Nocturnal Emissions by Jeffrey Thomas

that others write off as coincidence…however lacking I am in your mother’s brand of faith.
    Reading back this last bit makes me fidget in my seat. Maybe there is no significance. No doubt I am only projecting a personal meaning on these two finds. How can I hope to understand the doings (mindless or otherwise) of the universe when I can’t even understand myself, half the time? Do you recall what Alice said?
    ‘I can’t explain myself , I’m afraid, sir’said Alice , ‘because I’m not myself, you see.’
    She said that to the caterpillar.
    But Alice was shrunken. The caterpillar was only three inches tall. Not seven feet long, like mine.
    You’ll think I’m losing it. You’ll tell your mother, “Dad thinks he’s seen the Dover Demon again. He thinks he has the hair of the Florida Skunk Ape in his hand.”
    Enough synchronicity. Enough of the mysteries of the cosmos. I’ll stick with the flesh that I can feel, that I can smell. If only you would come and see this thing.
    Please…don’t think it was I who was smoking that hookah. :-) I love you. Truly, my Alice .
    – Dad.
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    To: Villa, Maria
    From: Villa, Abraham
    Subject: The MothraMan Prophecies
    Date: Saturday, 19 August 2002, 5:12 PM
    Maybe I have the wrong email address for you, Maria, though my message wasn’t bounced back, per se, so I imagine you haven’t checked your box, or are too busy to reply. But I thought I would update you. By now, I’m sure you must have received the letter I sent you last week.
    With others at the College of the Atlantic, Mike Finney has definitely identified the creature found in Acadia as an insect. Specifically, as an imma-ture Lepidoptera.
    That’s butterfly, to the layman.
    The press has nicknamed the thing Mothra. Have you seen it on TV yet?
    Any butterfly that could develop from such a caterpillar would not possibly be able to support itself in the air. Mike says the thing can not actually be what it seems, is only distantly related to such. But here it is, on its slab before us. With its two human eyes in place of the six stemmata, or eyespots, a caterpillar should have. And those curious lips, curiouser and curiouser, that I can secretly imagine closing around the mouthpiece of a hookah.
    Give me an email, my dear. A postcard. Call and yell at me if you like! I deserve it. I welcome it. Or come. Please come. See that Dad was not charging windmills after all. I miss you, my favorite of all monsters.
    – Dad.
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    To: Villa, Maria
    From: Villa, Abraham
    Subject: Crying in my cups
    Date: Sunday, 18 August 2002, 1:08 AM
    I’ve been drinking tonight, so I shouldn’t send you this message through the ether like so much telepathy, so much ectoplasm. So little sense. Yes, I still drink. Your mother will be disgusted, or perhaps pleased that her suspicions are confirmed. Feel free to tell her. I don’t ask you to keep secrets from her.
    Once you listened to me avidly, hung on every word I read from Alice , the Oz books, and even from my own obscure scribblings. But now I see you in my mind as turned toward the wall. Or already fallen asleep. Or not even in the bed at all. I’m reading to myself. Talking to myself. Well…if I am…so be it. It still comforts me to pretend. You lost interest in the stories, Maria, as you grew, grew and grew like Alice , and as we grew apart. But I still have them with me. As if someday I might read them to you one last time. Or for the first time, to a child of yours. I live for that, my darling. I would trade a Sasquatch fur coat for that, little Alice .
    I won’t beg, implore, beseech any more. It embarrasses us both. If you wanted to contact me, you would. When you’re ready to, you will.
    I have confidence, or at least the prayer, that one day we will speak again.
    Until then, know that I love you more than the whole of this unfathomable world, my beautiful butterfly in the making.
    – Daddy.
    ««—»»
    8/30/02
    I’m sorry this card will reach