Bats

               Lately, I have taken especially strong notice of something that has been present for the majority of my life. Something that has been a part of my world more so than any other person who hasn’t centered their world on it. Something that doesn’t necessarily define my life, but in many ways, seems to guide it, and serve as some sort of omen. On this occasion, I speak of bats. Of course it’s bats.

               My inexplicable involvement with bats began when I was quite young. From early youth, most of my life was spent sequestered on 16 wild acres set deep in the forest of southern Ohio. We could afford to sit on so much land because there was nothing out there. Being the psychopathic little barbarian that I was, I spent the grand majority of any given day on the wooded hillside, where I can assure you that an absurd amount of bugs resided. At the site of the origin of all bugs, so too exists the seat of the kingdom of bats. It was natural that I was already in the presence of bats pretty much all the time, but in the same way that normal people are. Just, y’know… on a larger scale. A more outstanding incident occurred when I was about nine or ten.

               On one of the rare occasions that I was not deeply ensconced in the emerald labyrinth atop Mt. Ruggles, I was riding my bike through the recently mowed grass around the base off the hill arbitrarily designated as the backyard. Upon reaching the opposite end of the newly managed expanse, I found a small brown bat lying belly-down in the grass. Being of a clan of nigh-immortal supermen, I wasn’t concerned with disease, or even being bitten. My backwoods beast master instincts kicked in as I noted the unnatural sight of a bat crawling on the ground (perhaps another omen or metaphor for my life), and I reached my hand down into the grass. This tiny, leathery fur ball climbed into the palm of my hand, I stood back up, and with one smooth motion, I released it back into the air. A bat flew from my hand like it was released at a macabre, Halloween-themed wedding. Ozzy Osbourne had not yet died for this to be his second coming. This is my life.

               Years later, I would find myself in the Air Force, crushed beneath the soul-grinding boot of technical training in San Angelo, Texas. Any proud Texan will display their embarrassment and tell you that San Angelo is the worst part of Texas. Anyone who has been there will tell you that the underside of the bridges all host entire civilizations of bats. This is unsurprising, considering the amount of insects that swarm over the arid plains of San Angelo, converging over the open sores in the Earth where the damned escape from Tartarus to attend NASCAR races. There are lots of bugs for bats to feed on, is what I’m saying. Also, I’m saying “fuck Texas.”

               Given the population of bats rivals that of humans in San Angelo, it is not unnatural to see large swarms of bats there. It is, however, unnatural to see one in the middle of the day. One afternoon, around 5 or 5:30, I was in the company of some other captive souls on our way to study hall, because of course we had homework that was tracked, digitally, for how much time we spent on it. We had just eaten our fill of prison-grade foodstuffs from the dining facility and were waddling across the parking lot toward our classroom when I had made the decision to belch out some of the noxious fumes resultant of the dubious meal. As the rumbling of the gas pocket’s release reverberated between the corridors of brick walls, from the flat roof of the building across the street sprang a cloud of bats.

               These buildings are designed as giant cubes. There is no attic space for the creatures to be holed up in. No number of air handling units, no matter how spacious underneath could hold that many bats. Their number was such that they blocked the scorching afternoon sun and made the ground where we stood darker. Bats are not known to lounge in the sun, working on tanning their hairy little bodies. They aren’t typically known to lie down at all if they can help it. Having them appear from the top of a flat surface in broad daylight defied the few things that any layman can say with certainty that they know to be true about bats. From my gut, I had worked up a sound that reached the harmonic resonance frequency of time and space, and the portal that I tore at the top of a nearby building led to the populous center of Bat World. That this happened was shocking, and is certainly one of the more vivid memories of my life, but what baffles me is that this was not an isolated event. It happened no less than three fucking times.

               I will admit that since my bat summoning incidents in Texas, my entanglement with flying rodents has been less intense, but fate has seen me make my return to southern Ohio. When I kick a rock into the weeds, it doesn’t set a rabbit scurrying into the woods, but scrambles a bat higher into the trees. When I come across some air-beast lazing on the hillside, it’s not a pigeon or crow that evacuates to the dusky sky, but a bat.

               I don’t know what my connection with bats is. Is the bat my spirit guide? Is it some sort of cosmic metaphor? Does it explain my aversion to bright lights and loud sounds? My ability to navigate in the dark? My rabies? I didn’t choose to be connected to bats (solely) because I think they’re cool. I didn’t make any sort of choice at all. This is the world I live in. A world full of bats. If I eat a bunch of peyote buttons in the desert, I’m pretty sure I know what leads me to enlightenment. It would seem that bats have chosen me. For… something. When I figure out the reason, Amazon will be the first to know, because my recommendations page will be full of utility belts.