Ghost Moth by Forbes Michele

Author:Forbes, Michele [Forbes, Michele]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781934137611
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Published: 2013-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

Katherine is holding something in her hand. It is a folded piece of paper. She opens it. It is a grocery list. Sliced pan, custard powder, two onions . . . She looks at the piece of paper in her hand. It is folded again. She opens it again, but somehow the paper remains folded. Each time she opens the piece of paper, she finds it folded. She opens the piece of paper many times. Twenty, thirty times—she is losing count. She never sees the paper folding back in upon itself, but it is always folded when she looks at it. Then suddenly, it is open in her hand, although she has not tried to open it. She sees the words “Si tu ne m’aimes pas, je t’aime!” handwritten in blue ink and the imprints of her lips skirting the edges of the paper.

A swarm of orange-red insects.

One of the mouths trembles slightly and softly parts. A sweet sound issues from its white center. A breathy almost imperceptible “Aah,” but a definite note, not a sigh. It melts on the air. The mouth opens again and this time the breath lengthens and releases itself in a curved line of sound. This happens three, maybe four times before another mouth opens on the page, then another, and another, until all the mouths—hundreds of them now—are opening and closing, the sound building and building in intensity until it becomes a seraphic rhapsody. Katherine opens her own mouth just a little, mimicking the undulations of the paper mouths to sing along with them. But suddenly, the mouths shut with an abrupt snap! The song is now left hanging in the air, pulsing, but disembodied from its source. Violently then, the song rushes at high speed in through her half-open mouth like a tornado being sucked into her. It fills her up. She feels her limbs begin to vibrate uncontrollably as they swell and grow longer and wider. The cuffs of her blouse split as her arms and hands become huge; the buttons fly off the front of her blouse; her throat and shoulders rip through her collar. Her feet force themselves out through the ends of her shoes and socks. She is a swollen, fatted pupa prematurely rupturing through her larval skin. Floating now in water. Floating like a swollen carcass, her flesh weeping and skinless from the scald of the sea. There is something beside her in the water. Something huge, but she cannot see it. Something dark and wide. It is getting closer to her. Closer and closer. It rises up out of the sea. It is a huge head with a huge mouth and it is coming to swallow her. The terrifying lips open to take her.

Katherine gives a sharp gasp and sits bolt upright in the bed. The room is dark except for the spoon of light that bends in under the bedroom door from the landing. Stephen is crying. Katherine turns to George in the bed beside her. He is an imageless shape, a smooth, silent mound of sleep.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.