Emergence

They came the moment day turned into night.

Flits of black on black. Outlines of whooshing wings. Wafts fanned by their veering and swooping. Darkness paralyzed me and their speed and commitment awed me. I sensed them dropping from their roost below a rotting pier and zooming off to gobble as many insects as they could before daylight returned.

My therapist arranged this outing to help me overcome or at least temper my dread of bats. It's called Chiroptophobia and this is a stab at immersion therapy.

“They aren’t interested in you,” said Jake, an Oregon state biologist hired to babysit me. “You’re as exciting as a metal post to them. We call this an ‘emergence’. They are busy. Think of it as the night shift.”

As a surgeon for Doctors Without Borders I know about busy. I have traveled to the most remote and unfriendly places on earth. In a few weeks, I am due for a mission in the mountains of north Guatemala with Willa, my fiancée. She's an accomplished doctor, too, and the love of my life. The people in those villages need medicine, prosthetics and in some cases, life-saving surgery.

The issue is bats. It is a region known for swarming bats and indoor facilities are rare. I can't help anybody if I'm petrified.

Our emergence experiment progressed well enough until Jake turned on his hand-held bat-detector. “These guys are chatterboxes. Listen to this.” Their high-frequency shrieks translated into static bursts, like the staccato noise a Geiger counter makes.

In an instant, panic overwhelmed my calm. I sensed aggression. I knew the bats were sending sonar signals to judge locations of food and obstacles, but I envisioned them screaming like maniacs in the night. My stomach and forehead tightened. The groaning sound bursts from the radio surrounded me. I knelt and gasped.

About 10 minutes later, the rattling detector fell silent. The scene had gone from inviting to frightening to unsettlingly silent in just a few minutes. Jake forgot his flashlight, so when it was time to leave, we stumbled down a rutted road by following the sliver of light our phones provided.

I never felt so small.

II

It was midnight when I got home, but Willa was waiting in the living room. “Well?”

I practiced all the way home what I was going to say, but “OK” was the best I could do.

She looked at me with soft eyes, understanding everything.

“Listen, you should just stay home on this one. I’ll only be gone for a month. Think of where you’ve been, all the people you’ve helped. All the dangers you’ve faced. Dictators, genocide, famine. You’re entitled to sit one out.”

“Yeah, and some of these people might die because I’m scared of some flying rat.”

I swallowed hard. She strolled to the kitchen and returned with wine. “So, tell me about tonight’s outing.”

“I feel like a child. I don't think it has to do with bats necessarily. I know its irrational. It may have to do with not seeing or hearing them and not having a clue of what comes next. I lost control. Maybe it's because I was taught at a young age that only creeps come out at night.”

She smiled. “You have always been a control freak. Easy way to control this is to stay home.”

My pulse raced. “I set up this mission. I’m going.”

I reminded her of a hypnosis session I had planned for the next day. "It seems like my last chance."

She waved a "Nature" magazine at me. “In the meantime, knowledge is power. Let’s learn some bat facts, shall we?"

She began reading aloud:

"Bats are the only mammals capable of sustained flight.

While some bats look like mice with wings, scientists believe they are more closely related to primates than rodents.

They account for one quarter of all mammal species.

The smallest weighs less than a penny. And the 'flying fox' in Southeast Asia has a wingspan of about 6 feet."

When she finished, we kissed.

“I never would have guessed that bat trivia could be so sexy,” I said. “But I could do without that six-foot wingspan next time. Kind of a buzzkill.”

We laughed our way to sleep.

III

“The attic is cramped, full of dust and dander. No room to stand erect. A string of bats hangs as tight as a bunch of grapes. I force myself to look closer and focus on their ears, oversized snouts, folded wings. The room seems to shrink. I sense sleeping anger. I wait for one of them to wake and attack. Then the pack will rouse. All hell seems like just a creak away.

I search for an exit, but there is none. I want to call out for Billy and Mark. They locked me in this attic. The bats rustle. One of them peels itself from the pack. It inches toward me, fanning its wings and doubling in size. It’s curious of me. I’m frozen. It nears, unafraid of me. I consider trying to kick it, but my legs feel like lead. It must know I’m helpless. It bares teeth, like a threatening smile. The others start to stir.”

"Go on," the therapist says.

“Billy finally opens the door. I edge along a wall until I get outside and start gulping fresh air. He says shutting me in there was just a prank. He said he 'owed me one.”'

“And then what happens?” she asks.

“I punch Billy in the face.”

She muffles a chuckle. “As would have I. But that bat did not hurt you, did it? It was Billy who let you down, huh?”

She claps her hands twice, awakening me. “How do you feel?”

I am breathing fast and deep. I should be tired, but I'm refreshed. My phobia, she tells me, took root deep in my mind.

"If you had cut your foot, you would have applied disinfectant to it. But you just let your bat trauma fester and swell. You were traumatized by that faceoff all these years.”

 “I thought I forgot it.”

“Only part of you did. Let me take you under one more time. We know exactly where to go now. Let's make peace with that critter once and for all.”

IV

Two nights later, Jake and I returned to the pier. This time, I hold the transmitter as the swarm pours from its roost to begin the night shift. The groaning tat-tat-tat sounds industrious, not threatening as it did before. I still feel as inert as a tree stump, but also focused. Jake was right. I am of no interest to them.

“What species are these?” I asked him.

“Long-eared Townsends. They’re hard-working and shy. Like me.”

“And long-eared,” I reply.

The critters leave in squadrons, six or seven at a time and with remarkable speed and grace. That is why the flailing of one tiny bat is so startling and arresting even in the inky backdrop of night. It is a baby, perhaps on its maiden voyage, furiously flapping its wings yet hovering like a helicopter before plopping into the bay, five feet from shore.

I am wearing industrial gloves and have had my rabies shot so I pick up the creature without hesitation.

“Come on little guy!” I shout as I place it on a stump so it can get a little hang time for its next attempt at flight. It wastes no time. It takes off and plops right back into the water. I pick it up again and set it on a tree trunk. It disappears into the foliage.

Perhaps it will survive. Perhaps not. I think of all those best hopes I had witnessed with desperate third-world patients.

“Well, I'm no expert, but you look cured to me,” Jake said. “Empathy trumps fear.”