bat in a jar
Our cat brought this beautiful little bat into the house. It was completely motionless but it didn’t seem to have a mark on it. After we put it in a jar for a few minutes, the bat stopped playing dead and came ‘to.’ It looked like a tiny fuzzy devil, complete with a miniscule mouth that emitted a high-pitched stream of screeches, some beyond my range of hearing. After we thought it had fully recuperated, we took it back outside and released it. It scrabbled along the wooden railing of the deck for a few minutes and cocked its little head at us, to utter a few more inaudible vocalizations. Suddenly, it took flight and swooped over our heads, making one last little chattering sound before disappearing into the darkness. Was it cursing us? Was it thanking us? Or was it simply echo-locating its next meal? We’ll never know.
