Ethan Lam

Usually, when we shower, we don’t expect to be intruded upon.

It’s Sunday—that time between dinnertime and midnight when the night abutting my door is the perfect thickness, like a sable blanket. I’m in bed, still in my day clothes, watching something about dark magic when I notice movement near the ceiling. I don’t bother to pause the show: I simply spare a moment to see who the intruder is. She’s struggling, fretting, fighting fiercely against the plaster ceiling, skidding across it in a pattern of panic that, without my glasses, is but a stop-motion blur. Not an intruder, then. A roommate. I became indifferent to her; she chose this. Eventually, she will tire, and tomorrow morning I’ll help her leave: This isn’t a jail cell to punish the curious. Even a plump, hairy spider was once escorted out. I figure that one night here won’t kill her. In the morning I’ll see her on her way.

Steadily the night grows heavier, as though swelling with water weight. Itchiness from the day demands an address.

For nearly a month I’ve hunted for more “soul food;”   those particular experiences that make me pause, that fill not my stomach but something else within. It’s been a while since I last had my fill: I’m growing desperate, and I know it—earlier today I even sat crisscross applesauce on my rug for 20 minutes, listening to piano music and a woman’s voice asking me questions like, “What does your body need?” and “How are your thoughts affecting you?” Meanwhile, I scratch at a mosquito bite on my wrist and stretch my legs and then fidget a bit before finishing with a general sense of feeling something good—but nothing remotely filling.

Need I stumble on soul food? Is it impossible to hunt or seize? Instead, must I wait, holding my hands out blindly until it falls into place?

Even while showering I feel the desperate hunger gnawing at me. I have to find it and write about it. I have to—

A small thing shoots across my vision and then there’s a pressure, so gentle, barely felt, on the muscle just beneath my shoulder. It’s so sudden I hardly have time to react; I jerk my arm up, expecting to see something but not knowing what, and there she is, my roommate, now in exquisite detail, perched on me … on wet skin. Hurriedly, I move away from the water, my arm held out stiffly. She remains still, so incredibly still after moving so very fast, as if she intended to land here. I see now she’s a moth. The very edges of her wings are dark with wetness, and I wonder if she’s trapped herself here with me. I feel exasperated with her: First, you lock yourself in my room, and now this? But I smile and inspect her more closely: Her wings are narrow, off-white with brown specks. I examine her V-shaped antennae, surprisingly long. I stare into her impossibly small black eye, searching for depth. And slowly, I begin to suspect something unusual.

There’s no veritable reason to think of her as female: It’s just that she’s beautiful and elegant despite her desperation earlier, and in those moments I think her tiny little heart beats in tune with mine.

She still hasn’t even twitched a leg. I become more certain of it now: Her stillness isn’t out of fear but  of sudden calm. I’m calming her. And strangely, I think she’s calming me. Such an odd thing; illogical, impossible to know for sure—and yet I know. Then, for some reason, my calm ends; I stretch my arm parallel to the towel rack. She understands and crawls onto it, and for the remainder of my time in the bathroom, she sits there, waiting. Not even a minute after shutting the light off, I reenter to brush my teeth. Yellow light devours the darkness, and she’s gone without a trace. As if she had been a hallucination. As if she served her purpose. As if I’ve served mine.

After slapping some moisturizer on, I go to my desk and quickly search for her name. Nameless Pinion. Nameless Pinion. I’m digesting her; I’ve forgotten the exact feel of her, yet somehow, the next morning, I still feel her inside of me. She is a steady trickle. She is warm, she is cool, she is small, she is worldly—she is in everything and the gaps between everything.

I try to encourage her to leave, but she will not. She clings to the edge between the wall and ceiling just above my desk; I return from class to find her in the same position. She is white, with specks of brown. In her later years, Ru was mostly white, with patches of brown.

When I’m home, I find myself checking to see if she’s still here. Even as I write, she remains. Simultaneously she rests on that muscle beneath my right shoulder. The predators outside will not savor her, but I will. I do.