What kind of story would a man write for a moth he met by chance? Or what would the moth write?

CW: A Big Fluffy Bug

While he comes across as a bit clumsy and dopey at first, this moth is far from an ordinary insect. I wanted to explore the idea that intelligence doesn't always need a voice to be felt.

Word Count: 5.8K

Enjoy!

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"Happy New Day"


"March 5th. Sunrise: 07:12. Clear."

I am a maintenance technician for a radio telescope deep in the mountains.

The sun crested the jagged ridge, illuminating the morning mist that had pooled in the basin overnight. Dew clung heavily to the fresh buds on the trees, and the mountain stream seemed to wake up with the morning light, its murmur growing clearer. I pulled on my thick sweater, washed up, and geared up to head out.

To avoid light pollution and radio frequency interference, facilities like these are usually built in deep mountains or natural basins. My job is to maintain the colossal dish and the surrounding infrastructure. As you might imagine, it is a quiet, idle job.

Truth be told, I came here to escape people. Aside from the birds and beasts, my only company here are the astronomers—who, like me, are sparing with their words. I appreciate that. I don't really know what goes on in the minds of the scientists who operate this metal giant. I asked one of them once, and she said they were hunting for pulsars—dead stars that act as lighthouses for ships leaving home forever.

I thought there was something romantic about facing the billion-year-old starlight and the vast cosmos every day. But I often heard them mock their own work: "It's like trying to have a conversation with a deaf old man," they would say, "most of the time you're just analyzing meaningless echoes."

"Isn't that romantic, in some way?" I asked. "Thousands of years ago, we navigated by stars. Thousands of years later, we still do."

She smiled at that, and simply nodded.

"It is the wisdom of civilisation," I said, looking down into the bowl of the telescope, a structure deep as fifty stories. The afterglow of the setting sun spilled over the massive reflective panels, melting the warm gold in cold metal. Fallen blossoms drifted away with the stream, the sky grew dark, and all silence returned to the earth.



"March 5th. Sunset: 18:56. Clear."

My solitary quarters were just a stone's throw from the giant eye. Dinner finished, I settled in, ready to lose myself in a book. That was when I heard it—the distinct clatter of a pole falling in the utility shed outside. I glanced out the window. The shed stood silent in the dark, its door tightly shut.

Probably just the broom, I thought. Maybe I didn't prop it up properly, and a draft tipped it over.

But a moment later, the sound came again. Thud.

"Who's there?" I cracked the window open.

No answer.

Had some small animal slipped into the shed? I remembered leaving the window unlatched this morning to air it out, but there wasn't any food stored in there—nothing that should attract a wild beast. I checked the external surveillance monitors; the screen showed nothing but the gray stillness of the yard.

Still, you don't take chances out here. I threw on my heavy coat and grabbed a flashlight and my stun baton. Just to be sure, I pulled up the thermal imaging data for the perimeter before unlocking my door—everything read normal. The spectrum was cool and blue.

I walked to the shed and pushed against the wooden door. It felt heavy, resisting my shove, likely blocked by whatever had fallen inside. With a shove, I squeezed in and yanked the pull-string switch, turning on the naked bulb.

The room wasn't a total disaster, but the tools I kept leaned against the wall—shovels, pickaxes, laundry poles—were scattered across the concrete floor. I sighed, setting them upright one by one and latching the window tight. I had intended to leave it open for ventilation, but the air in here was thick with a strange odor. It smelled like dried mushrooms mixed with a faint, sickly-sweet floral scent. I didn't know where it was coming from, but I figured a smell like that might invite squirrels or birds if I wasn't careful.

I did a final sweep to ensure everything was in order, then turned back to the door, reaching for the light string to leave.

And there it was.

A colossal moth, with the upright structure of a man, clinging to the back of the door.

Breath died in my throat. He occupied the entire upper panel. Massive. Furry. Motionless.

Under the light, his folded wings formed a triangular cloak of intricate browns. His feathery antennae were frozen stiff. My brain refused to register him as an insect; he looked like a plush nightmare nailed to the wood.

If that thing had been a giant spider, I think I would have simply smashed through the window and thrown myself into the stream. "Steady. Steady." It's part of the job; I've been trained to handle local wildlife. I wasn't afraid of a moth sitting still, and I wasn't afraid of it flying. I was afraid of the split second it went from still to flying.

His antennae twitched.

Panic won. I scrambled out the window.



Back inside my living quarters, I locked the door and leaned against it, panting. That's when I realized my stun baton was still sitting on the desk where I'd left it while checking the thermal scans. Well, lucky it was just a moth-man.

I checked the lock one more time, then finally sat down to brush the dust off my clothes. Now that my heart rate was slowing, reason returned.

I recognized the species. Every summer, we use chemical deterrents to keep them away from the facility. To put it simply, their lives and ours barely intersect. Though they are massive—some standing taller than an adult—they don't hurt people, and they avoid confrontation. More importantly, they don't overpopulate, so they don't strip the forests bare. But a bug is a bug, and bugs don't get along well with precision instruments. We have to drive them off.

It was early spring, though. Why was he here? A broken clock in his blood? A missed date?

I debated grabbing a stick to chase it off, but a lingering unease held me back. It'll probably leave on its own by morning, I told myself. I pulled a field guide from my bookshelf and flipped through the pages.

...Feeds on foliage... harmless to... generally non-aggressive... overwinters as a pupa…

Judging by the patterns on its wings, it seemed to be a male. But the wings were shorter than the illustrations. A subspecies, maybe? I researched for a long time, until the clattering noise from the utility shed started up again.

All right. I had to get him out.

I put my coat back on, grabbed the flashlight, and this time, made sure the stun baton was in my hand.



He was huddled in the corner of the shed now, lying on a pile of canvas tarps we used for covering sandbags, his abdomen pressed to the cold concrete. Sensing my entrance, his head swiveled toward me.

Slowly, I used a laundry pole to push the window open, my eyes never leaving him. He just watched me, turning his head in disjointed, insectoid ticks.

He was definitely a male, and his wings were definitely too short. Usually, an adult's wingspan is proportional to their body length, but his barely reached halfway down his legs. For a split second, I wondered if he was a child—then I scoffed at my own stupidity. Insects don't have "child moths", his childhood was spent as a caterpillar.

I extended the long laundry pole and carefully prodded him.

He watched the bamboo tip approach with almost zero reaction. I poked his wing—no movement. I nudged his furry leg—he retracted all six limbs tighter against his body. Finally, I poked his even furrier butt (I knew it was an abdomen, but in my head, it was a butt). He shivered, the vibration traveling up the bamboo to my hand. But he wouldn't get up.

I stood well back and tried blowing air at him, puffing my cheeks out to see if the draft would startle him into flight. His antennae twitched. Encouraged, I doubled my efforts, blowing until I was dizzy and seeing stars, trying to gust him out the window. He didn't budge an inch, his body remaining anchored to the tarp, though his antennae were waving frantically now.

And so, on this moonless night, in a utility shed next to a colossal radio telescope, we found ourselves in a standoff.

"Look, buddy, just get out, will you?" I was desperate enough to try talking to it. I signaled with my eyes toward the open window. He just stared at me. His two massive, obsidian compound eyes gave nothing away; I couldn't tell if he was looking at my face or some other part of me.

"Fine," I sighed, lowering the pole. "Suit yourself."

There was nothing valuable in the shed anyway. I dropped the pole. He could leave when he was ready.



Before retreating to my room, I decided to "moth-proof" the place. I laid every loose item flat on the floor, moving anything breakable from the shelves down to the concrete. I even turned on the tap and filled the galvanized bucket with water, mostly to weigh it down so he wouldn't kick it over and make a racket in the middle of the night.

Just as I turned to leave, the moth-man stood up.

I flinched violently, adrenaline spiking again, but his movements were slow, almost laborious. I scrambled to bring the bamboo pole back up into a defensive position. My god, he was nearly as tall as me.

His chest was thick with fur, a dense, golden-brown coat that looked like a lion's mane. Two pale yellow antennae twitched rhythmically above his head, and his eyes were terrifyingly large—bottomless pools of black, reflecting nothing but the glare of the naked bulb. I mentally cataloged his limbs: two legs and four arms, all slender and covered in that same brownish-yellow fuzz. His claws didn't look particularly sharp; he would need to be incredibly light to cling to the bark of a tree.

I prodded his chest gently with the tip of the bamboo pole. Beneath the soft fur, it felt hard. Solid. Like chitinous armor.

To my surprise, the moment I made contact, his wings fluttered slightly, and a low-pitched, friction-based cheep-cheep sound emanated from his thorax.

"Don't move!" I barked, holding him at bay with the pole.

He didn't. He reached out a slender arm and rested it on the long stick. It was a touch lighter than a leaf.

Cheep-cheep. A friction sound from his chest.

Was he speaking? Was that a warning? The field guide hadn't mentioned vocalizations. I had no idea what he wanted, so I just kept the pole raised and took a slow, calculated step back toward the door.

And then, he began to "walk". He moved on two legs, just like the illustrations in the book. That was when I noticed the hitch in his gait; he was limping, his body listing heavily to one side. But he didn't come for me. He limped past me to the bucket I had just filled.

I watched as he hunched over the water. The coiled probe…proboscis at his mouth unfurled like a watch spring, the tip testing the surface of the water. I couldn't tell if he was sucking it up like a straw or scooping it, but the water level began to drop.

My pulse slowly returned to normal. I watched him finish drinking and straighten up. He had drained nearly half the bucket. That fuzzy abdomen was noticeably distended now, round and full. I did a quick scan of the room—nothing else in here would be damaged by a little water if he had an accident.

He seemed to consciously avoid my "spear" as he turned and limped back to the canvas tarp, lowering himself down onto his belly. Judging by the perkier angle of his antennae, the water had done him some good.

"Fine," I muttered. "Sleep there, then."

Before I left, I refilled the bucket to the brim. I also left the window unlatched and the door ajar.



Back in my room, I took a hot shower, scrubbing away the smell of stale dust and faint mildew.

Hours later, lying in bed, sleep refused to come. The mountain nights are usually silent, a silence that once acted as my sedative. But tonight, the whistle of the wind through the window sash or the cry of some nameless bird made me restless.

Has he left yet?

I rolled over and checked the digital clock: 22:45. Outdoor temperature: 2°C.

Damn it.

Even though it was technically spring, once the sun dropped, the humidity in these deep mountains made the cold bite right to the bone. That moth... whether he had been disturbed by something or simply mistook the date for a rendezvous with a mate, he had emerged too early. He had boarded the early bus by mistake.

Regardless of his health, if I left the door and window open in this temperature, especially after he'd downed half a bucket of cold water, he wouldn't see the sunrise.

I cursed under my breath, that damn, superfluous sympathy gaining the upper hand again. In reality, how fragile is an insect, really?

I pulled my heaviest sheepskin military coat off the rack—my lifeline during winter equipment inspections, heavy and warm. I figured I'd go shut the window and toss the old coat over him. He was just a moth, after all; not too dirty, and he probably wouldn't tear it.

When I reached the shed, a low, rapid thrumming sound came from inside—like a machine idling in the dark. I pushed the door open, my flashlight beam slicing through the blackness, but I saw no movement at first glance.

I pulled the light string, only to find him shaking under the canvas tarp in the corner.

It wasn't a subtle shiver; it was a violent vibration, intense enough that I could almost hear his joints clicking. Insects are poli…poikilotherms. I knew some moths rapidly vibrate their flight muscles to generate heat for takeoff or to maintain body temperature. Sensing the light, he poked his head out from the thin canvas and looked at me sideways.

"Hey," I called out. He curled back a little under the canvas, hiding his wings and fluffy golden-brown thorax, but the tremors were undeniable. His massive compound eyes, illuminated by both the overhead bulb and my flashlight, seemed covered in a gray haze.

"Tsk. Why did you drink so much water?"

I walked over. The cold was palpable. He seemed frozen stiff, barely registering my approach. The cheep-cheep sound from his wings was much fainter than before. I sighed, set my flashlight down on a crate, and shook out the heavy coat I had brought with me.

"Lucky you," I mumbled, spreading the coat out to cover him. He shrank back into the tarp.

I knew that while I was a little afraid of him, he was definitely more afraid of me.

The heavy coat settled over the trembling mound of canvas. I shut the window. Before leaving, I hesitated, then decided to leave the light on. To a moth, a bulb is the sun.

I slept heavily that night.



"March 6th. Sunrise: 07:11. Cloudy."

When we don't know someone, we tend to imagine them as too fragile; once we know them, we imagine them as too strong.

I opened my eyes. The morning mist hadn't yet lifted, and the light in the utility shed was still burning. I left the warmth of my blankets and threw on my clothes.

I went to the shed. The air was still chill, and the coat was a motionless heap on the floor.

"Hey, buddy. You alive?"

No answer. The vibration from last night had stopped.

I crouched down and slid my hand under the edge of the coat, pressing my palm against the canvas beneath.

It was warm. A faint, steady heat radiated through the rough fabric.

Relieved, I tucked him back in. I left the door cracked, hoping he would find his way into the sky before I returned.



At work, I mentioned the incident to my scientist friend. She was surprised; she'd never heard of anything like it. "Probably just a fluke," she said.

"So, what do I do?" I asked.

She told me that in this weather, he probably wouldn't freeze to death, but that was about the best he could hope for. Most moths, she explained, only live for a week or two after metaphor…metamoth…metamorphosis.

"Will he die even if he keeps eating?" I asked.

She told me it wouldn't matter. Their energy consumption is simply too high. Everything they do before pupation—all that preparation—is just fuel for a few days of violent combustion: to fly, to find a mate, and to pass on life.

I told her I understood. But in my heart, I thought: Where would he find another moth in this weather? He came alone, and he is destined to leave alone.

She asked me to take more photos; she'd never seen a bug like this in the city.



"March 6th. Sunset: 18:57. Overcast."

I came back with a bag of sugar and a packet of salt.

The moment I pushed the door, my heart skipped a beat—it felt heavy. He was clinging to the back of it again. But before I could fully react, he had already detached himself and retreated to my coat. He wasn't exactly fast, but he was certainly more agile than yesterday.

The water level in the bucket had dropped a few centimeters, and there was a large puddle spreading across the concrete floor. I knew that moth excretion—liquid waste—is mostly just water, probably cleaner than the stream water or the rain. Still, it felt a little messy. Oh well, I thought. I'll just pretend the rain blew in.

I watched him lying on my coat, motionless, though his antennae were constantly trembling, "sniffing" the air. The fluorescent light reflected as tiny, sharp points in his massive black eyes. At first glance, he was intimidating, but if you looked past the size, he wasn't that scary. Actually... he was kind of cute. He was fluffy all over, with no terrifying mandibles or sharp claws. In fact, if he hadn't spooked me behind the door yesterday, I might have already tried to stroke his wings.

And he didn't seem stupid. I noticed his most defining trait early on: stability. He didn't flutter frantically or dive-bomb my face. His movements were slow, dazed, and perhaps a little fearful of me.

I mixed a bowl of sugar water and placed it in front of him. We were less than half a meter apart, but he didn't move. Seeing his hesitation, I dipped a small wooden stick into the syrup, intending to dab it onto his mouth parts.

But the moment the stick came near that coiled proboscis, he jerked his head away. He recoiled, dodging my prod. Worried he hadn't tasted it, I tried again, aiming for his "mouth". He shook his head to the side, rejecting it completely.

Apparently, he didn't like it. I added some salt to the water and tried again. Same reaction.

Frustrated, and perhaps wanting to tease him a little, I poked his foot with the stick, wondering if he'd tuck it away like he did yesterday.

But the instant the wet, sugary stick touched his leg, his coiled proboscis shot out.

That's when it hit me. Of course. He uses his feet and antennae to "taste" the world.

With this discovery, guiding him was easy. I lured his "mouth" into the bowl, and he quickly drained the saline-sugar solution. I watched him bury his face in the bowl, sucking quietly. I had a sudden urge to pat his head, but I hesitated.

There was simply nowhere to put my hand. His tiny head was almost entirely occupied by those massive compound eyes. And I don't imagine any creature enjoys being poked in the eyeball.

I remembered the request for photos, so I pulled out my phone to snap a few pictures and even recorded a short video. I tentatively stroked the fur on his back, then along his flank. It was soft, but cold to the touch. It seemed he only generated body heat by shivering when the cold became unbearable.

I turned the camera toward his upper body. He tilted his head to look at me, his antennae swaying in my direction. I reached out to touch one of the feathery feelers. He tapped the surface of my skin gently a few times, and then—I watched his proboscis unfurl.

I yanked my hand back in a panic, refusing his "kiss of the hand". I knew he just wanted to lick the salt from my skin, but watching a giant moth-man extend his feeding tube toward you does require a brave heart.

I need to get him to the boiler room, I thought. The forecast called for rain over the next few days, and I happened to be on vacation. The boiler room would be warm; I could rig up a cozy nest for him with some boxes and canvas.



Building the nest was the easy part; moving him was the problem. I tried luring him with the sugar-salt water, but he seemed full and wouldn't budge. I turned off the overhead lights and tried to lead him with a flashlight, but he just tilted his head curiously, antennae waving, his body still glued to my coat.

Left with no other choice, I decided to drag the entire canvas tarp with him on it. Thankfully, he was docile, pressing himself flat against the ground.

As you might expect, flight-capable creatures aren't heavy. Despite his massive size, his construction was lightweight—he weighed less than half of what I did. But that's still not a weight the wind just blows away. Before I even reached the door, I broke a sweat. I decided to shed my heavy coat before continuing the haul.

The moment the coat dropped—maybe it was the residual heat clinging to the fabric, or perhaps a sudden waft of my scent—he stopped trembling.

What happened next was so fast my mind went blank.

I had just let go of the coat and was bending down to grab the canvas when that giant ball of fur "exploded" into motion. He snapped his head up, those drooping antennae suddenly locking onto me like radar—or rather, locking onto my chest, covered only by a thin wool sweater.

The heat source.

"Holy shit!"

I screamed in terror. Before I could even step back, that massive, furry weight pounced.

The impact sent me stumbling backward. The back of my head cracked against the wooden door, and my balance shifted. Primal fear detonated in my brain—I thought he was hunting, or attacking out of instinct. I flailed my arms, trying to shove him off, but he was too dexterous. His six slender limbs clamped onto my shoulders, waist and legs. His face was right in front of mine, expanding terrifyingly as he closed the distance.

"Get off! Get off!" I roared, trying to reach for the shovel nearby.

But he didn't bite.

At this range, I was face-to-face with his alien visage. His coiled proboscis swept frantically across the fabric on my neck and collarbone, leaving a wet, shiny streak. The thick, lion-like mane on his chest pressed hard against mine, and those terrifyingly huge compound eyes were inches away, reflecting my own twisted, panicked face.

The worst part was the antennae. Those two feathery stalks swept wildly across my face, behind my ears, through my hair, bringing a scalp-tingling itch that made my skin crawl. His six legs scratched at me, not to tear, but... seeking purchase. He was trying to embed himself into my embrace.

He was nuzzling me. Like a giant stray dog desperate for warmth—but it was a giant goddamn moth.

I froze, my hands hovering in mid-air, my heart hammering against my ribs like it wanted to break out. But I realized he wasn't attacking.

He was hugging me.



I took the rare opportunity to move him to the boiler room. Although I was scared to death, once I confirmed my safety, the fear faded unreasonably fast. Smelling the faint scent of grass and wood on him, and looking at the scales dusting my clothes, my biggest worry shifted to how hard this would be to wash out—and praying he wouldn't snag my sweater. He just lay there on my chest, "licking" the wool, thankfully avoiding my skin.

The hardest job was getting him off. I tried to pry, unhooking his hands from my shoulders; his legs tightened around my waist. I pried his legs loose; his hands clamped back down.

I have four limbs. He has six.

Damn!

And just like that, in the humming of the boiler room, his scales and my fear drifted and dissolved together in the warm air.

Finally, he came down on his own. To be precise, his six limbs detached from my body one by one, and he stood firmly on the floor. I stood there panting, my back aching. Only then did I realize how stupid I was—I had actually brought a bug into the boiler room.

He looked well-behaved enough, but this was a risk I shouldn't have taken, one I hadn't even considered until now. Now what? Move him back to the utility shed? That seemed like the rational choice; no other room was warmer, and the shed had fewer breakables.

I watched him slowly lower himself from a standing position to a prone one; he seemed to really enjoy the environment here. Or... maybe take him to my room?

It was an impulsive thought, but incredibly tempting in the moment. He didn't like to move much anyway. If I locked him in the bathroom, I wouldn't have to worry about him shedding scales everywhere or breaking equipment. Plus, my room was ten degrees warmer than the shed. Showering might be a hassle, but I could move him out temporarily for that.

Looking at the dust and short hairs covering me, I wondered how to transport him again. Although my fear had dissipated further, I didn't exactly enjoy him hanging off me like a backpack.

I used the stupidest, most intuitive, yet unexpectedly effective method—I simply led him back to the room by hand.

It was, to be honest, just a tentative idea. I pulled my hand into my sweater sleeve and grabbed his "wrist", trying to see if I could pull him. My eyes widened as he stood up, yielding to my force, and allowed himself to be led. His other claw on the same side reached out and hooked onto my waist, holding onto my sweater. I allowed it—as long as all six limbs didn't latch on at once.



Back in my quarters, I ushered him into the bathroom and closed the door. Then I went out to retrieve my clothes and his bucket. In the storage room, I put on the heavy coat I had shed earlier, folded the canvas and the other heavy coat that was his bed, and mixed a bucket of saline-sugar water. It took me a while to return, lugging the bucket and tucking the clothes under my arm.

The bathroom door was heavy—I let out a short chuckle. Why did he love clinging to the back of doors so much? But this didn't scare me anymore.

And he refused to follow me anymore. I had just finished setting up his nest and turned around to pry him off the door, but when I looked back, the space behind the door was empty.

I jumped—luckily, he hadn't vanished. He had skittered out into the corridor. I approached him again, seeing his four arms reaching out, grasping at the air. But when I offered my forearm for him to grab, he only brushed against it lightly, pressing his head against my arm but refusing to latch on.

I wrapped my hand in my coat and tried to take hold of his claws, but he pulled away. It was as if I had suddenly become a stranger to him; he was evading my touch.

How am I supposed to get him into the bathroom now? I scratched my head, thinking I'd try to lure him with his "drink". But the moment I began to peel off my heavy coat, he pounced.

He scares the hell out of me every time he does that. But I've always believed that simple creatures follow simple logic. As his abdomen rubbed against my legs and his antennae swept across my face and neck, I realized something: he had pounced earlier right after I took off my coat, and back in the boiler room, I was also wearing this sweater.

Maybe he just likes the sweater?

It's an old-fashioned thing, khaki with a dark brown pattern. To him, it probably looks like tree bark, or perhaps one of his own kind.

But as it turns out, I can't comprehend the mind of a bug. I managed to get him into the bathroom and, with great difficulty, detached him from my body. I peeled the sweater off and tossed it to him, thinking he'd want to cuddle with it. But he lost interest immediately. After all, the fabric didn't grow from the earth, nor did it hatch from an egg. And as for me, now standing there in just my thin undershirt, he found me even less interesting.

Which was fine by me. I didn't want him bothering me while I ate, sprinkling scales all over my dinner.

He stayed in the bathroom with his bucket, and I cooked myself a satisfying meal. I checked on him a few times before bed; he was staying obediently in his nest. He hadn't touched much of the sugar water, but he seemed spirited enough.

Tomorrow is my day off. Nothing to do tonight. A truly wonderful evening.

The sky remained overcast. Heavy clouds clumped over the forest, forcing that untiring giant eye of the telescope to close for the night. I, too, drifted off to sleep amidst the howling wind.



Scritch... scratch…

I woke to the sound of soft scraping. Outside, the sky was just beginning to lighten. The noise didn't blend into the morning silence; it pricked my alertness—it was coming from inside the room.

I rolled out of bed and flipped on the light to investigate. Sure enough, it was him. The moth was scratching at the door from inside the bathroom.

I pulled on my clothes and let him out. He squeezed past me through the doorway. I wasn't wearing my sweater, intentionally avoiding a clingy embrace first thing in the morning. I just wanted to see what he intended to do. Scratching at the door meant he wanted out, right? That was fine by me.

But to my surprise, he stopped in the middle of my bedroom. I thought the overhead light had confused him, trapping him in a spiral, but he only hesitated for a few seconds. His antennae swayed, and then he climbed directly onto my bed.

Hey, don't! I worried he'd soil my sheets, but his movements were delicate. He stepped lightly across the duvet and leaned toward the window glass. Seeing that, I didn't have the heart to drag him away.

He must want to go outside. I went to the front door and opened it, letting the biting air, just a few degrees above freezing, seep in. Cheep... cheep... He vibrated his wings again—I couldn't tell if it was excitement or just an attempt to generate heat. But it worked. He stepped down from the bed, hugged the wall, and walked out the door. I followed him.

Was he going to fly away? I scrambled to grab my phone, ready to take a picture, terrified that if I looked away for a second, he'd be gone. But when I hit the record button, the scene before me was nothing like I had imagined.

He began to dance.

He spread his wings, lowered his body, and began to dance.

"March 7th. Sunrise: 07:10. Overcast."

I watched him face the East.

First, he raised all four arms high, then brought them down in a wide arc, as if embracing a massive, invisible boulder. Then he bowed low, his abdomen curling upward like a scorpion's tail. Next came the vibration of his wings. His upper body slowly rose again, hoisting that invisible sphere I couldn't see.

When his four claws reached their highest point, he gave a gentle, vertical hop, rotated slightly to the side, and continued his steps.

No music. No audience. Just the moth, the gray dawn, and the silence.



Hours later, I heard the boom of cannons in the distance. The scheduled hail suppression operation had begun.

Just as our eye cannot tolerate a grain of sand, the telescope's Sky Eye cannot tolerate hail. Before the violent clouds could form massive ice spheres, we had to use artillery to shatter the moisture into rain.

First came the shrieking whistle of shells tearing through the air, followed by muffled explosions deep within the clouds. The valley amplified the sound into massive, rolling echoes, as if the world on all sides was under siege.

Then came the downpour.

I stood there wearing my sweater, holding the moth, watching the gray window as the rain fell in thick, unbroken sheets. It was as if the entire ocean of the sky was tilting down on us, punctuated by muffled thunder. A few days ago, perhaps it was just such a clap of spring thunder that startled this moth from his tree and delivered him to my side.

Truth be told, although he was in my arms, I didn't initiate the hug this time—I didn't pick him up. When his dance was finished, maybe he smelled the rain and returned to the eaves on his own. After lingering there for a while, he actually found his way back to the bathroom to drink the bucket. He remembered the way—smarter than I gave him credit for. Though, I don't know if he remembers me.

I found myself growing more fond of him. His huge eyes never blinked, his claws were soft and lacked any threatening strength; he was fastidious about cleanliness, and he didn't smell bad. I even double-checked online to confirm that this species of moth carries no communicable diseases.

So, I took off my coat again. And sure enough, he glued himself to me.

Fine. I guess that still counts as me hugging him.



To be continued…