Emergence

The moment day turned into night; they came.

Flits of black on black. Outlines of whooshing wings. Wafting wind fanned by veering and swooping. Darkness paralyzed me and I was awed by their speed and commitment. I sensed them dropping from their roost below a rotting pier and zooming off to the trees behind us 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 fear of bats, known as Chiroptophobia. She called it a type of immersion therapy.

“They aren’t interested in you,” said Jake, a Washington 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. The people there need medicine, prosthetics and in some cases, life-saving surgery. It also is a place known for swarming bats.

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 I went from calm to panic. I sensed I was surrounded – and by aggressiveness. I knew they were sending sonar signals to judge locations and obstacles, but I hallucinated that they were screaming in the night. I heard anger. My stomach and forehead tightened. The groaning sound bursts made me feel surrounded. I knelt and gasped for air.

About 10 minutes later, the rattling detector fell silent. We stood on the edge of a bay and what seemed so inviting at first, then frightening, and now unsettling. The bats were out there yelling and dining while I was deprived of all sound AND sight somehow. Jake forgot his flashlight, so we when it was time to leave, we had to stumble down a rutted road by the sliver of light our phones provided.

I never felt so small.

II

It was midnight when I got home, but Willa was sitting in the living room. “Well?”m 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 these 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. You don’t look worse for wear.”

“I just feel small. I don't think it has to do with bats necessarily. It has to do with not seeing or hearing them. If I cannot see or hear, I Iose my 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’m going.” I reminded her of a hypnosis session I had planned for the next day.

She picked up a National Geographic. “In the meantime, let’s learn some bat facts, shall we?”

*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 live as long as three decades and fossils of them date back 50 million year-old fossils

* There are 900 species in the world, and 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, I clutched and kissed her until we came up for air.

“I never would have guessed that bat trivia could be so sexy.” We kissed again before I said, “but I could do without that six-foot wingspan next time.”

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 hang head-first packed as tight as a bunch of bananas. I force myself to look closer and focus on their ears, oversized snouts, folded wings. The room seems to shrink. I sense I anger them. I wait for one of them to awake and for it to attack and roust the pack.

I search for an exit, but there is none. I want to call out for Billy and Mark. They locked me up in this attic. But I can’t make noise. The bats seem asleep but I hear rustling. One of them peels itself away from the pack and inches towards me, fanning his wing. It’s curious. I’m frozen. It moves closer, unafraid of me. I consider trying to kick it, but I my legs feel like lead. It must know I’m helpless. It bears sharp teeth, smiling or threatening, I’m not sure which. The others start to stir.”

Go on, the therapist says.

“Billy finally opens the door and I creep out slowly until I’m outside. 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 muffled her chuckle. “As would have I. But that bat did not hurt you.”

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

I am breathing fast. I feel I should be tired, but I feel refreshed. My phobia, she tells me, has taken root deep in my mind. That’s why I must react to fear from a position of calm.

“You were living with the trauma of that faceoff all these years.”

 “I thought I forgot it.”

“Only part of you did. Let me take you under one more time so we can make peace with that critter - once and for all.”

IV

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

“What species are these?” I ask Jake.

“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, grace, and purpose. That is why the flailing of one tiny black bat is so startling and arresting even in the inky backdrop of night. It is a baby, perhaps on its maiden voyage, furiously flapping 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.

“Come on little guy.” 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 and watch as it crawls up into the foliage of a tree. Perhaps it will survive. Perhaps not.

“Well, you look cured to me,” Jake said, chuckling. “I always say, you can’t be compassionate and prejudiced at the same time.”