Broken Wing

Summary

The text is a reflective piece on the discovery of a deceased moth with a broken wing, contemplating its final moments and the beauty found in its stillness.

Abstract

The author encounters a dead moth with one broken wing on the pavement, its beauty juxtaposed against its lifeless state. The text delves into a speculative narrative of the moth's last moments, pondering whether the wing broke upon landing or in mid-flight, leading to an inevitable crash. The author empathizes with the moth's struggle, imagining its desperate attempts to stay airborne with only one functional wing before succumbing to a fatal descent. The piece concludes with a poetic notion of the moth's soul transcending its broken body.

Opinions

The author admits to a lack of knowledge about small critters but is captivated by the moth's situation.
There is a sense of empathy as the author tries to "live" the moth's final seconds, suggesting a deep connection with the natural world.
The author seems to find beauty in the moth's stillness and the delicate spread of its wings, despite its demise.
The text implies a philosophical view on death, with the suggestion that the moth's soul became "gloriously wingless" and free after its physical death.
The author's tone conveys a mix of curiosity, sorrow, and reverence for the life and death of the moth.

No Future Flights

Image by Author

One wing broken Useless weight Soft landing unlikely

Some beetles have wings, don’t they?

Or was it a moth, perhaps? Some kind of.

I am not very good with small critters, naming them and such.

But this one, whatever it was, was dead, still as stone. One wing clearly broken, the other spread out over this tiny field of pavement, draping the concrete with feathery moth scales. So beautiful, so very, very still.

The other wing, the clearly broken one, I wondered, did it break on landing, or did it, for some unexplained moth-reason, break mid-air, to herald this unfortunate crash landing. I pictured this to myself, and told myself that this is what must have happened. Surely.

Stepping into moth-shoes I tried to live those fatal last seconds, when sailing or flapping moth wing suddenly becomes just so much useless weight, and only one wing flap, flap, flapping for air purchase, futilely, rapidly losing altitude to crash land on this very pavement, incapable of anything but resignation. Moth-resignation.

And then, perhaps, seeing the game very much over, is when moth-soul sloughed moth-carcass and gloriously wingless again took to the air.

Broken Wing

No Future Flights

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