I can't believe they ain't butterflies.
My grandfather used to keep his own miniature moth cryogenics lab in his study on the bookshelf. It mainly consisted of a miniature fridge, intended for beer cans, turned up full blast and a hand operated tiny pump which was linked up to each of his six "patients". Each morning, before his tea and toast, grandfather would hobble across to the shelf, carefully balance his two walking sticks against the fireplace below, and give the handle of the pump five slow turns with his less than nimble arthritic fingers, thereby cycling anti-freeze through the tiny mothy veins of his half-dozen lepidopteron frozen dead wards. As we were living in my grandfather’s house for most of my childhood, I saw this scene almost every morning of my formative years. It is unsurprising then, that one of the first things I learnt to read was the "Do not touch" sign next to the small array of levers next to his macabre moth mausoleum.
It wasn’t until I began to bring friends home occasionally from school that I even considered that there was something strange about this set up. Friends would at first be bemused at the reasons for grandfather’s odd hobby. Soon and inevitably, however, this curiosity would redirect itself towards the levers and what would happen if they were ever touched. My friends made wild guessing suggestions. Perhaps they would switch the entire machine off. Perhaps they would alter the thermostat such that the moths would catch fire. Perhaps they would bring the moths back to life.
Eventually, in the company of one of my long standing school friends, Kenneth Williams, I bit the bullet and asked my grandfather why it was so important that we did not touch his tiny levers. His reply was curt and evasive; “Just don’t” he mumbled in his old man’s voice. And that was all he would say before turning his attention back to his large print book.
From then on his morning routine changed. He would still waddle over and carefully turn the pump’s handle but now, as he turned to join us in the kitchen, he would see me watching him perform his ritual and, raising a wizened finger to point at the levers he would slowly, purposely and authoritatively state “DO… NOT… TOUCH.”
And so I didn’t. I did not touch. All through primary and secondary school I did not touch. All through primary and secondary school rumours spiralled out of control amongst my friends as to what would happen if ever anyone did touch those levers until eventually they had concocted a quite detailed and ridiculous horror story about zombie moths breeding and attacking and killing and destroying if ever we did touch those malevolent controls.
So good was the story, that one Halloween in my early-teens, while hosting a sleepover the dare was too perfect and too horrifying to be refused; “push the levers.” And it was me that was dared. And so, with my two friends watching from the safety of the stairs, at nearly midnight on Halloween I found myself tiptoeing across my grandfather’s study toward the lepidopteron tomb. With one last glance over my shoulder to catch the excited eyes of my chums, I reached up to the levers, brushed the sign to one side and… thrust all of them forward in one go. The silence was unbearable. All three of us remained transfixed. We did not dare tear our gaze from the moths as we awaited an insecty apocalypse we were sure would unfold before our eyes. Though only ten seconds must have passed, they felt like a whole lifetime. Then it happened.
It started as a quiet tapping. Then a thudding. Then a thunderous drumming. As I turned to seek courage from the eyes of my friends, I saw my grandfather running towards me just before he smashed me in the jaw with a hockey stick. Blow after blow followed. Until he looked down at his bloodied pulp of a grandchild and mumbled “I fucking said do not touch.” And went off to bed chuckling.
( baldmonkey a frothy foul-smelling vaginal discharge, Mon 8 May 2006, 20:19, Reply)