I think I’d heard it in my sleep and that the sound played into my dream. It was still there on waking. A fluttering, a rattling, a battering wings against cloth. What was it? And where was it coming from? I put my ear to his door. Nope, it wasn’t him. I went back into my bedroom. Yes, it was coming from under the black plastic dust cover hanging over my clothes rack. A moth? A bee? A swarm of them? I didn’t want to know. I left it. And it went silent. For a while, that is. When it began the fluttering again I decided to be brave and unzip the cover. It was a crane fly. A huge one. I set it free. Well, not exactly free. It flew up to the ceiling, bashed against it and then against the light bulb and disappeared somewhere. He offered to catch it and put it out of a window. Leave it be, I said. Let it be.
