A Lighthouse for Moths

Mr. Fujii had worked nights at the Hotel Kasumi for nineteen years, and for nineteen years he had left the garden lamp on.

The owner's daughter, who did the accounts now, asked him about it in September. The lamp used more electricity than the vending machine.

"It's for the moths," he said.

She looked at him over her glasses. "We're paying for moths."

"Not only moths."

He did not explain, and she did not ask again, but that night she stayed late and sat by the window with the ledger open and the pen not moving. At a little after one, something came out of the dark toward the lamp. It was not a moth. It was the size of a hand, and the colour of the inside of a shell, and it circled the light three times before it settled on the glass and folded itself into a shape she would spend the rest of her life trying to describe.

In the morning she approved the electricity bill without comment.