Finding a Way in the Dark
(The Blind Bat Short Stories and Previews)
Author: Amanda Bybee
Cover Illustration: Natassia Rees-Evans
Designed by: Reynaldo Abesamis Jr.
All-rights-reserved
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, businesses, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
Copyright 2014 by Amanda Bybee
Table of Contents
The Blind Bat
The Bat Sisters
The Bat Colony
Preview One: ZOOFARI
Preview Two: GRANDMA
About Amanda Bybee
Connect with Amanda
Coming Soon…
The Blind Bat
By the time the “Blind Bat” reached her teenage years, she was growing fiercely tired of bumping up against her cave walls. So much so that she even feared to leave her cave. She felt rotten, and could not allow anyone into her life anymore, even those who had once given her so much. She had so little energy left after getting nowhere for so long. When she finally decided to leave, the rest of the colony of fruit bats had all left her.
Actually, she had just assumed all along they were family because they co-habitated in the cave, sharing shelter, and fruit that they would find outside. They prepared a variety of nutritious dishes like fruitloaf, stir-fried apples, and mashed bananas with berry gravy. But all the fruit they brought tasted rotten to her, and she began to wonder if she was allergic to it all.
They nicknamed her the Blind Bat, because they’d once heard humans, wandering in the day, use the phrase “blind as a bat.” The bats thought this was funny, because not all bats were blind. In fact, she was the first blind bat they had met. Her name was actually Bebe. They would shriek, “hello Bebe!”And she would squeak, something like “hello” back. They would share some joke at times - many she didn’t think were funny - while they busied themselves lighting matches to keep warm, and hung by their feet resting after a night’s work.
“What did the insect bat say after the vampire bat got her?” they asked each other.
“My, what a big mosquito that was!”
“That sure sucked!” was Batina’s serious punchline.
Though she wasn’t expected to work, the colony let her stay with them. She wasn’t expected to do anything, and so for a long time, she did nothing but think about how she could get out of her predicament.
It was one day when she was feeling so poorly, that she realized she would have to leave the cave to get help, or she might die. It was not long after she realized for herself how stuck she was. Everyone else could leave the cave at different times every night because they could use their eyes to see each other outside the cave. She thought she was always just spoiled, getting out of working, until she understood she was the only one who couldn’t see. The colony had arranged to have a member each night stay back in order to protect their home from intruders. They’d gotten used to Bebe’s company, she’d always been well-behaved. She was quiet and never complained, though she was always hungry with that wretched food.
Breakfast time rolled around again in the evening and it was their favorite orange casserole, but just the thought of it made Bebe’s stomach turn. Bebe pretended to eat her portion, and then began to hand hers over to one of the young bats, who had been getting fatter and fatter each night living off of seconds from Bebe. But as she did so, she smelled something delectable, and she had to bring the plate back to her face to smell what it could be. She heard a buzzing sound of something that had landed on the plate, making her stomach juices flow, as she scooped the strange, living thing into her mouth. It was a moment of bliss. The ache in her stomach turned to fulfillment from this fuzzy thing she ate, that had done something food had never done before. It agreed with her.She had decided she would somehow sneak out in the afternoon, when most of the bats were fast asleep. She wanted to go fast, before the next guard bat would be alerted to it. One of the bats would sometimes wake up for a late morning snack, and she had to be careful he wouldn’t be up.
She put on her chin, elbow, and knee guards to protect herself from getting bruised up, which would also help to buffer the sound of her attempts to escape. Bebe tossed herself up and down and around the walls, sometimes knocking into another bat, which caused no suspicion because she did this night and day. “Get out to the open!” was her chant she squeaked over and over in her head, until, she’d finally made it past the wet slime and the last pieces of coal, leaving the smell of burnt fruit behind, at the point where she felt her furry body pass through, as she slid outside into the great unknown. Instinctively she powered her wings, and took off, bumpy at first, into the dark afternoon.
Spreading her wings taking in the invigoratingly fresh smells of night air, she pulled a straight branch that jutted out from a tree she was passing that grazed her face. She decided to hold the branch out before her as she flew, moving it side to side to guard her from any flying obstacles. She squeaked aloud to herself to stave off her quiet loneliness, until she noticed something happened with the sound of her own voice vibration, echoing against walls and corners. When she realized she could locate some of the same trees by recognizing the changing pitch of her calls resonating against each unique sound, she realized she had just flown in a circle. She flew past the trees and away listening to different sound echoes bouncing off of the forest canopies. She learned that she could find her way very clearly, especially when she got comfortable using her branch as a cane, sweeping side to side in front of her, while she listened to the echoes reverberating above and below her.
Using the echo to find her way, eventually, she made it back to her cave. She knew it was her cave by the familiar smell of smoky barbeque, but no one from the colony was there.
Then, she heard the ‘squeak squeak,’ of her same language, that she’d thought she’d only ever heard coming out of her own voice before. Thinking she must be hearing her own thoughts now, she said aloud, “I must be famished. Now, I’m hearing double! Who are you anyway and how come you don’t shriek like the rest?”
“Very funny, Bebe!” said the lady bat, who put before her a fresh bowl of insects. “And I am so happy that you have finally decided to join me!”
Bebe, starving with the sound and smell of the tasty buzzing bowl before her, devoured the meal in seconds.” Yummm! Where do you get this?” Bebe asked.
“You must have been nightdreaming again, Bebe. These flew into the cave, just like the rest.“I must have been dreaming that I couldn’t see and that I couldn’t leave the cave!” said Bebe.
“No, Bebe,” the bat said in her familiar squeak. “You can’t see and neither can I, but I’m so happy that you finally decided to come out of your cave room for dinner!”
“But how can you be so happy when you can’t see?”
“Not everybody has eyesight to see with, darling! It doesn’t mean we can’t be happy or do anything anyone else can. We just see and do things differently!”
“Is that why fruit makes me so sick?” asked Bebe.
“We are insect bats, silly! How many times have I told you not to make the mistake of eating the ant’s food along with the ant,” said Bebe’s mom, the lady bat.
The Bat Sisters
“Clean up your rotten mess!” said Bebe, the oldest, to Batina, the youngest.
Both were furry faced. Bebe had short black hair, a trendy, semi-circle tongue
ring that doubled as a bug catcher above a long neck attached to a little black, furry body, with tiny eyes, that were totally blind. Batina had a widow’s peak hairline, which looked like a v-shaped swirl at her forehead framing her oval face like a black heart. She had a curvy figure her fruit leather roll ups contoured nicely to, with large black eyes that had some sight. Batina, younger by six months, was an adopted fruit bat. Bebe was an insect bat. Bebe had been set in her ways as an only child, without a father figure, allowed to do whatever she wanted. But her mom, Lady Bat, wanted her to have the ability to get along with others in case they would have to share a cave with a colony one day. As Bebe reached her teenage years, her mom felt that a sibling would open her mind to let the outside world into their cave.
At the time Lady Bat was thinking of adopting a younger bat, a fruit bat coincidentally had fallen from an overhanging tree outside the cave, where the sixteen-year-old, Batina, had lost her family on a midnight, colony outing. This was how she came to live with insect bats. Batina had never been separated from their colony before, and, having never been lost before, she had no navigation skills, even though she had the advantage of some eyesight. She saw everything in black and white. Batina had been an outcast. She wouldn’t paint her nails camouflage black like the rest, or wear the required dried fruit leather uniform. Instead she wanted to wear red licorice leather, even though none of her colony, including herself, could distinguish color differences, beyond light and dark. She was only expressing herself, liking the idea of red, vibrant, and hot, while the rest, told her she was frivolous to even care about such things.
Bebe and Batina became friends at first, sharing their teen angst and learning about their very different lives. Bebe lived only with her single mom, who had become a hermit after her bat dad deserted them, never coming home after work one morning. It had been one very late morning, then another, and another, until they were down to only Lady and Bebe, a small family, who’d already lost their original colony when their cave had collapsed long ago.
They had relocated to their present place, setting up the cave as a solitary family, where Bebe had been home-schooled by her mom. From this experience, Bebe had learned early on about a seed she had within her, Lady Bat called independence. No one but Bebe could find it for her, or earn it for her, and with it came a responsibility. “Once you prove you can be responsible, you can decide for yourself what’s what!” Lady Bat had said that to Bebe countless times. Thinking for oneself was one of the rewards of independence.
“You know what?” Bebe used to always ask.
Instead of the expected answer, what? Lady Bat would simply ask it back. “You know what?” She did this so that Bebe would not get into the habit of asking people’s permission to state her opinion. Lady Bat wanted her daughter to think first about what she was going to say before saying it. This way, Lady Bat told her, she would first have to decide for herself if her own ideas were sensible ones.
“But everyone says that. Don’t you want someone’s attention first before wasting your breathe?” Bebe asked.
“If someone doesn’t feel what you have to say is important, in the first place, then it’s up to you to make it important. Pursuasion it’s called. There’s a lot you don’t know. That’s why I’m teaching you to speak your mind clearly, so you know for yourself what it is you believe in. Only after you are tested on something you think you know, and you have considered your decision based on who you’re talking with and why,” Lady Bat would say to Bebe, and later to Batina. “Then you can say that’s what you know.” But this didn’t stop the girls’ teenage hormonal release of gibberish banter to themselves.
“You know what, Bebe?”
“Uh… WHAT?” Batina would mock.
“THAT’s what!” And Bebe would ask the same on bored days when they couldn’t help themselves -annoying each other - and especially, Lady Bat.
Even though Batina expressed independent desires, she didn’t know how to reach them. Most of the time, Batina felt confused to say what was on her mind, because she often felt misunderstood by everyone. She had just begun to focus only on her school work, at the time she had fallen into the cave. She’d been afraid that her family hadn’t come back for her because of her selfishness, never understanding the difference between knowing herself and thinking only of herself. Her adopted mom could tell she came from a colony that had cared for her, and she just didn’t get why they hadn’t come for her unless they were captured.
If there was anything else she could think of to be in her situation, fruit bats didn’t collectively believe in any coming of age rituals for young adults, that Lady Bat knew of, like their colony had, like proms, or body manipulations, or sweat ceremonies, unless dropping her off in a blind bat cave was their test. It certainly seemed extreme.
The teens had tried sharing a room with the lack of space. It was a complicated arrangement though, because fruit bats normally lived in trees outside, while insect bats lived in dark caves. Naturally over time their eyes evolved to be so small, they were insignificant for seeing, and, naturally, they didn’t need to rely on vision to subsist living in a dark environment. So for Batina, this living in darkness was stressful. She felt she could never relax in the darkness that always kept her wound up, because she, along with her working class family, was always out and about earning a living, or getting an education during the evenings and nights.
Bebe was sometimes up at odd hours of the day, interrupting Batina’s rhythm without ever a sleep-in to recuperate. At the time she finished her school night with Lady Bat as her teacher, Batina still had to begin her forage for food.
Bebe on the other hand, seemed to have so much energy, she rarely considered day and night. She had her own schedule which was fine with their mom, as long as it worked for Bebe. Bebe somehow knew when to get it all done, and therefore, did not understand why Batina didn’t allow her any private time in her bedcave, after she had virtually given it up to her.
“Why don’t you go out for lunch and give me some peace and quiet!” Bebe hissed at her.
But Batina, who had a lot of pent up energy herself, could not and would not put up with Bebe telling her where to go, what to do, nor would she consider eating bugs, after the third time that week Bebe told her to do something about her rotten fruit. Not to mention the safety factor of staying outside with possible predators nearby.
So she can’t stomach fruit. Well, she doesn’t have to eat it! I’ve always eaten from my own branch, not only that, but she doesn’t even recognize I have to fly out on a limb to get my food. Her food just flies right into her mouth. So of course, sometimes my apples drop when I fly in and how am I supposed to know where they’ve gone to in this dark cave? Why does she have such a problem with me? Batina would ask herself.
Lady Bat, being their maternal protector, did not feel comfortable at first with Batina flying out for meals where she would be exposed for all the hawks and owl predators. Since the branches of the tree right outside the cave were close, she allowed Batina to grab and go. Lady Bat had learned to set up coiled wires on a clothes line in the girls’ bedcave, to simulate a safe perch for Batina to eat from, complete with winged clothespins she even constructed for company, after she noticed Batina was beginning to withdraw from her and Bebe. She even missed a couple of lessons when she wouldn’t come out from the bedcave to the living space. This was after Lady Bat already could not get her to sit at the dining cave table, where Lady and Bebe -those days- mostly ate in silence together, opening their mouths only to let the bugs in. There had been an abundance of insects in the cave since Batina had come. They prayed this would continue over the winter, when there was a shortage of insects to be found. Maybe Batina could develop a taste for them, prayed Lady Bat, even though it was unlikely since the smell and taste of fruit repulsed Bebe and tended to turn Lady’s stomach as well.
Once Batina proved herself to be responsible, by telling Lady Bat how she felt about Bebe’s complaints they made a
decision.
“Bebe keeps complaining she hates the ‘sickly sweet smell’ of my food and she’s after me because of leftovers on the cave floor! If I could see in the dark, as good as Bebe could not see, I’d probably be back with my family now! I have to find them!” shrieked Batina with tears beginning to soak into the black fur of her face. Lady Bat finally broke down allowing Batina to eat and sleep out in the tree house in hopes they might still come back for her.
“Just as long as you fly right over here as soon as you hear any loud swooshing or hooting of hungry hawks or owls,” said Lady Bat. “Please be careful, dear!” she added. This decision would not give her any peace of mind.
This lasted for the season, until there was no fruit to be found anywhere outside and Batina would either have to fly out to a farther tree, or come back to their cave and learn to like bugs. What Batina needed was support and protection. Lady Bat wanted the best for both girls, but Bebe, with her strong will, seemed to force her sister out. Either they reconciled, or Batina would be left with the choice to stay and not to starve, or to go and face the predators.
Both the girls’ night schooling continued in their cave. A segment of Batina’s lessons was cave keeping. Lady Bat wasn’t happy with sticky floors.
“Please rinse the floors with the hose!” Lady Bat requested. “Just fly above the water. Use these buckets and tell me what’s in the water before tossing it outside. Go on now!”
Batina began rinsing with the hose. When she collected the water in the buckets she saw just how many insects there were! Thousands of them stuck to the fruit that had become jam. They’d been attracted to the fallen fruit and no one had known they were there because it was too dark for Batina to see and neither Lady Bat nor Batina could see anything at all. They’d all heard a surplus of bugs buzzing around as this chore was no accident on Lady’s part. It was, in fact, a plan to get Batina and Bebe to get along so they could work together as sisters were meant to.