Moths To The Flame

I spotted the little ornament on Christmas Eve as I walked home from my office in The Pearl. I’m not sure what it was that caught my eye. I could have sworn that a flash of light momentarily emanated from within the depths of that little globe, like the warning flash from a lighthouse perched over treacherous shoals..

Would that I had heeded it as such.

Rather, I was drawn close to the festive window. I stood, lost in the simple complexity that escaped the confines of the temporal boundaries of the globe to spill out and engulfed me within its influence. My eyes searched deep into the globe and I felt myself drawn in; into another world, where the rules of time and space blurred and the threshold between dream and veracity became as ethereal as mist in the hills above Portland.

“It is a beautiful piece, no?” The question drew me back to the street with a start and I stared blankly at the colorful woman who had materialized beside me..

“I startled you.” The woman touched my shoulder and I felt calm. Her gentle eyes drew me in and made me feel welcome. I had never met this woman, had only just set eyes upon her, but I liked her. She felt like my mother. Not the woman who had given birth to me; not the one who had nurtured me and loved me; not the woman who is my mother. This woman felt more like everyone’s mother. I felt safe. I felt warm. I felt like cookies and cream and apple pie and a warm fire in the fireplace and the smell of dinner cooking in the kitchen.

“I was just admiring that ornament. It caught my eye and I guess I got lost in thought.” I wanted to stay with this woman. I wanted to tell her my hopes and my dreams. I wanted to ask her advice and I wanted her to tell me that everything would be all right.
A part of me knew that this wasn’t right. A part of me knew that I already had a mother. A part of me knew to say “Merry Christmas” and continue on with my walk home. That part of me said that there is more here than meets the eye.

“Why don’t you come in and have a nice cup of tea and I can show you all of my ornaments. They are all hand-made, you know.” The woman took my hand in hers and a cup of tea sounded like a wonderful idea.

A part of me grew silent.

“I would like that very much,” somehow escaped my mouth. I followed her into her shop.


I cannot recall my entire visit to that gypsy woman and her shop. Pieces of memory slip through, but when I try to concentrate, they fall away. I remember drinking some tea and experiencing a not unpleasant lightheadedness. After that, only shadows that are there and then they aren't. The next thing that I remember is walking home cradling the shining ornament safely in both hands. The walk is a blur of familiar places and faces and a multitude of “Merry Christmas’s” and an occasional PC “Happy Holidays”.

I arrived at home intending to hang the ornament on the little douglas fir in the living room. As I entered my house I felt the glass grow warm in my hand. Looking down I could see something glowing deep within the frosted glass. The haze that had seized me at the shop began to fade and I grew alarmed. Something was happening that felt beyond my control.

My heart raced and I felt nauseous and light-headed. The ornament slipped from my grasp and, seemingly in agonizing slow motion struck the tile floor and burst into a million sparkling pieces which engulfed me in a blizzard of glass shards and I blacked out. As I slipped from consciousness I thought I saw a gaping, mouth-like thing ringed with filaments, undulating and shifting as they reached inexorably out toward me…

I opened my eyes again in a panic. I remembered seeing the ornament shatter and then that horrible mouth thing. My sight returned slowly, growing from grey gravel to indistinct images to a dreamy clarity. I was lying on grass. As I regained more and more sight I realized that I did not know the place in which I found myself. .

It was dark. I could make out buildings a short distance away, and beyond that only blackness. I could see nothing in any other direction. The panic began to rise again in my chest as I began to put together the recent events. The shop that had attracted my eye should not have been there. I walk past there every day to and from work. That shop was not there the day before. I am pretty sure that it was not there that morning. How could I have overlooked that? And what had happened there?

It was then that I heard it coming. It came from the opposite direction from the buildings silhouetted against the blackness. I think that I felt its approach as much as I heard it. It was a rumble like something big, very big, was coming. With it came a pressure like it was so huge that the air had nowhere else to go. I had to move.

I moved toward the shadowy buildings. I wanted to run but my feet were mired as if in a mixture of glue and mud. I felt the behemoth bearing down on me like a freight train and my feet would barely move. I tried to block out the approaching terror and concentrate on moving my feet. Right. Left. Torture. My muscles screamed at me and I grasped each leg with both hands to help push the next foot onward.

The building was still yards away and the thing felt as though it would crush me at any moment. I willed my muscles to move and I prayed to God that I would give up beer and tithe and I threw my entire body into the effort. I was at the steps and the weight pressed against my back and I threw myself forward through the open door, sprawled inside and kicked the door shut.

The pounding began. Like thunderclaps. The door bent and strained behind the blows and I could only lie in exhaustion and hope that it would hold.

Near me on the floor I spotted a torch. I reached for it, and as I grasped it the end burst into flame. I was able to sit up. The pounding continued. My head felt as though it might explode. I crawled with my torch to the window at the side of the door and peered out. I saw nothing in the blackness at first.

Outside the building, as my eyes adjusted, or perhaps by the twisted rules in this I could just finally grasp the reality. I was looking out through the globe. Someone was out there. The pounding had stopped, but then the person on the outside started tapping once again upon the shell of the ornament.

That is the moment that I realized my fate. I raised the light to the window to signal, to warn.

It didn’t work.


“It is a beautiful piece, no?”


Word Cound 1339