The moths think they are butterflies. They have never seen themselves in a mirror; they fly around the room, their wings whispering “I am beautiful, look, look, I am gorgeous.”
I can feel the moths brush on my skin, I sense the slight dust left on me when they depart. I don’t mind. They don’t know. They land on my hands, holding them, they make themselves into necklaces for me, flitting about in a circle around my neck, they sit on my shoulders and tell me stories of beautiful things.
I wish I could see the beautiful things the moths see. Through kaleidoscoped eyes everything is a magnificent painting: colors dancing, real-life objects turned into waving patterns of fractals. Nothing is real to the moths. They don’t see things as concrete, there is nothing to be taken seriously as to them life is nothing but a game.
The moths are real. They understand more about the human’s world than we do ourselves. I think the moths like me, they seem to never stop grazing my goose-bump ridden skin. I feel like I am a lightbulb in a dark room to them. I can feel so much energy pulsating through me, I must be exhaling florescent lights in place of the words that I feel I should be speaking out loud. Any words at all, the flow of captivating conversation will never be less than blissful.
But the moths can’t speak to me. They can’t hear my voice. They don’t need to, they understand.
These petite, grey-shaded, winged insects understand more than most walking, talking human beings. I can feel my connection to them like a static in the air, raising the fine hairs on the back of my neck. They travel to the brightest of places, and mentally, I am flying with them. We bond, through pure understanding of the other, coexisting blissfully knowing we are in the company of creatures with whom we are guaranteed a buzzing sense of community. We are the same creatures; at this moment I cannot understand why human beings continue to take totalitarian power over all other living things. Don’t they see that they are not threatened?
It is astonishing how our species sits on a throne, screened to the one glaring advantage the rest of living beings have over us. Humans communicate greedily, so much more than is necessary, on a massive scale and with such complications that miscommunications occur frequently, evoking emotion-driven actions against others whom we feel have wronged us. The moths don’t take revenge, and the trees never would act out unreasonably.
The other creatures continue to be ever-more calm and rational than us, understanding how to remain content at all times. They only stand in the background watching patiently, leaving all others to their own peace, and giddily accepting those of us who decide to venture into the wood and lay with them. Beginning a journey into the woods means losing all faith we had in humankind. That is replaced with a comforting wholeness we feel in ourselves. We must offer ourselves up to the trees, the sun, the mammals, the amphibians, every last biological structure right down to the moths. They welcome us to their world because they know we are the few who understand, who are completely willing to become one with them.
It is a backwards world I am living in. The ones I cannot speak to understand me. Those who can, use their ill-learned language to criticize and resent me as I fly, mentally, away from the corruption that has become normal.
But I don’t care. I’m reaching into the depths of my mind and and learning to understand the human brain in every way it works. I am going on explorations more beautiful than ever perceived as possible by the outsiders. I have souvenirs by the handful: a constellation painted in my mind, a stray cloud I picked up on my way home, a *** leaf flower-pressed in an orange and blue book, a notebook filled with our own kind of knowledge, friends who have found me in these woods, with whom I possess a happy-go-lucky unity unscathed by normal human tendencies, and an alternate breed of knowledge that lives peacefully yet thirstily in every cell of my glowing body.
The moths feel all of this. We become one with each other because I have become content with myself; those who walk in the woods possess no intent to hurt and the moths feel safe. Those who walk in the woods do not walk; we fly.
16 hours later.
I awake and there are no moths. There is no trace of them. There are no trees, no flowers; the alternate world I imagined is mockingly false. The forest is no longer vivid, for it has been hidden behind clouds of smog. The vibrant lights I once saw coming from my mouth are no longer animating my words.
In the morning this society I exist in is still mind-numbingly dull. But mentally, I am perpetually flying.
