THE MOTH
Thirdly, gone to seed, those petals that fell were from a flower that is as old as life itself.
Your parents had already gone to bed. It was late, nearly midnight by the time you got home from your shift at the asylum. A hard rain was barrelling down in sheets, limiting visibility, making the commute home a struggle through the squall. Standing at last over the bathroom sink, you routinely brushed your tired teeth.
In an instant, the air shifted. Gripped in a hot prickling stillness. Time melted and slowed to a drone. You felt an immense dread. A primordial alarm. Pierced with it's immediacy, this huge unavoidable presence was looming right behind you. It felt older, more permanent than earth. Intrinsically, you knew, with all your synapses boiling, not to raise your eyes from the dripping faucet to the mirror that stood facing you. In a flash, you shot off like a hunted rabbit for the safety of your little room. Everything left strewn on the sink. Ribbons of flouride ran out your mouth and down your chin.
The abject heat of fear distorted and stretched this short distance, pulling the modest hallway like soft taffy into a foreboding tunnel, draped in the faint scent of a long forgotten tomb. A sepulchral blast shoved you forward in that last gasping sprint for your door. Swirls of ether turned oily, a viscous sparkling purple darkness. The gust then rushed up beneath what sounded like a monolithic pair of wings. You saw nothing. Nor did you want to see anything, beyond the back of your slamming door. And it was gone. As suddenly as it had come. Crumbling onto the floor, you sobbed helplessly, overwhelmed with frightful grief.
A couple days later, the youngest son of the family living downstairs told you that his older brother had been killed on his motorcycle in a head on collision with a semi at 12:00 on that same rainy night.
The news both shook and scared the shit outta you. It took a long time to grapple with the thought, much less the belief, that the presence you felt that night might have been The Angel of Death.
But I have always believed it, with every knowing fibre of my being. Beyond the shadow of a doubt.
*u can call me ph!*
