Holy Teddy Bear, Batman!

3:18 AM
I wake up. I don't know why. I do need to pee, so I think that must be it. Then, I hear a clicking noise out the window above my head.

3:19 AM
Oh, I think, that must have awakened me. Funny, I think, that with so much noise in this neighborhood a small click like that would wake me up. Then, I hear another click from the window to my right (I'm lying on my back). Then another click from my left - but there is no window there. My eyes open to maximum width to try and see what is making the noise - another click, which now seems more like a slap as my muddy brain awakens, to the right. My eyes adjust - and see it. Something dark, with wings, slaps against the wall on my right, then a few seconds later, against the wall on my left.

3:20 AM
My brain catches up. There is something flying in my room, from one wall to the other, flattened briefly against one wall before launching back to the other. A bird? No, that doesn't seem right. I peel my eyes wider yet to see it. Why can't I see it? Suddenly, I am in the hall and the door to my room is closed. I realize I am clutching my pillow against me like a teddy bear - or a shield - and my heart is pounding through the pillow so that I can feel it against my hand. My brain has decided there is a bat in my room. Suddenly, I crack open the door and reach in with one hand to flip on the light. My analytical brain is beginning to awaken. Perhaps with the light on, the bat will stop flying and hang upside down somewhere. Isn't that how it works?

3:21 AM
It's the middle of the night, my brain thinks, and I'm standing in the hall in my underwear. Thankfully, it has been cooler recently and I wore a shirt to bed. Fortunately also, I am the only one here at the moment. Max has gone back to Maine for a month with his family, and Whit doesn't return until next week. I stand in the hall, listening to the slap, slap, slap as the creature flies from one side of the room to the other. What now? I decide I should go ahead and pee, grateful that I haven't already.

3:22 AM
I get a glass of water. Isn't that what you do when you awaken from a nightmare? I drink it all. My mouth is still desert-dry. I cannot produce saliva. I return to the hallway and begin to analyze. I have a pillow. I can sleep in Whit's room or the spare room. Ah, the spare room, my brain thinks, hmmm. An idea is toying with me. Since Max's departure, I unlocked and opened the door between my room and the guest room - it creates more airflow. The main door in that room is also open, with a screen door to the veranda that allows even more airflow. A plan begins to emerge. I walk down the main hall to Whit's room and close the door. Then I close the doors between the meeting room and the hall, and between the battery charging room and the hall. I am isolating the hallway. There is another small hallway between the main hall and the balcony, opening onto the main hall just outside my door and opening onto the balcony just outside the guest room door. It is the hallway Max uses to access the main part of the building when he is here.

3:23 AM
I listen at the door to my room. The slapping is louder than before, it seems. Is that my imagination? Has the light agitated the bat? My next step is to open the door to my room, then slip into the small hallway and close the door to the main hallway. My hope is that the bat will abandon the brightly lit bedroom for the darkened hallway. Then I will be able to enter the guest room from the balcony, access my room and close the door, capturing the bat in the hallway. I stand outside my door. I have turned the handle and the door is unlatched. All I must do is push it open and scoot into the small hallway. My heart is pounding as if I were sitting in the open doorway of an airplane preparing to jump. I push the door. I don't look to see if it opened or stayed open. I am in the small hallway leaning against the closed door. I rest.

3:24 AM
I go outside onto the balcony. I feel exposed. The railing is as tall as my waist, but I'm still in my underwear and it feels strange. I peer into the guest room. I can see half the room. The open door blocks the rest from my view. I'm really wishing I had my glasses. I can see the rope running across the room. I washed my underwear yesterday and they are all hung up to dry across the room like a string of photographs in a darkroom. (There is nowhere to hang them outside except on the balcony for all the world to see - so I hang them inside under a ceiling fan.) Through the screen door, I see that there is a dark shadow (shape?) on the ceiling. Is that the bat? Has it already abandoned my room for a darker one? I squint and peer into the room, trying to make up for my missing glasses. There is no sound from the room - no slapping or screeching. Don't bats screech? I work up the nerve to open the door, so I can scamper across the room and shut the door to my room. I slowly pull the door handle. It is locked.

3:25 AM
Well crap, so much for that bright idea. I go back to the door to the main hall and listen. Nothing. I crack the door open and listen. Nothing. I can see the bright light from my room seeping into the hall. There is no slapping sound anywhere. I peer out the door and down the hall. Nothing. I step into the hall and through the door to my room. I crane my neck around that door, too, to see the whole room. Nothing. I race into the room and slam shut the door to the guest room. I am convinced the dark spot on the ceiling in there is my bat. When did I start thinking of him as mine? My room is a shambles. The remaining pillows are scattered on the floor. The bedsheets are a jumble. I finally spy my glasses and put them on. That's when I see it. A tiny black pellet on the bed, where my pillow should have been. I realize the pillow is still clutched tightly under my left arm. I walk toward the other side of the bed. It occurs to me I should "clear" the room first, like the police do at a crime scene. I slowly poke my head around the corner of the wardrobe. Nothing. I don't want to, but I kneel and peer under the bed. Thankfully, nothing. Finally, deciding the room is clear, I move to the other side of the bed, to look at the pellet. It is black, or dark dark brown, about 4-5mm x 2mm. It looks like a mouse turd. This is too surreal. There is bat guano on my bed!

3:26 AM
I'm a bit disturbed that I can no longer hear the bat, but have convinced myself it has been captured in the guest room. My only thought is that I can no longer access my underwear, and I have waited until I was down to my last pair before doing laundry. Well, nothing I can do about that now. I do imagine the bat seeing my undies hanging there in a line and thinking they are also bats. I can see him hanging upside down on the line beside my underwear. Anyway, I tidy up my room, and know I will not sleep anytime soon. I put on pants and decide to write this up while the memories are fresh.

Note: Everything up until this point was done one-handed. I just realized I still still have my pillow, now in my lap.

3:51 AM
In the midst of writing, had a nature call - terror really gets things moving. The office is connected to Whit's room in the same way the guest room is connected to mine. I went through Whit's room and down the main hall to the other end and the entrance to the kitchen/shower/bathroom. Upon exiting, I was about to step back into the hall, when I heard a familiar slap - from the main hallway. I peered out and saw it, flying figure eights near the ceiling about halfway down the hall. I raced across the hall and into the small hallway, slamming the door behind me, mind racing. So, it wasn't in the guest room. Where had it been for the last 15 minutes? Can't think about that now.

3:52 AM
I realize I left the door to Whit's room open. I race down the balcony toward the office, but can't help the urge to go into the main room through the screen doors. The doors from that room onto the hallway are glass. I watch the figure eights through the double glass doors. It seems to be in a holding pattern - back and forth, back and forth. And, it is much bigger than I originally thought. It's wing span looks to be about 12 inches (30cm). I'm glad I didn't know that before. Then the horror-movie part of my brain thinks, what if there is more than one and this one is bigger than the other one?!

3:53 AM
Feeling comfortable the figure eights will continue, I re-enter the office from the balcony and cross into Whit's room to close the door. Then, again using the balcony, I return to the small hallway. I need to close the door to my room, or this whole isolate-the-bat mission will have been in vain. I crack the door open and peer down the hall. The figure eights continue so I scoot out the hall door and into my room, closing the door behind me. Then I go into the guest room, with my glasses on this time, and see that the dark spot on the ceiling is the collar where the electrical wires drop down. I unlatch the screen door and walk back down the balcony to the office to continue this account.

So there you are. I have a bat isolated in the main hallway. I have been awake long enough now that I'm hungry, but I can't access the kitchen - or the bathroom, for that matter. I don't know if I can sleep, but it's now 4:44 AM and the roosters are awake. I cannot get to the only point of egress, the main doors, which are locked from the inside. A key from the outside will not work while the key is in the lock from the inside. The doors are about halfway down the hall. Exactly where the figure eights are under way. I'm not sure what to do next. What would you do?
XO

Update - 7:50 AM
On my way back to bed (I didn't sleep), I had a brainstorm. I would open the doors to the meeting room - both the inside doors to the hall and the outside doors to the balcony, giving the bat an escape route. Before doing so, however, I wanted a closer look.

I got a flashlight and shined it through the glass into the hallway. This seemed to interrupt the bat's figure eight pattern as he tried to deal with the light. As a result, he landed on the screened window next to me (the windows from all the rooms to the main hall are screened so the main doors can be left open if desired). I could clearly see his body and wings, which was sort of cool. His body was a golden brown with dark wings. As long as I shone the light directly on him, he stayed perfectly still. When I took the light away, he crawled to the edge of the screen and then flew off. Satisfied that this was a common fruit bat, I enacted my plan. I propped open the outside screen doors, then opened the inside doors and scurried out the screen doors and back to the guest room and through to my room.

Must be the radar or whatever bats have - I guess its called echolocation - but he found his way out within 10 minutes or so. At least I hope so. The information online also says bats are very good at hiding in shadowy corners during the day. For now, I'm holding to the notion that he is outside and back with his family - although for all I know, that family may live in our attic.
XXOO