Mothman

anxiety, intense - but I am not frightened ... my heart races ... I want to flee my blood heats and lies to my senses ... 'get out! go now! dear gawd, fool, run!!' for you are formidable - eighty inches tall, if a foot flat, broad head like an anvil with fur sloping shoulders that wrap to bony, feathered appendages, tips scratching dirt I can see moonlight behind them (like the waves in Turner's "Fishermen at Sea") where skin is pulled taut and thin ... but crested with a grand, dark plumage strong and powerful, though huddled 'round you like a coat - the cold wind whistling through dead trees behind you - like tall, brittle soldiers at your command ... I fight the impulses of fear that are searing my core, for I am certain you mean me no harm - feel it as deeply as my bones - my purpose is to communicate, but your eyes are a barrier - I am sure of your benign intentions, but my species has been conditioned, you see ... taught that such gleaming crimson orbs are the gaze of evil, and despite my acumen, I'm frozen in place ... I want so to speak - to reach out a hand in friendly gesture, to be one creature in this alien world you're banished to in whom you find an accord, or at least something not intent on your ruin or demonization ... we have been at this impasse before, you and I - so many times I have come to this ruddy, vacant spot to find you, and so many times you have found ME ... abandoned factory buildings huddled like old women, their dark, empty eyes staring, catatonic, aloof witnesses to our timid dance of curiosities ... every time we seem to get no closer than this - a Universe of unknowns swimming in the icy air between us, yet a common compulsion to know the other - to find a simple element with which to bridge our vacillations ... and our kind ... I know you are lost, though I don't know WHY - I sense it assuredly the way I sense other things about you ... I know it is YOU who are communicating, sending me cerebral impulses that I can not return, but that I feel to my core, and do not question ... I feel your longing for your home - a sad, empty yearning that almost brings tears, and I know your being here was not intended or planned, but inescapable ... and terrifying ... odd that it has never occurred to me before that you might be as apprehensive of me as I am of you ... did you purposely not convey that emotion? did you screen that somehow as a defensive tool, or perhaps in an effort to patronize or disseminate? I'm lost in the mystery of those thoughts when I see you move the tips of your "feet", (more like talons, really, with three long, bony metatarsals, two joints in each, and a long, thick nail), scratching the ground a bit, and flexing your back-bending knee joints, (disconcerting, that), and I know from our many previous encounters that you're about to leave ... my heart lurches, because this is NOT what I want - to end another of our meetings in failure - so I flatten the palm of my right hand, spread my fingers, and extend my arm out slightly, but your EYES are still holding me firmly in place ... (perhaps if I disconnect, I muse) I close my eyes gently and try to concentrate on "friend", clamping my lids shut for as long as I can, and when I'm finally about to open them again, I FEEL it - a soft electrical trembling on the back of my outstretched hand ... where you have TOUCHED it! my impulse again is to run, or at least open my eyes, but I resist, and the feeling travels up my arm to all my extremities - the most peaceful, calming emotion I've ever known saturates my being with euphoria and serene intelligence, wrapping me so securely that I almost feel I have wings of my own ... my eyes stay shut, and my consciousness begins to blur and drift in a pool of warm, dark beauty, and just when I start to lose contact with reality, I hear a loud "whoosh", feel a biting cold breath slap my face, and open my eyes to see you fly straight up into the chilly, moonlit sky ... as after all our previous encounters, I am left with the remnants of your staggering loneliness, an overwhelmingly intense yearning for a world far beyond this solar system, but THIS time the residue is tainted with something new - crimped with something tender and bright and joyous, and though rather small, a defined feeling of HOPE ... and one word: "friend" ... I stand in that spot for the longest time, though I don't really know why - I turn my weary gaze up to the moon, and almost fall over from shock and amazement, for Luna is as bright as I've ever seen her, and she is as NEVER before - a deep, wonderful, gleaming, crimson RED ... I'm quickly set at ease, for there, far inside my spirit, I know that you have not changed the color of the moon, but that I have simply, graciously, miraculously ... been given a very precious gift - new, shimmering eyes with which to view my world, and the promise of a very rare-yet-unsettling friendship ... to come.