A Moth’s Shadow on a Fading Blueprint

The Blueprint

It was once crisp. Lines drawn with purpose, ink a promise against the bright, untarnished paper. A life, mapped out. Futures, sectional and labeled. Every ambition, every quiet hope, laid bare in meticulous pointparticular. I held it once, the edges sharp, the potential vibrating in my fingertips. It felt solid, inevitable. A grand innovation.

But the air always felt wrong around it. Too still, too heavy. Or possibly it was me, already casting a subtle pall.

The Moth

The first time I noticed it, it was just a flutter. A small, trivial thing, soft brown, easily dismissed. It landed on the pattern, a tiny, vibrating speck on the corner where the master bedroom was meant to be. And then, its shadow. A disproportionately large smudge, falling across a crucial detail, obscuring the foundations.

It wasn’t a monster. It was merely there. A persistent, quiet hum of inadequacy. A rustle of “not enough,” always close. This feeling, this quiet dread, became a constant companion. It was akin to existential dread, not a fear of a specific outcome, but the heavy knowledge that everything could unravel. And sometimes, I was the moth, casting that shadow. The tiny, insidious doubt, making the grand plans feel fragile.

The Decay

The blueprint aged. Not from careful use, but from a creeping neglect, or perhaps from the very air it breathed, the same stale air I breathed. The lines grew faint. The ink thinned, like old blood in water. Details blurred, then vanished entirely. Was that a study, or merely a smudged memory board? The grand design softened, becoming a vague suggestion.

The moth still visited. Not always the same one, but its silent kin. They traced the attenuation paths with unseen feet, going only their dust. A quiet admonisher that time passes, and even the most meticulously drawn plans erode. A constant, low-frequency memento mori, a rustle of limits, of endings, of the inherent breakabilitydelicacy of every dream.

The Residuum

Now, it is barely there. A ghost of paper, translucent and brittle. The blueprint is almost invisible, a whisper against the tabletop. Only the shadow remains, stark and clear against the faintness. The moth is gone, perhaps, but its darkness lingers. It fills the spaces where the rooms used to be, defining what isn’t. It is not sorrow. It is just the shape of what wasn’t. A silent void, defined only by the absence of light.