The Last Mutterings of a Meager Moth in Passing

The Last Mutterings of a Meager Moth in Passing

Stepping out past the backdoor of his home, and out onto the wooden planks of his porch, the man caught sight of the meagerest mite of a moth turned up upon its back atop one of the long, thick slats of its flooring — fluttering its tarnished and torn wings and pedaling its many legs upwards in the warming breezes of the early spring air.

Leaning close to its tiny frame, he gently asked of the meager moth how it had come to lay in such a place in such an obvious state of complaint.

“Oh, hello kind sir, I didn’t notice you there at first,” it muttered meekly, “my senses being not worth a nit these last few hours. Oh, well,” the meager moth lightly chuckled, musing ruefully to itself.

“Well,” it finally said after a time in answer to the man’s question, “I suppose it must have been when I began to feel so terribly tired that I thought it best to rest my weary wings for a spell, only to feel a great lassitude steal upon me once I had landed — the will of which has rendered my form in the current condition under which you find me,” the meager moth explained at length, sighing heavier yet with each successive syllable it said.

“But if you are taking your rest, why do you shiver and shudder your fine wings and graceful legs distressingly so?” The man asked urgently, fearful as he was of the frenzied fits he saw in the small frame of the meager moth.

The meager moth took a while to respond as its will seemed to ebb down a further decline. “I am not sure I can say,” the meager moth finally replied, haltingly. “I just found myself growing ever more restless in my growing fatigue,” the meager moth said — the final words all but murmurs to the man’s ears.

“Is there not but anything I can do to offset the diss ease of your unrest?” The man asked, hungry for something to do to relieve the sufferings of the meager moth.

“No, no, just leave me to my rest. I feel the flames of my spirit being called upwards to that great candlelight in the sky, feeling as I do as light as a single one of my scales…It won’t be long now.” The meager moth’s words now but the merest of whispers — the man knelt down low to hear them said. 

“Come now, when I look at your lovely wings, the graceful curlicue of your antennae, and the elegance of your form, I see not but the spring of youth glowing about your person,” the man said kindly, trying to shore up the meager moth’s will with a bit of well-meaning flattery.

Despite itself, the flame of the meager moth’s will surfaced for but a moment with a light chuckle and blush — the vanity of life briefly suffusing its form. “While your fulsome praise does shower my pride with a bit of warmth, even the untrained eye of the blind could see that the scales of my youth have long past fallen,” her wavering voice warmly smiled before quickly quieting once more.

It was some moments before the meager moth could summon the strength to speak again.

“You’ll have to forgive me kind sir, but I feel my long-awaited rest coming upon me,” it struggled to get out.

The man, seeing the sad and piteous state of the meager moth could do nothing but watch the scales slip slowly from its eyes.

“Forgive me for disturbing your rest this last time, but to do honor by your life, might there be some family relations through which I could pass on your final words?” the man humbly beseeched.

“Family?”, she asked, her meager frame once more suffused with the warm glow of life.

“Yes, did you have one?” the man asked kindly. 

“Oh, yes,” she replied brightly, “many an hour did I fondly spend tending to the fine and handsome brood of my family — instructing them as I did so in the proper ways and doings of life,” she said, the flames of joy exuded from her meager person in the warmth of her words.

“Did you have many little mother?” the man inquired curiously, with admiration filling his words.

“As many as my meager frame could muster,” the meager moth said proudly as she fanned out wide the fine topiary of her wings as if to enfold all of their invisible forms.

The man could do not but stare in quiet wonder at the good little life this meager mite of a moth had lived as the flame of life continued to leave her frame. But, being fearful of not being able to relay her last words before she passed, urged her on one last time to tell him the words of her soul — so he could pass them on to those who needed to know.

“Oh, my child,” she said with the most heart-rending tenderness, “they all already know by heart what those words would be. But you, for you they might be new.”

“Remember this then, my child, it is not the heights to which we rise in our lonely quest for that great candlelight in the sky, that matters, but the warmth for a time we but borrow from it, to share its blessings with the one’s for whom we care…Remember this my child…” And so saying, the shallow flutterings of the meager moth’s fine wings suddenly ceased before quickly descending into place — wrapping her up in the burial shroud of their soft folds as they neatly entombed her tiny breast.

“Yes,” the man said faithfully and solemnly, with the brimmings of tears rimming his words, “I will remember your words little mother.” Gently scooting her tiny fragile form into the palm of his hand, the man walked out to the garden, knelt down, and scooping off a tiny bit of soil from atop the earth, tenderly laid the still figure of the meager moth down in her meager grave. 

Pushing the pile of upturned dirt gently over the frozen form of the meager moth, the man said a somber prayer, stood up and gently brushed away the clay from his pants, and, bent low by his lonely musings, walked forth with the heaviest of tread while muttering to himself once more, “Yes, I will remember your words little mother.” before quietly adding, “and I will always remember you.”

The Lowly Spider

The Lowly Spider

One day a man happened to spy a tiny creature meandering its way across his lands. But not an inch in diameter, the slowly skittering creature proudly walked on the stilts of its eight legs across the plained pineboard floors, warming its many legs before the hearth of the man’s fire.

At first frightened by the sight of its form, the man soon collected himself and knelt down to look at the thing closely, to see if it be friend or foe. The small, lowly spider, suddenly sensing the presence of something much greater than itself, froze apprehensively in its tracks. 

With its markings clear as day, the man spoke to the lowly wolf spider and asked why it had trespassed into the man’s lands.

“These be your lands?” The lowly spider innocently asked. “If I had but known, I would have announced my presence sooner.”

“Be that as it may, I will now kindly ask you to quickly quit yourself of the premises,” the man replied calmly.

“Do we not but share these lands; Could not the vast wealth of which easily provide for the both of us?” the spider implored.

“While your point holds a certain measure of merit, the sharing of my lands, I am sorry to say, is not an agreement to which I can abide,” the man firmly responded.

“Have a heart kind sir, I am but a lowly spider that wishes you no harm, one who does not but serve to keep these lands free of the pests and vermin that mottle it so,” the lowly spider proudly announced, standing as tall as its stilts could stretch.

“While I may hold a certain respect and place of honor for your contributions, it is the very heart of me that keeps my hand from doing you harm. No, no, you must leave,” the man mournfully added.

“But why do you seek to cast me outside of these lands?” The lowly spider asked, pleadingly.

“Because the aspect of your being frightens me so, and I tremble at the thought of what I should do, should I happen to meet with your intrusion upon my person once again,” the man said, looking down at his hands as he slowly balled them into fists.

“Though be the lowly form in which you discover me, am I not but a child of creation just the same as you? Does that not afford me the same decencies to life?” The lowly spider resentfully asked, defensively curling in the pads of its feet in bald, rising frustration.

“Sure it does, just not on my lands,” the man said matter-of-factly, deflating the defense and measure of the lowly spider’s sense of self-worth as he slowly relaxed his posture.

“Tell me sir, is there a one above you, and above all whom stands?” The lowly spider humbly asked.

The man took a measure of time to ponder over this question before shaking his head and replying. “Yes, there is…of a nature,” he added offhandedly.

“Does this One covet things as do you?” the lowly spider cleverly asked.

“Your case does not fare well with these name-callings and recriminations of my character,” the man, in an angry huff, spluttered out.

“I merely asked but a humble question, one that should have been easy enough for you to answer,” the spider coyly replied. 

“And I merely wish to rid you of my lands and the premises of my person,” the irritated man said, suddenly shooing the lowly spider away with the snap of his wrist.

The lowly spider, startled by the sudden movement, ran for the soft comfort and security of the thick, high-piled rug upon which the man stood, only to be sent backpedaling as a great unseen gust of wind pushed it back out onto the pineboard flooring.

The lowly spider, taking up a defensive posture against the sudden encroachment of this invisible adversary, was blown off of its feet once again — not but a leaf in the great gale. As soon as it had righted itself, it took to its heels in haste towards the gently ajar door, putting distance between itself and the man, the one from whom, the lowly spider realized, the tempests had issued forth.

But try as he might to move forward from his position, the lowly spider could do nothing to stand against the man’s great spells of wind as it continued to be pushed ever closer to the boundary portal that hedged in the man’s lands.

The lowly spider, turning now to directly face the man, stoping him short with its audacious show of defiance, asked, “if the great One under whom we both serve covets nothing unto itself, but merely allots to each their needs, how is it that you have come into possession of such a great and vast wealth?” The lowly spider asked querulously. 

“These and all of these things have been rendered unto my need and care by the force of my will,” the man’s voice rumbled forth ominously.

The lowly spider looked around at the great unused wealth that lay at the man’s disposal, piled up like lifeless bars of unspent gold in the eyes of the lowly spider.

“Is your need then not but an extension of your want?” the lowly spider asked incredulously. “I feel we do not share the same relation to the One under whom we both serve, the very thought of which fills me with despair,” the lowly spider, downcast muttered mournfully low.

“Come now, these arguments of yours are really too much.” The man, tiring of the discussion and wanting to put a final end to it, said, with finality, “It’s time for you to go,” as he pulled into his lungs a great breath of wind and expelled it out at the lowly spider, flipping it onto its back, and finally shoving it rudely a tumble into the lands beyond — the great gate to the man’s lands squealing ponderously to a close behind the upturned form of the lowly spider.

The lowly spider, finally pulling itself upright and dusting itself off, bleakly looked around itself as the hoary frost of the wintery air nipped cruelly at the pads of its legs. In the cold loneliness of winter, in great sadness and weeping all the while at the unjustness of the man — though nonetheless commending him unto the One above just the same — the lowly spider crept itself into a dark, unseen crevice, where it patiently nursed the small kernel of faith it held in the One for the bringing of better times.