Are You a Leaf or a Dead Bat?
/
Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash
My 10-year-old son and I were playing two-square in our driveway after I picked him up from school. It was one of those hot, muggy Florida afternoons where it seems like everything is melting at least a little. Even the bright yellow chalk we used to outline the court felt a little squishy.
Before we started batting the ball back and forth, my son pointed out a little lump on the driveway and said, “Is that a dead bat?”
I was reasonably confident it was just a stray leaf, so I prodded the lump with my toe. Turns out it was a dead bat. Upon closer inspection, there was a little red sack of guts protruding from some unidentifiable body part, so I assumed it was pretty thoroughly dead.
I grabbed my trusty dead animal disposal shovel out of the garage and flicked the bat into a small hole in the mulch beside the driveway. My son found a stick that he said looked kind of like an R for RIP, and we laid the bat to rest.
RIP, little guy (photo by author)
Now, you might be asking yourself, of all the things someone could write about, why this?
That’s a great question. Those of you who follow my writing (are there any such people?) may have noticed that my output lately has been rather sparse. I certainly have noticed.
I’ve been tired and uninspired. And I think much of that stems from general despair about the state of, well, everything. When you spend a lot of your free time picturing what life might look like a few years down the road on a planet besieged by disaster after disaster, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for writing about fun trips to the park.
Also, because my kids are getting a bit older as kids tend to do, there aren’t as many of those daily adventures that typically drive my creativity. Even though my youngest is only turning six and there is still much for me to do, I am slowly becoming acquainted with that transition parents make from star of the show to background scenery.
After we found the bat, I immediately thought about how this is exactly something I would’ve built an essay around just a few years ago. I even made a joke about it on Twitter.
Screenshot from Twitter
At this point, I can almost hear all of you, my dearest readers, shouting at your screens, “Oh no! You’re not going to do it, Andrew! You can’t possibly make a whole essay out of a dead bat!”
Writing can be such a narcissistic pursuit. There is a part of me that really believes I have people sufficiently interested in what I have to say that they would think about what I’m going to write. These hypothetical people know my patterns and tendencies so well that they can see my tortured analogies coming from a mile away. How completely insane.
Anyway, to all my doubters who definitely exist, I say, “You better believe I’m going to build an essay around an extended dead bat analogy!”
Because when you think about it, aren’t we all dead bats on driveways masquerading as leaves? (THERE IT IS!)
Perhaps now more than ever?
Here we all are going about our business every day, trying so hard to pretend everything is normal when everything is so NOT normal. It’s like I’m over here chilling like a leaf on the concrete, playing some two square with the kids, driving to Walmart to pick up some groceries, and thinking about buying an electric SUV one day. Meanwhile, I peek at my phone and read about how we could all be climate change refugees in ten or twenty years, how we’ve collectively decided to infect ourselves with a novel virus over and over again, how guys are slaughtering people at the grocery store because of a deluded belief system that is an integral part of our country’s past and present, and how well-established personal rights…yeah, maybe those don’t really exist anymore?
A completely earth-shattering, devastating, or bonkers event happens seemingly every day and I’m like, wow, that sucks…but what should I add to my Target drive-up order? Sure, Christofascism is on the rise in broad daylight all around me, but you know, I really should catch up on Bridgerton. I’m way behind.
We may look like leaves enjoying the warm sun, but so many of us are actually dead bats. All it takes is a little prodding to break the illusion and reveal the truth.
Now, I don’t believe that we’re all dead bats. Not even close. So many people truly believe that everything is normal and fine. It’s fascinating to experience. This discrepancy between the way I think and feel in private and the way I interact with the outside world.
Most of the people I encounter are leaves, just as they appear to be. They’re making plans, dreaming about vacations, flitting about in a stereotypically frivolous leaf-like manner, and living carefree. Good for them, I guess?
But those people who walk around with fake smiles that don’t quite reach the eyes, performing normalcy without truly believing it, ah yes, those are my people. My fellow dead bats masquerading as leaves.
It can be hard to find us, of course. We’re good at hiding. Upside down, right side up, a little smooshed and leaky? We’re very unpredictable. Which makes living in this world so hard right now. You just don’t know who is in your camp because everyone is so good at faking it. Sometimes there’s nothing left to do but poke us with a shoe or flip us over with a shovel and see what happens.