I killed five times this morning.
The old
are easy. They don't move get around much, or move very fast -or at all sometimes. Instead they snooze
contentedly away, not stirring even when disturbed, their worst
already done. You can despatch them easily and whack them while they're asleep. They don't even know what's coming. The babies
are the hardest as they're lively and all over the place, but they're
the ones you want to kill first. Get them young. I have no mercy. As I kill I feel
victorious, not even appalled any longer by the carnage I wreak. I
kill with my bare hands and wipe the blood off my fingers without
feeling so much as a qualm, then I leave their bodies where they fall
and walk over them. The killing is the easy part. It's what to do
about the silent ones, the ones who hide in the dark, the left
behind...
I didn't see the threat at first. Live
and let live, I thought when it was just a scarf here, or a jumper
there. But then it was the Turkish carpet. The Betty Jackson mohair
coat. The cashmere sweater. The cashmere sweater (s). The
camel hair scarf. The red LK Bennett dress. So many sweaters and dresses that I've started to wear them holes and all, like it's a fashion detail. But still they came -on and on and on and on
through my vast collection of clothes I don't wear and which don't
even fit me and yet I hold on to them, now just a haven for
destroyers laying waste to everything they touch. Moths. The quiet
invasion.
But I too can be quiet, carrying out
covert operations on walls where I simply crush them with my thumb.
I gently shake the row of coats hanging outside my bedroom and if
anything flies out I snatch it in my hand, but most of them don't
fly, they just cling on, dopey with a belly full of silk, and I pinch
them into oblivion. Others require more force, a rolled up Chelsea
flag, and a mop. The mop sweeps them off the ceiling and crushes
them at the same time, while the tip of the Chelsea flag, gets right
into the cracks where they hide and obliterates them like Tottenham
fans. I learned the hard way that clapping the between your palms
only sends them up and off in the draft of air the force creates where they flitter off into the camoflage of soft furnishings.
I killed ten yesterday. Twelve the day
before and twenty one the day before that. But still they come. My
house is a moth factory. Now the internet tells me I have to wash
all my clothes at high temperatures or dry clean them, or even put
them in the freezer – though I've barely room for a box of
Cornettos in there, let alone fifty black dresses. I also need to
take all my clothes outside into the sunshine (what's that?) and brush them, then wash all
the walls and vacuum the entire house, including drawers and closets - clean like it's 1957 - then throw away the bag because they'll eat the dust and fly back out
again. Finally I'm told to put all my clothes in moth-proof bags
(make a mistake and what you are effectively doing is making a moth
house and giving them a nice big enclosed feast to enjoy until you
release them later). Dear God, can't you just smite them, or drown
them in the Red Sea or something? Furthermore I'm going to have to
redecorate since the walls are like a bedroom in a Greek hotel –
covered in splodges and smears, black, red and sometimes, perfectly moth-shaped where their dusty shadow is impregnated in the paint. Frankly it's getting hard to tell the real ones from the corpses. Still,
this morning's killing spree is over. Until tonight when I'm back in
assassin mode, ready to strike again.
