BLACK

this is for the 07 folks, for a while off from your books. the war looms large eh?!)

24 hours of travel. That was as much as I’d been through. Having caught a bus from Pondicherry to Bangalore. And then a KSRTC from Majestic at around 6:30 am which rattled its way through the curvy roads of the Western Ghats. AND which broke down 2 hours before it was supposed to reach Mangalore.
I found myself, a backpack lugging on my shoulders, another at my feet, counting at least 20 oil tanks pass by until another KSRTC bus passed by. Soon after was casualty duty. 7 hours of it. At night. 5 hours of sleep and then back to work during the day time because the Medical Officer needed an extra intern to work during the day. So there I was the
10th of October 2009.
Flat on the bed.
Feeling a little feverish.
Exhausted.
And the lights switched off.
“everybody loves Raymond” was playing in the other room. Ajith’s laughter in bits.
It was then that I felt a flapping, in the room. Like that of a bumble bee or a butterfly. About 5 in 2 seconds. Gentle fragile wings. I couldn’t localize to where it was. But I could swear I heard it. I looked to the area where I heard it last, when suddenly, it darted from one end of the room to the other.
My muscles tensed.
I almost choked on my own breath.
I maneuvered to lie on the bed to get a better glance at it. And lay still.
And then again heard the flapping.
No other sound.
Alright. This confirmed that I wasn’t hallucinating. How could ANYTHING get into my room when the windows and doors are always shut?
I has to be a big butterfly I thought to myself.
Just then something leapt from behind me and sat on my neck, its fork-like legs clasping the nape of my neck,, moving from one side to the other until it threw itself to another corner of the room where it seemed to sit on top of my bag.
My heart suddenly thumped inside my chest, and I got on to my feet, immediately to switch on the lights.
I quickly scanned the room, looking all over where the creature was, but.
Silence.
I had never ever been faced with such a situation. If me or my friends had to deal with animals, they at least would’ve seen it! Here I was dealing with either my mind or an enigmatic creature.
I looked around but found nothing.
I glanced at my bag were I had sensed the movement.
It was then that I noticed the movement. Like the leg of a frog. Slinking over the zip of my bag. Creeping.
My presumptory diagnosis: a frog.
A hyperdynamic frog. And I hated frogs from the core of my being. But it was a THING. It was just this creature to me. A black patch camoflauging to the colour of my bag.
I could discriminate, no arms, no head, NOTHING. OK! I needed help! I called Ajith into my room.
“Dude! There’s this thing inside my room man!”
“what?”
“I dunno! I’m damn sleepy. Its this animal!”
”Like I creature or something. Come and see”
(he gets up and stands at the door to my room)
“where is it?”
“its there man. Somewhere. Just keep looking.”
I was trying to see whether he’d localize it himself. Because it was so bloody invisible. Whatever it was. How could something BLACK, not stand out?
Every ray/beam of light on it seemed to DEFLECT off it. Like it was non-existant t othe human eye. It could COMPLETELY miss your eyes even if it were right in front of you!
“WHERE is it?” ajith asked again.
“I want you to find it yourself man” I told him.
Wanting him to experience the phenomenon himself. Of optical deceit . then I told him.
“look at my bag. The black thing on it?”
“there’s nothing there”
“look carefully. Beside the zip”
“oh yeah! That! It’s a bat!”
I moved my head a little at the knowledge of the nomenclature.
“yeah! There were a lot in the hostel. Its typical”
“what do we do now?”
“lets confirm it’s a bat first. Lets make it move”
I got a broom from the kitchen.
Ajith caught hold of it and stood a meter from the bat. With one swift motion, he swept the broom towards the bat.
It missed.
The bat stayed still.
We were freaked out at the motion itself, that we took a minute to compose ourselves.
“lets try again”.
He pushed the broom towards the bat now. And the next second, the bat jumped off the bag and rolled over to my bed.
We stared at it silently.
It still baffled me. The creature. It was STILL a THING to me. When it first ran across the room, I thought it was a mouse. But now, I couldn’t decipher anything apart from a mouse like head and frog like legs.
“dude, we need to get this out as soon as possible. Its all over your things. You could be infected.” Ajith said.
(yeah right! I thought to myself)
“what do we do?”
“lets open a window. Or the balcony door. It needs to escape.”
“And then what? Let MORE bats fly in? we don’t need an invasion!”
“bah! What are the odds of that happening?”
We didn’t know. Two schools of thought. Two different strategies. One goal.
To get the bat out.
Ajith got a bit daring. He wanted to make the bat fly off and out the house.
He got closer and threw the broom at it once more.
And THIS time, the THING unfurled its appendage, like a wing. Like Batman’s cape of the Nolan series.
And when I saw THIS, I felt every organ in my body contract. My blood stiffen inside its veins and a fear that I never experienced before.
It was then I remembered the initial scene in batman begins., where the young Bruce’s fallen into a small cave. And a million bats fly past an inch from him and he suffers a panic attack.
I don’t believe anyone would’ve understood the scene until he/she experienced it themselves.
I understood then, that a great fear of something develops when you don’t understand it. When your years of experience and memory of a pattern of senses don’t add up to the perception at hand.
While we were taken aback at it having unfurled its wings, it suddenly took to flight.
Flapping extremely clumsily yet, making a flight of absolute noiselessness.
It flew round and round my room. Unable to perceive what the door was open. But the moment it did, ajith and I shrieked and scampered into the other rooms. Excitement coursing through our minds.
The last we saw of the bat was in the living room.