varying degrees of light

"The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size."

-Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief

***

My mom called and left a message early that Saturday morning. "Hi, it's me. I'm going to Sioux City today. I'll be back around one or two. There'sadeadbatinthegarage-Ineedyoutocleanitup. Talk to you later! Love you, bye!"

We found the bat whole and undisturbed on the floor of my garage. It looked like it was in peace, that it breathed its last bat breath during its final day of sleep, tired after a night of chasing insects about the roof where, that summer past, we would sit and wait for the sun to shine its purple, red, orange, yellow and, then, white light on us. There was only ever one bat flying about on those nights, those mornings, and I assumed that this bat, this gray rabbit's foot on our garage, was our bat. It lived and hunted here at 237 4th Avenue NE. I wrapped a plastic bag around my hand and reached down to put him away.

The bat wasn't dead.

SCREECH! LEAVE ME ALONE!

It stayed on the ground, on it's belly, and, like a dying witch, cried out about the cruelties of a bat's life. We flipped him over onto his back a moment later and he presented himself, still shouting, to us. He had an enormous wingspan and slowly struggled to die as a bat should, in his tiny and magnificent glory. His wings gleamed like silver. His voice died down to a small, continuous and desperate prayer.

"He's in pain."

I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to do it, but Matt was right because he couldn't even crawl about on the floor, much less fly to a safe, warm place to sleep. He didn't stop screeching when we placed him inside the bag and set him down outside. With my back turned, my eyes shut in fear and my hands over my ears, Matt took the shovel down and only then did the screeching stop.

I've seen squirrels flattened on the road. I've come across birds - magnificent, beautiful and delicate ones - dead near large windows. The first deer I remember being hit by a car was still alive, throbbing and struggling for breath, bathed in the red light from the car that hit it. I was young, looking on with my brothers who remember she cried herself to death.