Bats in the Walls

Courtney McCaw

There are little scuttles and shuffles, tiny toenails and calculated flaps of paper-thin wings, which remind me of that odd plane of skin between my index finger and thumb. They begin to sort and settle for their daytime sleep, where we uncommunicatively switch shifts of wakefulness.

Only a thin wall separates singular, lonely me from these bat families who take refuge in the lack of attention my landlord allows: The hole on the outside of the crumbling siding is the portal to home, to warmth and protection.

I debate telling my landlord, but am reminded of little Anne Frank, her bare feet pattering on a wooden attic floor, hiding, treated like a disgusting rodent to be hidden from the dangerous light of day.

She held her pen on that little plane of skin between her index finger and thumb, her wings of pages shielding her from landlord extermination until someone gave her up.