A distressed flutter of wings made me look up from the rice cracker in my hand - it was a moth, furiously beating its tattered wings to no avail against the impenetrable glass of the window. Despite the cool weather of the past weeks, it was obviously unaccustomed to the sun beaming down, and furthermore the monochromatic tinge of the room soaked in grey light seemed to desaturate even the colour of life. Exhausted as I was (extremely), it finally relented: resting, it stretched out its sore wings, frayed from frustration.
I pitied the poor creature, and swung the window open. A flurry of brown - and it was out. Regaining its composure mid-air, performing a warm-up routine of aerial acrobatics, it was soon on its way. But a mynah, alert and waiting, snagged it straight out of the air. I was a tad sad to witness my little moth’s untimely demise, but not much can be said otherwise.
It was, indeed, out of its element: the enveloping darkness of the night.
I think I am, sometimes, too. I love the night: it’s dreamlike, surreal. The darkness is fluid - you can cocoon yourself however you want, flit through the spheres of illumination, fit in as you see fit. Infinitely comfortable, it is peaceful, elegant. It conceals faults, fleshes out beauty. It is inspiration.
Cats are perhaps my favourite animals. They love the night, as I do, using their mastery of shadow to slink about in stealth and silence. When walking home from the train station in late evenings, I occasionally stop at the carpark adjacent to the block of flats, where the streetlamps cast a dramatic orange glow, and where I am customarily greeted by a black cat who’s come to recognize me. I saved it from an irate woman once, who was wildly swinging her shopping bags, attempting to shoo it away, when all it wanted was a bit of the chocolate bar she was eating. Yes, it loves its food - though it’s admittedly quite skinny. I’ve seen it pounce upon an unsuspecting pigeon - needless to say, the hunt was quite vicious, not to mention messy. Even so, this particular cat never fails to gingerly and affectionately rub itself against my legs (the only one in the neighbourhood who does this, apparently - my area’s animals are generally not very friendly), and I usually give it a pat in return.
Like moths trapped behind planes of glass, cats in cages waste away forlornly. They somehow remind me of me.
I find I can’t write in afternoons - hence this substandard post.
