My Life as a Bat

At three o’clock this morning I hung up my hat, and at three o’clock this morning I picked up my hat and started again out the door. It was part of my routine. During my periods of insomnia, I’d decided to take to the streets. Maybe not a safe decision for a lady, but I’d made it anyway. Whenever I suffered from these bouts, the only thing to do was tire myself out. I’d start my walk at twelve, return at three, and leave again if I still had energy. Well, this walk hadn’t tired me out one bit. If anything, I probably had more energy. So I decided to leave again. I walked out the door to the pitch black sky, punctuated by glowing street lamps, which illuminated the dewy grass. Even through my shoes, as I stepped off the pavement onto the grass I could feel the cool radiating from the earth. I quite liked these night walks. There was a sense of otherworldliness about them. Where I detached from reality and simply floated on the surface like a duck suspended on the water. It was freeing, and I couldn’t help but feel that I was the only person in the whole world. I could imagine the dark spinning earth and my place on it. It sent a shiver down my spine. 

My legs felt tired as I walked, but my brain was still awake, tingling and buzzing as though full of bees. I passed by house after house for the second time that night. If anyone was awake, they would have thought I was crazy, making a loop of the neighborhood at this hour. As I promenaded down the pavement, I noticed a house with the lights on in one of the rooms upstairs- presumably a bedroom. This was very unusual. I made a mental note of the number on the door, 431. I stopped for a moment outside, exhilarated at the idea that another person could be sharing these early hours with me. I stood for a few minutes but saw no movement through the window. I realized that if they saw me staring they would think I was some sort of stalker, so I turned and kept on walking. My feet pattered on the concrete sidewalk. I was beginning to feel the physical effects of all this walking, my legs were beginning to feel fatigued and achy, and my feet were sore. But I forced myself to continue, refusing to stop unless my mind grew quiet enough to sleep. 

I drew near my favorite park, which was really only a baseball field, but during the night it was transformed into a mystical field, full of fantasies and dark green grass. Or maybe that’s a rather poetic way of saying it felt special at night. I stood observing the field at the entrance of the park. As I stood, not a single thought passed through my head, isn’t that remarkable? My plan had worked. I turned around victorious, only to be surprised by a car parked in the ordinarily deserted parking lot. A running car with the lights on. Someone was in there. Could it be the same person that was inside 431? I had to investigate. I’d never seen another soul wandering the town during my nocturnal times, so this was shocking. I slowly crept towards the car, aware of how creepy I probably looked. I looked at the license plate from a distance and attempted to commit the string of letters and numbers to memory.  I tried to look into the window in order to identify the fellow nightwalker, but the bright car lights blinded me. I wasn’t yet brave enough to storm up to the car and knock on the windows to demand to know the identity of this person. I resorted to standing exactly where I was, frozen like a deer in headlights. This lack of action continued for a while until the car reversed and drove out of the parking lot. I couldn’t tell whether I had been spotted by the driver, and had caused their sudden exit but I hoped they had not spotted me creepily lurking by the entrance, or worse yet, recognized who I was. This town was only so big, so it was more likely that I knew of them than I didn’t. I stood by the entrance of the park, partially illuminated by a single street light. This mystery would consume me. It already had latched its claws into my sleepless mind and ruined the peace I had only just found.

The next morning I dressed for work. I worked as a secretary for the mayor of the town. I had no interest or knowledge of politics, in fact, I rather despised it, but this was the only available job for someone with my lack of education. I had wanted to go to college, but instead, my father had sent me to secretarial school. It was second best I suppose. “Girls don’t need to go to a real college”, and all that. I still love my father though, he loves me. But he couldn’t imagine a future where going to college would help me. I’d gotten over it. My job was boring, and my day consisted mostly of me sitting idly like a zombie, staring distractedly at my desk. It was just as fascinating as it sounds. However, that day I had a plan on how to occupy myself. I threw my keys into my bag and headed out the door, and hopped into my car. When I moved out, my father gifted me his old convertible. I loved that car to no end. It was red and super stylish, and I loved blasting music in it with the roof down. It was often the highlight of my day. 

When I arrived at work I dropped my bag on my desk and sat on my chair. There were a couple of other girls in the office, all of whom I was friendly with. It never really progressed beyond coworkers though. I preferred my solitude. But the mystery insomniac had made me reconsider my introverted tendencies. If I could talk to this person, maybe I could explain some inward part of myself and exorcise it, the part in me that refuses to sleep. At least, that’s what I thought at that moment. That passion motivated me to set my plan into action. 

Opening my slow computer, I decided to look up any suspicious activity in my town on a neighborhood forum. What I found was mostly boring, missing cats, reports of stolen packages, reckless drivers, and concerned homeowners with too much time on their hands. Nothing that would lend itself to my mystery. Even if someone had seen my insomniac, they probably wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of reporting it on a forum. I felt suddenly hopeless, embarrassed by my foolish plan, my passion felt lost, my energy disjointed. In a way, this mystery was the only thing keeping me from the bleak repetitiveness of my life that I had lived since I moved to this dreary town. A repetitiveness that had dulled my already disappointing prospects, prospects only enhanced by my gender. 

As women, we are often hidden away, taught never to stand too tall. That was the attitude inhabited by my family, by my mother. She was taught never to be loud, always cross her legs, and take up less space, and she passed on these lessons to me as a method of survival. My father enforced this, he could not see a future in which I pursued higher education. From his perspective, he was protecting me, shielding me in his values. Sending me on a safe, secure, and risk-free path. I dulled myself, carrying on the tradition, moved to this town, became a secretary. 

I decided to take a break. These thoughts were depressing me. There was only so far I could trace this thought without it leading into a cyclical and regretful rhythm that left me angry at my family, which was pointless. They were no more at fault than I was. I stood from my desk and clocked out for my lunch break, hoping to find my energy renewed when I returned.

All day at work I attempted to investigate this mystery. Although my excitement was reignited, my hope was just as quickly dampened by no new leads. I felt dejected and decided to walk again tonight in order to gain more information. When I returned home I ate my usual dinner, which consisted of rice, salad, and fish. I was not a skilled cook by any means, but I had built a repertoire of simple meals I could prepare for myself. As I ate, classical music drifted from the radio in the other room, and I hummed along. 

When I was younger, I always had music playing.  My music taste was something I carefully curated and defined. I picked over my CD collection endlessly, arranging based on alphabetical order, or what was my favorite at the moment. But one day that obsession simply stopped. I remember listening to a song and suddenly, I felt removed, as if the song moved through me. It felt like a rapid and random succession of sounds, lacking pattern or sense. I felt unattached to the songs I previously loved. It was as if overnight they had lost all their magic, transformed into their original ugly shape that I had failed to recognize before. From that day on, the only music I was capable of listening to and understanding was classical music. The rhythms moved me and the melodies carried my mind with their soaring notes. The loss of music was only one of many absences in my life, absences I felt as cold empty spaces, constantly shifting shapes. A part of myself to which I suddenly lost access. A bubble that if I did manage to access I would become lost in, and be trapped in it forever, frozen in time. This fear made me unable to confront these absences, instead, I worked around them. But I feared that one day the absences would become unavoidable, and eventually consume me. I felt like I was a sinking ship, trying to find some other place to jump to, some asylum from my own mind. I hoped that this insomniac could become the salvation I so desperately needed, a beacon of hope. It sounds dramatic. I wish I had an explanation for why I had been feeling this way but ultimately it was some internal force at war with itself. Outwardly I was healthy, happy, a normal person, but meanwhile, I was plagued with this fear, a deep pang in my heart that refused to stop. There was no simple answer, no pinpointed reason to be found, as hard as I had searched. It was something that was inhibiting me from enjoying life, that was making me overthink until things lost their meaning. Something not easily remedied. Something deep, buried by time and growth, deep, deep at the core of my heart. A sickness that infected me and spread and left me disconnected. It frustrated me, this unknown presence looming over me. I couldn’t wait to go for my night walk. To try to find my remedy. Maybe, just maybe, if I could find this person, they would know the secret. It was a stretch, but as plausible as the sickness itself. Once I had finished dinner I cleaned up and waited until nightfall.

The sun had set, and the blue-black sky had darkened until the only lights left were the street lamps illuminating the streets, and the moon, a glowing orb, its light leaking into the sky. I had decided to wait until three o’clock in the morning since that was the time I had seen the lights on at 431. I waited impatiently during that time, sitting at my kitchen table, my head laid down, tapping my food in rhythm to the classical music still playing on the radio. I had dressed for the occasion, jeans, a navy long sleeve shirt, a black jacket, and a baseball cap. Nothing that would gather too much attention. A newspaper lay beside my head on the table which I had futilely attempted to read, but couldn’t hold my attention. I was too enveloped in my imaginings. What if they weren’t awake? What if that was just a one-off thing, where they couldn’t sleep? What if I missed them, waited until too late? I tried to quell my anxieties, but every time I got rid of one, another would fill its place. Eventually, the clock read 3:00 AM. I walked through the door and stood on my front steps. Suddenly the dark seemed threatening, the dark houses loomed, shadow-like, and the wind blew softly, as if it were baiting its breath. The whole scene had an air of humid tension as if a storm were about to start. But the night was clear, not a cloud in the sky, every star was visible. I was trying hard to differentiate what was real from what was in my head. 

I began my walk, every step bringing me closer to 431. I was on edge, listening for every distant noise, my eyes widened and adjusting to the dark surrounding me like a veil. My heart stopped when I saw a glowing light coming from a house up ahead. I picked up my pace, not conscious of noise, my feet slamming into the concrete as I began to run, abandoning the carefulness I had previously possessed. I stopped in front of the house and looked up at the light shining from the window, punctuated by a shadow. It had to be my insomniac. The shadow retreated, the light turned off. I felt a pit in my stomach filled with disappointment. They’re going back to bed, I said to myself, you were stupid to put all of your hope into a stranger, someone you have never even seen. I turned back towards my house, a feeling of hopelessness seeping through my body. But then I heard a noise, the careful closing of a door, keys jangling and locking, and I turned. The shape of a person, a man, walked towards a car, the same car I saw in the parking lot last night. I quickly hopped behind a neighbors bush, careful to not be seen. I heard the car door being shut, the car being turned on, and the wheels on gravel as it reversed out of the driveway and into the street, driving off. Relief flooded through me. I wasn’t alone. There was someone that I shared something in common with. This man was linked to me through this. I had to find him. 

I ran back to my house, increasingly out of breath, as fast as I could. The dark now seemed to me a celebration, and I felt so glad I could have cried. I wish I could have explained the impact finding this person had on me, or rationalized it in some way, but this mattered to me, mattered more than my job, my house, any possession or connection I had. When I finally arrived at my house, panting for air (I was not an avid runner), I grabbed my car keys from my house, and got into my convertible, backing out of my driveway. I drove fast, and probably recklessly. I never really drove at night, it didn’t contain any kind of calming quality for me, and it was noisier. I drove without thinking, I let my instincts take control. I knew where I was going, the field I went to every night. The parking lot where I had first seen his car. I drove in, the gravel crunching beneath my tires. His car was here, but it was off. He wasn’t there, but I knew where he was. I removed myself from the car, suddenly full of caution. I felt each step I took landed just above the ground, as if I was hovering. I didn’t trust the gravity, I was suspended by my anxiety. The field was dark. I breathed while my eyes adjusted to the night. When I reached the entrance, I saw a shape in front of me. He stood there, paused, his outline grey. I had found him. This discovery lifted a burden I had not known I had been carrying, but still, my body felt tense and rigid. He looked over his shoulder at me, I caught an idea of his appearance. He was slightly taller than me, I could not make out his eye or hair color due to the darkness that nearly enveloped him. He was staring at me. I felt the need to speak, but all the words suddenly slipped away from me. I realized the insanity of my situation. How could I explain myself to him? I saw you once, and I decided I had to meet you, I would sound out of my mind. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t form an explanation. My mind felt like tangled threads. He spoke instead.

“You were here last night as well, weren’t you?”

So he had seen me. I had hoped he hadn’t, this made me seem like a stalker. Still, I couldn’t deny it.

“I was.” I replied, then added, “I hope I didn’t frighten you, I was just so surprised to see someone up at this time of night.”

He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief.

“You scared me. I thought you were a cop or a vigilante, here to tell me off for being at the park after hours. If I’d known you weren’t, I wouldn’t have left so fast.” He spoke these words with an air of humor. His voice was coarse and tired.

“I’m sorry. I… I’ve just never seen anyone else here at this time and I hoped, well I hoped I could talk to you.” Now I sounded desperate to talk to him, he would think I was just some lonely girl. Not that I wasn’t. How could I explain that I hoped he could help me heal myself from something I couldn’t even name?

“Isn’t that what we are doing now?” He asked sarcastically. “Come on, I’d like to talk to you too. Let’s walk, you’re making me nervous standing at the entrance like that.” With this, he gestured me to join him. I obliged, and started to talk towards him.

“Sorry.”

Silence fell over us like a blanket of snow, soft and gradual. We walked next to each other, a distance separating us. I looked over at him.

“Do you come here often?” I asked.

“What, you mean to this town? Is it so obvious that I’m not from here?” He asked, almost slyly, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. He wasn’t from this town? Well, to be fair, neither was I, originally. Where was he from? 

“Oh, I meant the park.” I stated, unsure of whether to ask the question he had just proposed.

“The park? Well I’d driven past it before, so I figured I’d check it out. It’s nice here, at night. It looks wild. Mystical. More peaceful than staring at my ceiling. It helped me clear my head.” He spoke these words slowly, as if he was unsure where each sentence was heading.

“That’s exactly how I feel about it here. That’s why I come here every night. It calms my mind until I feel ready to sleep.” I paused, seeing if he would interrupt, “I needed to find you. I saw you last night and I knew I needed to speak to you.”

“I haven’t been able to sleep for a year. Before that it was always hard, but as soon as I moved to this town, sleep has been out of reach. I’ve tried, taken pills, read books, there’s no solution. I can’t fall asleep.” The words were spilling from my mouth, and as they did I felt relief. I hadn’t yet spoken these words aloud. A weight had been removed from my chest. I felt free of that impending empty space. The black hole that had had control over me for so long.

“And it scares me,” I continued, “The lack of control over my own mind. Not sleeping hurt me, so shouldn’t my body know better? Why does it hurt itself? I still don’t know the answer. I can only guess. I saw you and… I guess I hoped I could find someone like me. Someone who knew that feeling of being alone in those early hours where no soul is awake. Except for you.”

“I’m sorry, I know this is a lot.” Now that the words had left my mouth, I felt vulnerable. This stranger had just heard my innermost thoughts. I looked over at him in the darkness, slightly embarrassed. He seemed to be deep in thought, although I couldn’t see his face. His walking slowed. We continued through the field, slowly making our way to the middle, where he stopped.

“Do you remember when you first learned to drive? I do. My father tried to teach me. I was terrible. I felt anxiety every time I even touched the steering wheel. And when I was actually driving, I felt petrified with fear. This weird uncertainty hung over me. Eventually, I improved. But I remember that feeling. It never really went away. Instead, it became amplified, it took over my life. I feel like I’m doing everything, making every decision, in the dark, as if I was blind.” 

He turned towards me and continued. 

“It’s been a year for me too. Since I’ve slept well, at least. I’ve always hidden it from my family, from my wife. I didn’t want them to worry about me. And in some way, I didn’t want them to know. At a certain point, these hours of the night have become comforting to me. Like you said, you are truly alone. You are free. No expectations. I can just, exist. I trust you know what that’s like.”

I nodded. How was this man I’d known for a total of 15 minutes able to put my feelings into words? 

“Thank you for finding me,” He added, “I feel like this is the first productive conversation I’ve had in… I don’t even know how long. It’s nice to find someone I can relate to. I’m glad I’m not alone in these feelings.” He spoke these last words with absolute sincerity, and I couldn’t help but smile. Here we were, two strangers in a field, who somehow shared more similarities than I had ever had with a friend or family member. Even if our stories weren’t exactly the same, we each felt this growing presence in our lives, this cancerous tumor that made us unable to breath, to feel comfort. An unease that made our stomachs drop, and hearts fill up with an empty feeling. His presence and words made my senses alive. I felt capable for maybe the first time in my life. I was capable of sharing something of myself.

“Let’s sit and talk.” I said, gesturing to the bleachers at the end of the field. 

My conversation with the stranger continued. I asked him where he lived, and he said Charlottestown, about an hour and a half drive away, but almost identical to our town in its dreary nature. He had a wife but no children, “What if I was unable to connect to the child if the unease spread to them and filled them up with nothingness?”. He worked as a car salesman. His life, he said, was, from beginning to end, uninteresting. Nothing should have been wrong, but yet he felt the pressure of failure all the same. That pressure had eventually expanded to include a bleak sense of constant unease, and feeling of absence, in himself, his work, and his relationships. “I have never felt certain of any decision I’ve ever made. Every lost opportunity expands into an empty space where I am at fear of losing myself if I wander too far.” His relationship with his wife had at first felt different. “She made me feel secure, and feel as if I had control, but eventually that faded. I was unfair to her, I controlled her in an effort to regain that feeling I had once had, she rebelled. Our relationship suffered. It was my fault. And I’ve destroyed every semblance of that feeling, I can never get it back.” When he had spoke those words I had thought he was going to cry, but he took a deep breath and continued, “I still love her, but what does love mean when you are so far removed from it?” He told me he felt his insomnia was merely a side effect of another sickness that had infiltrated his life. This sickness, far more dire than not sleeping, was slowly infecting the way he thought of everyone around him. “Everyone feels so distant. They are slowly slipping away from me and there is nothing I can do. When I try to communicate with them, I feel myself slipping into a script, a role of what they expect me to be. The isolation is taking its toll on me.” I listened to all that he told me. His words felt relatable, yet strange. To hear these things put into words was hard to listen to. It confirmed my feelings as real. His experiences somewhat mirrored my own. I felt an urge to tell him to be calm, everything would work out, the words that someone else would have said to him. But the reality was, I didn’t know how to stop this feeling. I suffered with it too. Every breath I took felt heavier and heavier. I told him, “There must be some way for us to rebel, to reclaim our lives, to live freely. There must be some solution.” At this point he shook his head. “What is there left for me to do? I’m tired, I just want some rest. I’ve tried for so long.” I didn’t want him to give up. If he gave up, what hope was there for me? What was the purpose of us meeting but to find a solution? I told him this, “Our meeting was necessary, this must be fate. We both share this feeling, this sense of a presence. We both feel out of sync with the world. But what is this feeling is the fault of the world? Maybe it’s a paralyzing fear, we know that if we act we will judge ourselves, and if we don’t we will be judged.” With each word I had made a new discovery. “Our relationships suffer because we feel shame at our true selves, we seek to hide all that doesn’t fit neatly and when those unperfect parts of ourselves rebel against our control, we cut them completely, creating that empty space.” These words I spoke seemed to be absorbed into the night and disappear, leaving only a trace in my mind. The jumbled string was unfolding. 

“You don’t know what you are talking about.”

His words surprised me. I had laid out a perfect explanation for our predicament. Why was he suddenly acting as if we weren’t connected? As if his struggles weren’t mine as well? 

He stood up.

“You don’t know my whole life, only what I’ve chosen to share with you. You can’t offer me an explanation. In fact, with every word you speak, I feel that presence increasing. Maybe you are the sickness. That’s why you wanted to speak to me, you wanted to infect me further Well, I'm finished with your half-formed explanations. Goodnight.” 

He turned and walked back across the field. My mouth hung open. He had to have been out of his mind. In hindsight, his reaction was probably due to the reality that had been descending upon him. The prospect of opening up and having to put in the effort to change seemed to frighten him. I sat in that field for a few minutes after he had left, replaying our conversation. Even if he had reacted in such a harsh way, the words I had spoken had helped me make realizations about my situation. I felt strangely hopeful. I looked up at the sky, the night was clear and the stars danced above my head. I breathed in the fresh air, and listened to the sound of the crickets. The sun would be rising soon. I stood up and decided to make my way home. I wanted distance from my strange revelations.

When I stepped in my door, a wave of exhaustion washed over me. I walked to the kitchen table, every step making me more lethargic. I collapsed into my chair, and took off my hat. Classical music was still faintly playing in the next room. I must have forgotten to turn my radio off, but I couldn't be bothered to care, I was too tired. "I'll just put my head down for a minute," I thought, "only a minute, then I'll go to bed." And with this thought, I laid my head on the kitchen table.

Light flooded my eyelids, coloring the darkness red. I slowly blinked to open my eyes, partially blinded by the bright rays of sun streaming from my window. When my eyes had finally adjusted, I became aware of my surroundings. I was sitting at my kitchen table, I must have fallen asleep. I tried to recall the events of last night with great difficulty. My memories were buried and it took great effort to unfurl them from where they were nested. I remember sitting at this table, waiting to leave. Slowly, parts of the night began to return. I had driven to the park, I'd seen the stranger, I’d even talked to him. Then he had left abruptly. The whole sequence had a dream-like quality about it that made me question whether it really happened. I remembered how deeply the man's words had affected me. Talking to him was almost like talking to myself. Maybe he was some part of my subconscious in my dream, if it had been a dream. Could it be that I had fallen asleep before I even left the house? Regardless of whether those events were real, I felt a sense of peace and security that I hadn’t felt since childhood. The conversation with that man had made me come to realization that gave me an explanation for my troubles. I was impressed with my own imagination. That presence that had been growing in my life had suddenly stopped. I reflected on the man's words. He had said that he thought I was the sickness. In the moment I had dismissed that as just an insult, but if he was part of my dream, part of my subconscious, then maybe he had been right. I was the sickness. I was the one both creating and suffering from the problem. I was shutting these parts of my life down, and also being scared of their absence. The whole day, even at work, these thoughts kept filling my mind. I found myself reflecting on my whole life. And this continued, everyday lead to more self-discoveries. I felt I was getting to know myself better and better. In hindsight, I still don't know whether the events of that night were real or a dream, but I find it doesn't matter. That presence have stopped. I found myself breathing easier. I moved from that town to the city. In the urban streets I feel like a small fish, only a portion of the landscape. On the occasional night I can't sleep, I see many lights on into the early morning. People roam the streets at all hours. Even though I live alone, I never feel alone. And on those nights I can't sleep, I simply close my eyes and imagine my city getting further and further away, and I picture my tiny place on this Earth. One day, while I was shopping for food, I could have sworn I saw that man. Even though I never saw his face, he was exactly the right height and build.  I followed him around the aisle, but when I turned the corner he was gone. I couldn't tell where he had disappeared to. But I realized, even if it was him, even if he was real, I had nothing to say to him. I didn't have him to thank for my new-found happiness. I had found that all on my own.