The dark is my delight. You might think that’s a waste of my beauty, but you’d be wrong. My true beauty is perceived not by the eye but through the feathery antennae of my future husband. My wings are huge (25cm across) but that will mean little to him. I can fly all right: but mostly I fly on the wings of deception.
Monday
Today, I ate nothing. Yesterday, I ate nothing and tomorrow, I will eat nothing. I will never eat. The very idea is absurd: and besides, I haven’t got the equipment. I did all the eating I need in my caterpillar days: I ate hugely – especially the leaves of cinnamon and guava. But when I became a pupa I set aside childish things.
Small body, huge wings, poor flight. What’s the point you may ask
Tuesday
The thing about not eating is that it leads irrevocably to not living: I reckon I have a couple of weeks to fulfil my life – if I’m lucky. I fly but weakly and besides, flying is a huge expense of energy and I have better things to do with the energy that remains to me. So I hang about close to where I emerged as an adult and when it’s night I fill the air with the magic husband-summoning substance called pheromones.
Wednesday
Small body, huge wings, poor flight. What’s the point, you may ask. But my wings showed their value today. An insect-eating bird – pied hornbill since you ask. Powerful flier, enormous beak. He fancied me for lunch, but I spread my wings and he was gone. Try it for yourself: take a squint at my picture. Do you see it now? The windows in my wings reflect light and for a moment I was a monster: winged, fanged, ferocious. Don’t put this down to pareidolia: the hornbill saw it too and it terrified him.
Thursday
Welcome, husband. He flew more than a mile on his wobbly wings because he loved me: inspired to deeds of greatness by my long-distance gorgeousness. If I can live long enough to lay my eggs, I’ll be fulfilled throughout eternity.
Friday
Today, it was a lizard. He thought he saw an easy meal, but he thought wrong. I saw him, I fell to the ground, I writhed. In particular, I twisted the ends of my wings, those beautifully made hooks with the cute little eye spot and – behold a snake! Behold a vicious, moving, hungry and altogether lethal snake. The lizard legged it, and who could blame him?
Saturday
Not much longer to go. So much beauty, so little time. Atlas was a Titan who held up the world: very much the enduring type. Perhaps there’s a little irony involved here. But no matter, soon my task will be done, the eggs laid, and that’ll be it. Goodnight, sweet moth, and flights of angels sing me to my rest. Will the angels have wings as glorious as mine?
Atlas moth (attacus atlas) CV
Lifespan Say, a fortnight
Eating habits You’re joking
Hobbies Fakery
Sexual preferences Feathery antennae
Photograph by Jeff Lepore / Alamy