moth queen

there's something different about the humidity in the forest. in the forest, humidity hovers around you at eye-level, smothering your nose and mouth, filling the air with the dark, dank, sexy smells of mulch and rainforest and mud and puddles seething with breeding mosquitos. the sweet, slightly astringent perfumes from gaultheria shallon and cedar tree fronds hanging down into your eyes; the daisies bobbing along the sides of the almost-overgrown logging road looking so bright and playful but letting off their fecund stench, all of this, filling the damp air. you sweat as you trudge up through the brush. fallen trees litter the ex-road; sometimes you are forced to go over them, and sometimes under, and the whole way the boy is ahead of you. he doesn't notice things like humidity or the beautiful sylvan entropy or mosquito bites. his eyes are on the prize: the glimmering meadow.

it's like the forest spits you out. you skid/tumble down the final stretch of trail and its salmagundi of scents, and there you are, blinking in the sudden and wickedly clear sunlight of the meadow. as far as your eye can see is waist-to-armpit high grass. you rub your eyes, maybe. it looks like the last five miles to avalon would, with the sun beaming down, and the breeze pushing the rushy stalks over on themselves in waves that make the whole landscape look sentient, look like it's breathing. there's no describing this without at least admitting that the wildness of the place, while overwhelmingly beautiful, cradles some intimidating undertones in it's hay-scented reality. what lurks in those grasses? snakes and mice and spiders and wasps' nests, no doubt. here there is no path, no overgrown logging road to simultaneously loathe and feel grateful for. here you must move through the grasses, unguided except by your own nose, which tells you the sea is only over the next rise or two.

the boy has no trepidation. he plunges into the grass, his head nearly disappearing from view in the golden shield it provides, and you have no choice but to follow. the ground is uneven, and you stumble, but still, the breeze, and still, the humidity, this makes it all a tiny paradise. and then, while he is calling out to you from a few yards ahead and to the right, completely unseen, you notice.

with every step each of you takes, a cloud of tiny white moths explodes from the grass, rising up around you and above you like silvery smoke, like glittering diamonds in the sunshine, like feathery flowers startled off their stalks. the boy is still ahead of you, laughing now, his voice becoming more distant, and you can keep track of where he's moving by the clouds of moths bursting up from the ground and fluttering desperately away from the noise and movement you've created. you feel like a lady, a magical lady, as you move through the whispering grass and flickering white air. your cloak is made of tiny, soft, white moths. they rest in your hair. they kiss your cheeks with their wings. they breathe away the humidity from your neck and backs of your knees. they love you, because you are their gentle moth queen.