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By F. Sionil Jose
NOT too long ago, in fact, quite recently, there lived an old moth
named Crepusculo Lepidoptera. He felt that he had lived too long and
had not really done anything worthwhile except what all moths
do—fly at night and travel meaningless distances. He had seen so
much of the darkened cave where he and other moths lived, he had
grown bored not only with his company. The cave was huge,
perpetually dank and dark. It was never visited by the sun although,
on occasion, aliens came—spelunkers mostly—who explored its
labyrinths with flashlights and flaming torches.
From early childhood, Crep—as Crepusculo was
nicknamed—had heard stories of how moths die. Some lose their
wings and fall to the ground where they wither and slowly pass away.
But for a lucky few, there is nothing more beautiful than to go in a
dazzling end. If there was a flame, they were drawn compulsively to
it. Something in their nervous system attracts them to flame, or
whatever is bright maybe because they have lived in the dark so long
or maybe because that is what moths are supposed to do, just as
flies swarm to rotting food.
But glorious or not, the old moth did not want
to die a painful death. He was scared of pain and he wanted to go on
living for as long as his senses were working. And though he was
already very old, his senses were still keen. He was bored with the
cave, its vastness and its unchanging darkness, but there were still
many crevices he had not explored.
He had loathed growing old; his wings were no
longer able to propel him with speed to heights he wanted to reach.
He was also irritated by the attitudes of his fellow moths. They did
not quite understand why he preferred his nickname Crep—as they
said—it was redolent of the innuendo that he was an unpleasant
character which, on second thought, he had become. He was
cantankerous, always exacting the highest degree of performance in
flying from the other moths even when there was no need to.
“Where could we really go?” a young moth
obstinately asked. “Here we are, how high is up?”
Because of his age and experience, the other
moths did not want to argue too much or call him by his nickname.
They addressed him instead with polite prefixes and suffixes, or
left him alone to his reveries.
When he was young, Crepusculo Lepidoptera had
listened with mesmerized curiosity when the elders told stories
about the flame that drew them all. He had hoped that when that time
come, he could resist. Or if he couldn’t, that at least he would
not die instantly so that he could know what dying was like. And if
he could escape such a fate, all the more would the experience be
truly significant for he would have known what it was like to
survive the ultimate experience, to know the glory of the moment and
take with him its most precious memory. And perhaps, the second time
around he would gladly go to his death.
Thus, while he was afraid of the flame, he
searched for it nonetheless the way other moths before him had done.
But the cave was huge and where he wandered, although there were
many times that a flame burned within, he was never near when there
was one. As time went on, many of the moths who were his childhood
friends passed away, some to their glory, the rest to old age and
infirmity or to the sickness that the cave inflicted upon them.
He searched on in the seemingly limitless dark.
There would be a glow in some distant corner and he would rush to it
only to find it was some luminous plant or mushroom that gave off a
soft but heatless phosphorescence. At one time, a light crossed his
vision and it zigzagged, blinking out then lighting up again. He
tried to figure out where it would light up again and after a while,
he finally was able to track the path of light. As he drew near,
realized it was no flame that had attracted him but a firefly.
Still again, he followed what he thought was a
very faint light meandering about in the cave. When he finally got
close, it turned to be a pale, sickly moonbeam.
“Go away,” the moonbeam told him, “I
cannot bring you the kind of death you seek. I am not hot enough to
destroy you. I am listless and good only for moon-struck,
sentimental lovers.” Crep, of course, was sentimental, too, but at
his age he had become cynical as well; love and its relentless
passion had long eluded him. Not imagination though, he could
imagine still how it would be like when he finally found the light.
He prayed that if he could not resist it, it would not hurt so much.
Would there be life after death? A different
kind of life perhaps? Would he be reincarnated into another moth? Or
a firefly? He was tremendously envious of the fireflies—they were
never in the dark for their light was always with them.
When he voiced his feelings of frustration to
the younger moths, they mocked him and at the same time pitied him.
Why wasn’t he like the rest of them? He was not at all convinced
of the great truth by which moths lived—that they were destined to
live in the dark, that the coming of light meant their end and,
finally, that death was glorious. Perhaps there was something wrong
with him else he would have found his flame a long time ago as most
moths do. The good die young—he had heard that so often—so he
must be terribly bad to have lived so long.
He continued his wandering until he started to
tire. He has seen so many recesses of the cave, finally remembering
in the vast semi-darkness that he had seen all these before. He
wished there would be an end to the cave, a final blank wall with
not a crevice to it so that his searching would end. And what if the
end of the cave was not a wall but more darkness?
While he was musing, something flickered
brightly at the other side of the cave. The screen of giant trees
that blocked the tiny entrance was finally cut down by woodcutters
until a young adventurous sunbeam saw it. Full of life, gaiety and
verve, she decided to explore the opening. She was warned by the
other sunbeams not to tarry lest she be left behind but she ignored
their warning.
She danced gaily and in the dimmest corner, she
found the old moth ruminating over the rubble of his past.
She asked what made him so depressed, and he
said quite simply that old age had marked him as a failure, that he
had not done anything to make his life meaningful. That all these
years, he had sought to escape the fate of moths.
“Maybe,” the old moth said, “this is my
fate because in truth, I have also grown to like the dark. I prefer
the twilight, the night, the vast stillness of this cave rather than
the noise which, I am told, pervades what is outside.”
The young sunbeam smiled. “You are wrong. The
world is beyond this cave is beautiful,” she said. “There is the
green of grass and trees, the red of flowers, the blue of the sky.
The air is scented, there is so much life outside, birds on the
wing, animals, butterflies—creatures like you—they prefer the
outside. And my father, the sun, is merciful, powerful and
tolerant.”
He listened keenly, keeping his distance with
tremendous effort for indeed, she had this compelling attraction
that was difficult to resist.
“And the dark,” she continued, “is really
akin to death, to that other world which is always gloomy for it is
doom itself.”
She left him soon after for she did not want to
be left behind at the other sunbeams had warned. But come the
following day, she was in the cave again. The old moth fascinated
her, maybe because he was exactly her opposite, maybe because he did
not rush her. For to her, age really did not matter. It was their
conversation, brief though it was, but so pithy, it had attracted
her, too.
“Can you come and see me everyday?” the old
moth asked when, after a few moments, she had to leave again.
“I cannot promise anything,” the young
sunbeam said. “I will come according to my feelings. If I feel
that I want to see you, then I will come.”
“You are fickle then,” the old moth said
“Not that I deserve your attention. But your attitude—you are
fickle.”
“I am not,” the sunbeam objected with some
vehemence. “I am just being honest with myself and with all those
I like. I cannot be otherwise.”
“But honesty can be a vice, not a virtue,”
the old moth said. “Sometimes we have to lie so that we not
needlessly hurt others. The important thing is that we are honest
with ourselves. That we know how to bend without breaking ourselves.
This requires wisdom. And wisdom can only come with age. . . .”
The young sunbeam grimaced. “It’s always the
truth for me.”
“You are a pickle, too, that is what you
are,” the old moth said.
“Why a pickle?” she asked.
“You know what a pickle is,” the old moth
said, grinning. “It is sour. And you are sour.”
“No,” she said, smiling. “I bring light
and sweetness wherever I go.”
She left him again immersed in deep thought. He
wanted then to be as close to her as he could, but he was afraid of
the light, and of death as well.
The following day, the young sunbeam invited to
old moth to go with her to meet her father, the sun, and to see the
outside. She would lead him to a new world he had never seen. The
old moth hesitated; he had by now learned not just to trust the
young sunbeam but to long for her every time she was gone.
“I do want to be with you as long as I can,”
he told her. “But I am afraid.”
The sunbeam understood. She had begun to miss
the old moth, too. But she must always be honest—it was in her
nature—she couldn’t be otherwise. “I don’t want to love
you,” she said. “I want to be free . . .” And having said
this, she rushed out of the cave as emotion welled within her.
The sunbeam did not visit the cave the following
day. The rainy season had come almost suddenly, and though she
wanted to see the old moth, dark clouds barred the way. The old moth
took her absence calmly. Did she not tell him she did not want to
love him? Did he not tell her, too, that she was fickle? She could
be anywhere now, being free. Why should she even bother with a
useless old moth like him? He remembered with a pang of anxiety and
mortification his conversation with her, and realized with great
sadness that he was just living now for the moment, that each moment
counted because he was old. He coveted the image now, her
brightness, her warm disposition. And it was then, too, that he
realized how much he missed her, and that if he would see her again,
he would now go to her, get truly close, and know her as moths must.
He started to search for her. He had wanted afar
to so many parts of the cave, faintly remembering in the
semi-darkness how he had seen everything. Would that she’d stumble
into the cave again!
The fates were kind to him. The rain paused
briefly, the clouds broke, and there she was, across the old
moth’s dimming vision. He quickly flew to her but as he neared,
she seemed to elude him. No matter how fast he flew and adroitly
followed her, at that moment, when he thought he could finally be
able to reach her, embrace her, she would be beyond his reach again.
“Hurry! Hurry!” she urged him, the clouds
were quickly thickening and very soon, her escape would be sealed.
He flew on, his eyes never leaving her, and as
he neared her, the world turned brighter, as bright as he had never
imagined, an ethereal whiteness that seemed to explode all around
him with such intensity he quivered all over. He could die now that
he had found her, and he realized deep in his heart that she was the
light he waited for all these years, a light so encompassing it was
found only by those who patiently search and persevere. In one final
surge, he grasped her, but only for an instant, and that was all he
needed.
The old moth died as all moths must, but before
he died, he had full knowledge of his discovery of what true light
was and how it was to be delivered from darkness.
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