The Screaming of the Moth

What you are about to read is a true story.  It has been pieced together from eye witness accounts.  Thenames have been changed to protect their identities...

A couple of friends of mine from law school, Bob and Lana, had gotten married and bought their dream house.  Its a bit run down but they have restored and redocorated it.  Even better was the property it was situated on.  They have some 80 acres of land.  I`ve taken to calling their home the Blackacre Estate (law students will get the joke).

Well, Bob, me, and Bob`s brother in law, Kevin, were mountain biking and 4-wheeling on the property.  Kevin was tooling around when a moth flew into his helmet.  Kevin brought the 4-wheeler to a screeching halt and tried to rip the helmet of his head.

Bob and I approached him wondering what had happened.  Finally, Kevin got the helmet off but his gyrations continued.  He kept shaking his head and slapping at his ear screaming "AAARRGGGHHH!!!!  Get out!!! Get out!!!"

To our horror, we learned that while trying to remove the helmet and free the moth, Kevin had some how forced the mouth into his left ear!!  At that moment, the moth was struggling and buzzing, trying to escape from the prison of flesh it found itself in.

We brought Kevin back to the house to figure out what to do.  One suggestion was to take the Shop-Vac and stick the hose to his ear and suck it out.  Lana quickly overruled that suggestion saying that the pressure change would rupture his ear drum.  So we opted for trained professional medical assistance and took Kevin to the E.R.

At the E.R., the doctors attempted to irrigate Kevin`s ear canal toflush out the moth.  This only served to increase Kevin`s anxiety because everytime his ear was flooded, the moth would freak out and struggle harder.  After 2 hours, the Dr. said he couldn`t get the moth out because it was struggling to much.  Also that the moth`s struggling had actually moved it further into the ear, right next to the ear drum.  He decided that it was necessary to kill the moth and hope that once dead it would be easier to remove.  He had Kevin lie down as he filled his ear with some solution in an attempt to drown and kill the moth.

The look on Kevin`s face was one of horror.  As he lay there he said he could feel the moth struggling for air as his ear canal filled with fluid.  Then he said something that chilled me to the bone.

"I can hear it screaming."  He whispered.
"Its dying and it knows it.  Its screaming its death rattle in my ear."

I did not know that moths made noise.  I speculated that it was just his winging brushing up against the ear drum, that it wasn`t actually screaming Kevin was hearing.  Kevin insisted it was, he said that it was this high pitch shrill.

Finally, with the moth dead, the Dr. attempted once again to remove it.  No luck, it was stuck.  Apparently in its death throes and post-mortem rigor, the wings were open and lodged the body in the ear.  The Dr. then gave Kevin a solution that would break down and dissolve the moth overnite and to come back the next day to have his ear flushed out.

So we took him home.  On the way back to my place, I wondered how much sleep Kevin would have that nite.  I wondered what would keep him up: having a dead moth stuck in his ear or the memory of the Screaming of the Moth?