Rage, Rage

Rage, Rage

by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin

I hate miller moths! I know, I know, hate is a strong word, but still... An entire squadron of them attacked me last night just as I was reaching over to turn out the light. I can’t sleep without reading a bit first so when I go to bed that is the only light left on in the house, well, other than the chargers and blinking cable modem and wireless router and the light from the streetlight slipping in. Speaking of slipping in, I don’t know how in the world these li’l bastards get in the house, but anyway at bedtime they are naturally attracted to my reading lamp like a dying man to the light.

            I sleep with a flyswatter for that very reason – to kill the bastards before they have a chance to crawl into my ear canal in the night. When I’ve finished reading, when my eyes are tired and I reach to turn off the light, that’s when they attack, like out of nowhere there are a dozen or more of them suddenly swarming around the light, thumping against the lampshade and wreaking havoc. I reluctantly move my water glass out from under the lamp and reach for the swatter. It’s tough to hit them in the air, yet I waft the flyswatter around just in case and get a couple of them....one is only stunned and clambers under my pillow twitching and wiggling. I grab a Kleenex and smash him but it leaves dust and goo on the bed sheet.

            They are all but impossible to kill, particularly without disturbing the lamp, the phone or my ‘night-stuff’ -- my shrine as my daughter calls it – the Kleenex, Chap stick, earplugs, nasal inhaler, antacids, pen and notepad, my key of G tin whistle and the cheap-ass clock radio. Still I try my best to kill them without damaging anything. I’m wide awake and angry at this point and just want them dead. I slap at them with the flyswatter and the first inadvertent result is the Lavender drops knocked off the nightstand, then the earplugs, the Kleenex flies under the bed like a moth itself trying to hide. They continue to flicker and flit and I’m so mad at this point that I can spit but I finally either kill them or chase them into hiding. I clean the moth-dust residue from my pillow and sheets and turn off the light. Now if I can just settle my mind it’s off to sleep, but then...then...I hear them, wings flittering and thumping against the lampshade as they continue to rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black, The Poet of Utah Park, The Joy of Science, A Fleeting Existence, a collection of science essays How do we Know, and a memoir of growing up on an Oklahoma farm - Growing Up Stories are all available at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com.