Sport 38: Winter 2010
Bats
Bats
The bats he carried around on his shoulders troubled the women he met. So they drove, very slowly, back to their homes and posted him second-hand books with no return addresses, and this they thought clever. The bats slept as he slept, woke as he woke in the night, mosaicing their leathery wings over his wretched hot body until all he could swallow was the looking-forward. The women, meanwhile, found themselves noticing the dishwater—how glittery the soap bubbles seemed! We're changed! they thought, marvelling quietly at their wrinkly fingertips.