Act I: The Man Who Mistook His Shadow for a Séance
The hospital’s seventh floor hummed with the static of unmonitored heartbeats. Dr. Marlow’s office—a crypt of velvet drapes and chessboards missing their queens—smelled of bergamot and unsent letters. Her patient, Arthur Vale, 51, sat coiled in the chair, his voice a scratched vinyl of a man who’d “misplaced the key to the wine cellar.”
His chart: Autistic. Widowed. Complains of “nocturnal insects” nesting in his groin.
“Not insects,” he hissed. “Moths. The kind that… drink moonlight.”
Dr. Marlow’s pen hovered. “And where does the moonlight burn, Mr. Vale?”
Act II: The Anatomy of a Whisper Examination revealed:
A hive of silver threads (scar tissue from “overzealous zookeeping”).
A pocket watch filled with absinthe (his term for seminal fluid, now “clouded and bitter”).
A chessboard tattoo above his pelvis, the black queen missing.
“You’ve been playing against yourself,” she observed. “But the queen always wins.”
Arthur’s jaw tightened. “She… preferred checkers.”
Ah. The wife. Clara Vale, née Bishop. Died 2017. Ovarian silence.
Act III: The Nocturne in F-Sharp Minor Midnight tests in the abandoned wing:
EEG wires snaked like violin strings across his scalp.
Thermal imaging showed a “cold spot” where the moths congregated—a perfect oval. Her favorite locket’s shape.
“Guilt is a poor aphrodisiac,” Dr. Marlow murmured, holding the scan to the light. “You buried her with the key, didn’t you?”
Arthur’s composure cracked like a Fabergé egg. “The moths… they hum her name. Clara. Clara. In C minor.
Act IV: The Queen’s Gambit Declined Treatment was a tango of metaphors:
A jar of stolen fireflies (placebo libido tonic).
A vinyl of Ravel’s Boléro spliced with static (to drown out the moths).
A single chess piece—the black queen—left on his doorstep.
“The game isn’t yours to forfeit,” she warned. “But the queen… she’s tired of winning.”
Arthur returned a week later, the moths now “dormant, but… scribbling sonnets in the margins.”
Act V: The Hatching The twist came at 3 a.m. A call from Security: “He’s in the garden. The locked one.”
Dr. Marlow found him barefoot among the overgrown lilacs, the chess queen in his palm.
“They’ve pupated,” he whispered. “The moths. They’re… letters.”
She read the note he pressed into her hand—Clara’s final prescription, never filled:
“Darling, plant lilacs where the shadow gnaws. Let them be our moths.”
Epilogue: The Unquiet Cellar
Dr. Marlow resumed her nightshift, the office now scented with lilacs. Arthur’s file read:
Diagnosis: Moonlight poisoning. Prognosis: Chronic, exquisite.
Her pager buzzed—a code from the morgue: “Specimen #9 requesting a waltz.”
She smirked. Another moth to the flame.
FADE TO BLACK
(Cue the sound of wings.)
A Fool's Handbook 