Retreat #8: The Bat
Most of the evening, I leave my inside door open, letting air trickle through the screen door. As darkness sets in, I go onto the deck to get kindling. When I open the screen door to go outside, I hear a “whoosh” pass by my ear. Assuming that a small bird has swooped into my cabin, I’m not concerned. I watch the fading streaks of the sunset and then go back inside.
In the dusk of the cabin, I hear the bird flying about, so I prop the screen door open. I tidy up the place, brush my teeth, close the kitchen windows. I notice a shadow dip toward the door and into the darkness. “Simple,” I think. “The bird is taken care of.” I close the doors, settle into bed, read for ten minutes and turn out the light. As I drift toward sleep, I hear scrabblings on the wall near the headboard of my bed. Are they inside or outside? Birds sometimes huddle beneath the eaves outside. It’s not uncommon to hear their movements when I’m in bed. I decide to ignore the sounds. Drifting off again, I hear wings hissing through the air. The sound is inside my cabin, and it’s not the sound of feathered wings. And then I know. This thing flying in my cabin in the dark is not a bird; it’s a bat.
I’ve never seen a bat before. Out of bed, on with the lights. As I search for him, goose bumps pop up, more and more of them, until they cover my whole body. I feel more anxious than afraid. Where is the creature? What does he look like? Will he come at me if I get too close?
When I see him, he looks like a big knot in the wood of the beam that stretches across the apex of the cabin roof. After putting on my glasses and getting a good look at him from a distance, I turn off all my inside lights except one dim lamp. I open the doors onto the deck and turn on the porch light. I wait a bit. When nothing happens, I get a broom and brush him off the ceiling joist. He flies fast and I can’t see him. It sounds like he’s flying in a circle around me.
Then silence envelopes us.
I wait, nervous about what else might enter through my door before the bat exits. I walk around a bit, sit on the couch long enough to get in touch with my tiredness. I grow impatient. Wanting to keep track of the bat, I turn on all the lights in my room. For 45 minutes, I chase him around the cabin, waving my broom. Four times, he flies out the door. Each time I see him go out, I dash for the door. All four times, he makes a U-turn and flies back inside before I can close the door. By this time, we’re both exhausted. The bat has been flying non-stop and he begins to flounder. I fear that he’ll drop to the floor and I’ll have to pick him up and carry him outside.
I stand with one hand on the doorknob. With my other hand, I stick the broom out as far as I can, waving it whenever he comes near. After a dozen or so swipes with the broom, I see a shadow flit out the door. I slam the door shut.
When I’ve calmed down enough to think, I remember some things about bats. Once upon a time, I learned that bats respond to vibrations. I’ve never had to recall that piece of information since I memorized it in Grade Whatever. The bat might’ve exited my cabin sooner if I’d sat still and silent in the dark.
Bats live in quiet, dark places. In that way, they may reflect the silent black night of the soul in which the traditional shaman’s death occurs. This death destroys the former self through intense tests. The persistence of this bat in entering my cabin, then exiting and returning four times unsettles me. What is the meaning of this visitation? I know that bats don’t seek out human interaction. He was as desperate to get away from me as I was to be rid of him.
The bat hung upside-down from the rafter, in the position a baby assumes when it is ready for birth. The appearance of Bat in my life might indicate the approach of a painful transition—perhaps one of death and rebirth.
I don't sleep for a long while.