Small Chance

There's a small chance I may be losing my mind.

I'm in the bed, looking at the interwebs on my computer (the internet is on computers now, by the way), as I often am when I can't sleep. The outside doors are locked and checked, closets are closed, all the usual slightly compulsive before-bed-behaviors have been taken care of. Everything is fine, right?

Then I hear this noise.

I can't objectively describe what it sounds like because I'm biased. Obviously, every noise I hear in the middle of the night is a bat flying around my apartment. Obviously. What else could it be? A branch hitting the kitchen window? Nah, that's impossible. The house settling? No, that would just be stupid. My neighbor on the other side of the wall just a few feet away? Well, that's just crazy! It has to be a bat! There's just no other reasonable answer.

I guess I'm a little scarred from the previous incident (have a read - this one is a doozy). Once I realized a real live bat could get in my apartment once, I also realized that several real live bats could get in my apartment several times. In fact, when Genia was over on that fateful night, taking care of that bat (and taking care of me, the big baby), she was amazed that I'd never before had a bat in any apartment I'd ever lived in. I believe she said that she'd had four different ones. In my head, that of course meant that I was due for a few more soon. There's some aspect of probability in there. Zero in seven years of living here just didn't fit the statistics of Bat Appearances. Suck.

So anyhow, I hear this noise. I calmly set down my computer, which was nearly thrown across the room at the bat last time, walk to the entrance of my bedroom, and close my door. I stand, motionless, listening for the noise in the other room. I still hear it. Like I said, I cannot objectively describe it, so in my subjective mind, it sounded like "wings flapping, going back and forth across the room," which is what it sounded like last time. I remember my sister saying that bats could squeeze through tiny spaces, so I shove a couple of hoodies across the crack along the bottom of the door. I listen for a few more seconds. The noise has stopped. I assume that the bat has settled in one place. Or the wind has slowed and the tree branch is not moving, or my neighbor went to sleep, or the noise simply stopped, yes, but mostly I think the bat settled down.

So...is there a bat in my kitchen? I do not know. And I'm not going to find out. At least not tonight. Tonight, I absolutely cannot handle even the possibility of a goddamn bat. It's just not going to happen. Things may be different tomorrow, but I wouldn't count on it. I'll probably be sleeping with the door shut and spending a lot more time at all your houses for a few days.

I really think I need to calm down.