweaters that have been ruined and the hole I discovered in the leg of my suit pants, all of my things serving as dinner for a horde of hungry vermin. As I started getting creeped out by the thought of the thousands of eggs hatching into hungry little larvae, a wave of anger hit me. Just as I said, “No fucking way!” I crushed her with my thumb. Marty would have been proud of my smooshing prowess.
Only afterwards did I stop to think that maybe, just maybe, I had killed an innocent. I’m really not sure that she was a moth of the cloth-eating variety. She was completely white, with wings that formed a delicately curved chevron at their rest. In all honesty, she really was quite pretty. There’s nothing left except for this vague sense of regret for destroying something beautiful. I wonder if this is how the Turks felt after sacking Constantinople.
Passion can be a strange and unpredictable motivator.
