My tale is a tribute to a bat. Bill was a bat I knew for a short while and, for sheer dogged persistence and determination, Bill was hard to beat. I call my bat Bill because, over a period of several hours, I got to know that bat more than I wanted. Also, the name seemed to fit him.
Witter Springs bats are thumb-sized toothless pipsqueaks who eat fruit. Some of them live in my barn. This story is about what happened to me the other night and how I got acquainted with Bill, a tiny fruit bat. Bill was small. If you ignore his 8-inch wingspan and his toothpick legs, his body was the size of the end of my thumb. Bill was challenged in size but he was mighty for all that. For one thing his built-in radar was equal to the best anywhere. Fruit bats like Bill can tackle and catch insects in total darkness.
Our association began a few nights ago. After I opened the sliding glass door between my office (which is also my bedroom) and the outdoor front porch … to let in the night air, before I closed the screen, without invitation or encouragement, Bill coasted in to my bedroom. When I spotted him he had parked his peanut carcass on my ceiling; a black spot no larger than a half dollar.
I wasn’t about to share my quarters with a bat. It’s enough that Cleo, my cat takes up half my bed at night and walks on my head in the morning to let me know I should serve her breakfast Kitty Bits. When I spotted the bat, naturally, I immediately acted to send him packing. Closing the door to the hall and opening the sliding glass door and screen to the outside front porch I prepared to send my non-paying boarder on his way.
Bill was not in the mood to cooperate. He refused to leave. Instead, every time I shooed him toward the outside he continued to zip around my bedroom ceiling like a jet circling an airfield. I counted more than 50 clockwise circuits over my head until I finally quit counting. By that time I was sweating pretty good.
Desperately trying to find a way to encourage Bill to leave me in peace I sat down to recover and rest. Bill took advantage of my collapse. He parked himself on the ceiling again and was most likely laughing at my arm waving.
I tried everything; I turned on the porch lights and turned off the lights in my room. It did not help. Next I reversed the process. I had the lights on in my room and I turned off the porch lights. Bill ignored the change as if he preferred my room above all of the outdoors in Bachelor Valley. What made my task difficult were his gyrations around my room. His never-ending circling made me dizzy and he refused to fly lower than 1 foot from the ceiling.
The top of my sliding glass door to the outside is 2 feet from the ceiling. I kept the outside doorway open but I think Bill was programmed to keep his flight pattern near the ceiling where his radar could not detect the opening to freedom.
Not wishing to injure the speck-sized beast, I got my broom. I made ready for a new attack. Bill was wobbling after so many non-stop circles and making pit stops on my ceiling to rest after every circuit; always out of range of my broom. Every time Bill took a breather I swiped at him with my broom but he evaded me easily.
I tried to be gentle. When, at last, I caught him resting and in range of my broom, I gave him an extra heavy push from his perch. He fell and swooped down … perhaps out the sliding glass doors or under the furniture. I couldn’t tell for sure. Cleo, who continued to stand guard and watch Bill whirling around the room, must have had a stiff neck twisting her head every which way. We were ready for sleep.
“To hell with it,” I told Cleo. “We’ll try again in the morning.”
When morning came and the sun shone brightly, I looked around the room. No more Bill. Whether I shall one day find his tiny withered corpse in some corner beneath the furniture or he found his way home … I admit that I shall miss Bill.
