Aidan San Francisco — 1961 Music and Moths

Aidan never cries, even as a baby. He grows into a strange silent child, given to night wanderings. He rarely speaks. He eats little. He is beautiful, hair glossy black, eyes bottomless indigo, teeth straight and perfect. He never has a cavity. He is in fact, abnormally healthy, never catching a chill, a cold, or even getting a pimple. He has no friends. Nor is he bullied. Something about him scares the other children. If anyone had stood beside him in the crowded dormitory bathrooms or crammed changing rooms they would notice that he has no reflection. If the nuns had made him play ball in the noonday sun, as they do the others, they would see that he has no shadow. But, all keep their distance.

Aidan does not mind. He does not long for friends. He is the only orphan who does not care that the sisters do not allow pets. Why would he? Any time Aidan walks by a tree, birds drop round his feet, their small feathered bodies still as leaves. Insects turn to dust and flowers wither. Creatures large or fleet enough run, the smaller burrow underground. Aidan is unmoved.

The only time Aidan shows interest is when the sisters’ ancient record player breaks down. It is not Sister Agnes’ grief that moves him, nor Sister Maria’s cry of distress. He does not care for temporal sorrow. Rather it is the expiry of that which seems immortal. Black plastic and cold metal which should eternally sing, have become as silent as bone. He glides toward the mute turntable. If the nuns had not had their eyes filled with tears they might have noticed that his feet do not touch the ground. But they are so trapped in loss that they do not even try to stop him. He does not even touch the record player before it begins to revolve. The needle presses down. Music fills the air. But the melodies are not the same. The harmonies are slightly off; all the hymns play in minor keys. They sound more like laments than halleluiahs, more like dirges than rejoicing.

When the record player wafts Ave Maria out into the night, Luna moths, wings spanning seven inches, flock round the orphanage. They hover in the air like jade dreams, before drifting lifeless to the ground.

Entomologists gather their bodies in awe. Lunas, native to Canada and the northeastern states, have never been seen as far south as Healdsburg. It is taken as a sure sign of climate change. In the twilight, bats circle, plucking the stunned insects out of the air before they even hit the ground.

Two weeks later, when the sisters sell the record player at the church bazaar, the moths disappear. But when the children are taken out for a night’s star gazing, the Lunas return, raining down on them like soft, green tears.