Headmoths

by J. Motoki

His last words hiss under the pendulum of the lightbulb. Flash burns, sloughed flesh. He is an insect collapsing on itself, body rocked by spasms, arched back, feet drumming the basement floor.

Dad, attending to death, stumbles through the house at odd hours. His child sleeps with both arms wrapped around himself. Dad the County Coroner, searching for truth in flesh and fluids, doesn’t notice his child sleeps too long, too often.

The boy leaves clues in dust and shadows. He disintegrates into a thousand flying things in the white eye of the light.

How long until the Coroner comes?

J. Motoki

Motoki earned her BA in Literature at University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the Short Story Editor for Coffin Bell Journal and Assistant Editor for Rune Bear Magazine. Her works have been published in Nowhere.Ink, Rue Scribe, Blood Song Books, and Coffin Bell Journal, with one flash nominated for The Best Small Fictions 2019 (Braddock Avenue Books).