I though it would be a beautiful death with this house as my coffin and since I was on the top floor, this room would be my halo. But one night the devil would sneak in with black wings, fangs, and a wing span of five feet. Who ever would see the picture on my phone of the creature would call it a bat, but I was certain it was hell's breath incarnated and I wouldn't take any chances. Even the fall is much too warm for me.
At first sight I thought I was dreaming or possibly barely awake and what I was seeing was a type of prehistoric beetle on its back with its top legs squirming in the air, but with the flick of the lamp next to my mattress I could tell the beetles legs were the pointed elbows of wings and with them this creature was crawling. If I told you it was hanging out on the floor and not crawling toward me, I would have not been alarmed but it was and my response was getting the fuck out of that coffin or what ever depressing character of death with it I was building.
Through the stairwell with speed I fell on bare feet to the bottom of the second floor. Realizing I was the only one home in the darkened Victorian that had been removed from its grandeur and cut apart by a land lord with a pinky wring, who normally lived above a barbershop he owned and had the nickname of “the barber”. I then made my way down the next flight of stairs like I was being evicted by a swelling disease coming from the darkened but not empty room.
When I reached the bottom floor and turned on the lights in the kitchen, my breath panting out its last choke held breath before smoothing out again, I noticed I was pretty much naked and after laughing how funny this would have been if anyone was home, I walked slowly up the stairs and up toward the former attic and place for the time being I called my room. And this is when I saw it, with waking eyes I looked on to witness the most terrifying creature I have ever seen. Swooping from one end of the room to the other in oblong circles that silently screamed with one dip and rise of its wings and ratty body, the voyager from the chimney's of satin's coffee house was gallivanting its way throughout my room, and immediately I repeated the route of roller coastering down the stairs, down the hallways and down to the bottom floor like I was caught up in the current of a gushing fear based solvent being forced downstream.
But this time was different, this time the creature of Ozzy's Appetizers Gone Wild, came chasing after me. At this part of the story its easy to think that I was being paranoid but no, this ass hole bat was out for me. In frantic style, think Risky Business meets Jeepers Creepers, I jumped over the living room couch equipping myself with a blanket and pillow that were laying about, a scaredy cat's shield and sword. The two switching off between defense and attack. As Dracula came toward me I did my best to apprehend its intention of getting anywhere closer by putting the soft articles of cuddling between me and the thing. Opening doors didn't help, it wouldn't go out, throwing a blanket on it was unproductive, it was too fast, and the only thing I could think about was what did the terror of night and death, debauchery, and debt collectors have against me.
After making my rounds, running, fighting, yelling like a Spartan, and ducking as the assailant of beauty swam by, like a Parana in the dusty and dark capsuled sky it disappeared into the shadows of the upper rooms. Out of breath and certain it would take my life, I decided to test fate and say go to hell by passing out on the downstairs couch.
After that night and for the next two nights the creature that deserves to not have anymore equals named after it (Christopher Nolan), finally left after two sequential nights of similar episodes, to be released from its loose to get in but well sealed mortgage accruing cage.
For the next few weeks anything the fluttered or moved by companionship of the wind would trigger my new found hair trigger nerves. I knew after the episode with the bat and after a Summer interning in a department that was never going to hire me, I decided it was a good time to leave Trenton, New Jersey. The episode with the bat does not encapsulated my time in the city but it does close the Summer out. But of course that is not mentioning the party that we left in the house the last night of my stay, which for all those that made it out alive is another story altogether.
