The moth’s story
The humans are talking, I understand every word. The cat eyes me like missile-guiding radar, interested but too far to pounce.
I know these humans — dumb that they are — cannot hear me, but I talk to them anyway. I have trained myself to understand the humans, so it is very frustrating that they have not done the same.
Reciprocation is a two-way street, you know!
“There is a moth,” the woman mentions. She is wearing a colorful hat.
“I know, the cat is watching it.”
It! As though I have no gender.
“Do you think the cat has murderous intent?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. “He certainly does.”
“I don’t think so,” says the man. “Murder may result, but that would be a side effect. The cat’s motivation would be play: ‘Attack that small object that moves!’ Yes, the cat would be indifferent to killing the moth, but it would not be his main objective.”
“It would not be murder,” goes on the man, “It would be manslaughter.”
“I don’t know,” she says.
He looks annoyed: “That would be up to the jury,” he says.
The man then points out that a mosquito is more annoying. “Yes,” she says, but the moth gets into our grain.
Then the man pretends to extol me, all the while with murderous intent in his heart so virulent that it would shock even the cat. In fact, if the woman were not present, this murderer would have killed me a minute ago. In fact, if he could, he would commit genocide against all of us.
Instead, pretending to speak in my voice, this idiot talks about how much I, the moth, love all of my 1,000 – 2,000 children whose lives I would like to start in his quinoa-filled, two-quart mason that he bought in Brown & Roberts.
The lady says that they will all be traumatized.
The man says they will need therapy.
Then the man quotes someone on YouTube, who said that he is putting aside $5 each day to pay for his child’s future therapy because he know how much he is fucking up as a parent.
They do not notice me now, as I fly away.
