MOTH

WHAT IT IS

It was a small enclave stuck between a run down café and “a save the pets” charity storefront in the seventh ward where Leo Barnard spent most of his nights. A real plywood roof propped up by four Union Carbide skids along with an Exxon kerosene stove, which doubled as a heater, was all the material possessions Leo required.

Jaclyn had her Glock service revolver trained on Tiny as the bewildered fugitive’s eyes darted around the room looking for a way out, but it didn’t look good. When another team of officers arrived, Jaden went looking for the small horse thathad disappeared from the scene.

Leo rolled up a cigarette, just as good as store bought he had been told over the years and Leo came to believe it. His trembling hand lit a match, he held it up to the front of his masterpiece and sucked long and hard as he watched his small horse meander down the alleyway toward him. As the horse dithered along, a woman in uniform emerged from the street and stopped at the end of the alley. She walked with purpose toward the horse but the filly turned a corner and sauntered down a nearby lane. Jaden quietly followed, exchanged pleasantries with Leo who told her that the only thing she would see down that lane was small white moth. Intrigued, Jaden surveyed the dimly lit area but could see no horse just a moth looking THE light.

WHAT IT IS NOT

With the acting interim head of INSECT laid up in hospital, a new assistant acting interim head in the person of Smith was elevated to the position. Smith was through the roof over several INSECT deficiencies, but none more so when Johnson and Williams lost Butsey and Beersey in Nova Scotia. As a reward for their lackluster efforts the pair were once again sent to Plot 82 to collect one thousand white moths that INSECT chemists needed in an experiment.

It was embarrassing…two grown men…accomplished law enforcement officers at that…to be running around the countryside with butterfly nets and plastic boxes collecting Lepidopterans. But collect they did, and after two days the lads possessed one thousand live moths ready for transport to the Northern Ontario headquarters. Gathering up their gear for the return trip home, Williams saw the blind man and small horse they met some months earlier at the Plot. Waving enthusiastically, Williams called out, but of course the blind man couldn’t hear him, or so a confused Williams thought. At any rate, as the car pulled away Johnson noticed a moth on the back window, and thinking it must have somehow gotten out of its container, asked Williams to pull over so he could put it back in its rightful place. Once again the lads were off, and as Smith got up to full speed he looked in his rear view mirror to see only the blind man standing in the middle of the road, the horse nowhere to be seen.