I had a strange experience last night.
I'd been working on a personal project and ended up going to sleep around midnight.
I was dead tired, so fell asleep quickly.
The next thing I recall is waking up because of some noise that sounded like a pigeon flapping.
Still sleepy, I realized that, yeah, something was actually flying around the little studio apartment.
So, I turned on the bedside lamp.
And saw a bat flying in circles above me.
I was dumbfounded.
"I love bats!"
"But, they carry diseases like rabies."
"How cool to see one so close."
"But, what if it bites me or poops on something?"
"How did it get in here, anyways?"
"Should I open the window? Maybe it'll fly out."
So, I just laid there. Watching the bat fly in circles over and over.
The bat seemed as dumbfounded as me.
Then, it landed on the cupboards above the studio's kitchenette.
It struggled to get it's footing for a second. Then, it squeezed into the tiny gap between the top of the cupboards and the ceiling.
I didn't realize bats were so small when not flying. Like the size of a little mouse. Like the size of my thumb.
The bat slowly crawled from one end of cupboard top to the other.
And, once it reached the other end, it retreated deeper into the tiny space and disappeared.
Maybe the gap between the top of the cupboards and the ceiling was tighter at the end it landed on and it didn't fit inside.
Either way, I just laid there. Still sleepy. Still trying to process the situation.
Did this really just happen?
Was the whole bat situation just a dream?
I got out of bed. Cautiously, because I wasn't sure if the bat might come and start flying around the room again.
There's nowhere the bat could've gotten into the room from. Unless someone who stayed here before me left the window open at night.
But... bats are tiny.
What if bats live in the walls of the building?
Am I crazy? Did I just dream this all up?
I timidly opened the cupboard doors, half expecting a bat to fly out into my face.
Nothing.
On the ceiling of the cupboard the bat disappeared above, I saw a vent. A little mesh screen on the cupboard ceiling. And behind it, a deeper hole fading into the internals of the building itself, allowing heat and steam and oil from the stove top to disappear into the dark.
Despite being unsure about whether I wanted to be in the vulnerable state of sleep, I quickly settled back into it.
This morning, I still questioned whether it'd been a dream.
After fully waking up, I took a sturdy chair from the dining table and placed it in front of the cupboards.
I climbed up and squinted to see into the gap between the cupboards and the ceiling.
Darkness.
Then, shining the flashlight from my phone into it, I confirmed it wasn't a dream.
The little thumb of a bat receded from the light, shuffling off to who knows where.
All it left behind is doubt.
Do I tell the apartment's owner? Would she believe me?
Even if she did, what could she do about it?
Maybe I should block the gap between the cupboards and the ceiling.
But, what if the bat just flew in the window at some point and got stuck?
Life is surreal.
