Lost Alphabet

[a moment or as long as necessary]

 

Like captains on a ship or cousins in a poorhouse we sleep in shifts, one of us always watching.  Ilya won't handle the specimens, but reports their activity in a log.  Usually days are quiet.  I have imagined a new way of holding my instruments, more of a laying down in the fingers.  I introduce the changes slowly so as not to startle the moths.  I will benefit them, but they are accustomed to what they are accustomed to and I don't want them to think I am strange.