The Lepidopterist (short story)
As winter approaches, the moths know that it is time for sleep. These wretched, crawling things dawdle to their hibernation site: the crevices of trees, the litter of leaves, wherever. The larvae can feel it in the airâthe winter is hard (cruel) this year. Many of them perish, but those that survive awaken to a warm, blissful spring. A warm, blissful spring that makes way for a summer of bountiful feeding before the fall that promises the coming (promised) end. This is the cycle that endures.
The Lepidopterist raises their head from the pinned collection of moths, now out of trance with their thoughts. The pinned moths: beautiful, wretched, still things that live in transience and now exist in permanence. The Lepidopterist looks out the windowâthey know that the winter is hard. They come to take away more people yesterday. The Lepidopterist likens it to birds that peck away at the larvae as they move to their new sites... But at least birds can be satiated, the Lepidopterist thinks bitterly.
The winter is cruel. But there are many winters before. The Lepidopterist even calculates the mortality rates ("It's really a proportion, not a true rate," the Lepidopterist mumbles in their head, because this is importantâit has to be important). Most of the dormant larvae do not surviveâyet the species still persists. This is the cycle that persists.
The Lepidopterist thinks of their colleague. A blustering fool. His love of moths has transformed into something ugly. "Personal sacrifice must be needed for survival and progress," he insists, and the Lepidopterist wonders what the moths tell him. They are just simple organisms.
Out in the apple orchards, the Lepidopterist sees a bird perched on a tree branch, pecking away at the crevices. Earlier, they-the fascists- kill a man in the street.
The Lepidopterist looks at the crevicesâdormant larvae line them all. They all dream of spring. The Lepidopterist turns around, alone in these deserted apple orchards. They used to be farmed by prisoners, but when the prison closes, the apples now feed only the moths. They shudder as the sun begins to set (the daylengths grow shorter, the temperature cooler).
They shrug off their clothing. The cold nips at their tender flesh. And so desperately, they want to understand the wisdom of these sleeping things. Tender flesh gives way to exoskeleton. And they are small now. The Lepidopteristâthis wretched, crawling thingâdawdles to their hibernation site. Within this crevice, they sleep. They think of nothing but the coming spring.
The bird perched on a tree branch flaps its wings.