The Great Moth Rescue Operation

One bright, sunny North Texas morning my older brother and I went out to my car to go and run a couple of errands. The car was a big ol’ nineteen-sixty-something, four-door Buick that I had traded a motorcycle for, and the errands weren’t relevant to the story. Let’s say we were going out to breakfast or something.

As I opened the door, something huge flapped past my face with a gentle “thwip-thwip-thwip” sound. I yelped and jumped backward, banging the back of my head on the doorframe. Once I got over the sudden startle, I noticed a gigantic —seriously, it was the size of my hand with all five fingers outstretched— moth crazily flapping around inside the car in a panic. It was a majestic, beautiful thing; swirling patterns and different shades of russet brown, gold and pale tan with a delicate black fringe on the back edges of it’s wings.

“Wow…” I breathed in awe.

“Ohh…” my brother echoed.

We stood for a few moments and watched the terrified critter flap around and bounce off of the windows, the roof, and the dash like an organic pinball. We acknowledged our mission without saying a word to each other, and we both sprang into action. My brother opened the passenger door, and we both tried to shoo the moth outside to sweet, sweet freedom.

Rather than take the obvious path into the big, beautiful world outside of my Buick, the moth flew around our madly waving hands and made a beeline for the back seat. My brother and I both opened the rear doors and again tried to shoo the moth out. Once again, the obvious path to freedom —just on the other side of the two dementedly flapping and waving giants— was eschewed in favor of an alternate course of action.

There was a small hole, no bigger than a silver dollar, between the back seat and the trunk. The moth spotted it, landed, and climbed through to the cool, dark resting place of the spare tire and jack.

“Shit!” I exclaimed.

“Goddammit!” my brother hollered.

I ran around to the trunk and opened it with the key. As light flooded into that dim space, I spotted the moth, perched on an empty Coke can, gently fluttering it’s wings. My brother came around the other side of the trunk and we again tried our best moth-shooing techniques. The moth was still for an instant, then he/she/it turned and went back through the hole into the passenger area of the car.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” my brother groused.

“Jesus Christ!” I barked.

I slammed the trunk shut and we both ran back around to the rear seat, me to the right side and my bro to the left. As quick as lightning, my brother leaned in and covered the hole with one hand while waving and slapping around with the other. I climbed onto the back seat and used both arms to flail around. We were both hollering incoherent sounds of encouragement, although I’m not entirely certain if moths can hear. Finally the moth gently flitted into the front of the car and drifted out of the open door into that bright morning.

“Yeeahhhh!” I yelled, as I watched our winged rescuee drift up, up, up on the breeze toward liberty.

“Whooooooo!” my brother yelled.

We were grinning and giddy with excitement, exuberant in the warm glow of a good deed done. We slapped each other’s backs and felt like 50-foot-tall, gold-plated heroes. We did it! We saved one of God’s beautiful little creatures from certain death and released him to the wild, free life of an emancipated moth. Our hearts were fit to burst as we watched the moth, OUR moth, wing away.

Just then a bluejay streaked like a silent azure bullet out of the oak tree and snapped up the moth in it’s javelin beak. It disappeared a split second later. My bro and I just stood there with our grins frozen in place.

“Fuck…” my brother muttered, walking away.