Bats In The Cave Quotes

And let’s face it people, no one is ever honest with you about child birth. Not even your mother.       “It’s a pain you forget all about once you have that sweet little baby in your arms.”     Bullshit.   I CALL BULLSHIT.   Any friend, cousin, or nosey-ass stranger in the grocery store that tells you it’s not that bad is a lying sack of shit.   Your vagina is roughly the size of the girth of a penis.   It has to stretch and open andturn into a giant bat cave so the life-sucking human you’ve been growing for nine months can angrily claw its way out.   Who in their right mind would do that willingly?   You’re just walking along one day and think to yourself, “You know, I think it’s time I turn my vagina into an Arby’s Beef and Cheddar (minus the cheddar) and saddle myself down for a minimum of eighteen years to someone who will suck the soul and the will to live right out of my body so I’m a shell of the person I used to be and can’t get laid even if I pay for it.

Favorite Quotations. I speak my mind because it hurts to bite my tongue. The worth of a book is measured by what you carry away from it. It's not over till it's over. Imagination is everything. All life is an experiment. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly.

Omygod, I haven’t got years. I’ll have to hide in the Bat Cave.” “Once you go to the Bat Cave it’s forever, babe.” Eeek.

(At the back of the cave, Phoebe placed her hand against one of the stones where a spring release opened an elevator door. Chris gave an over exaggerated gape.) Holy Hand Grenade, Batman, it’s a bat cave. (Chris)

I didn’t realize that one tragedy can beget another, and another — bright-eyed disasters flooding out of a death hole like bats out of a cave.

Nothing in this place is sexy," I told him, and he[Dex] laughed. "Oh, come on, Izzy. Even you, Miss Anti-Romance, can admit there's something just a little bit appealing about making out in a candlelit cave." "Bats live in caves," I reminded him. "And where there are bats, There's bat poop. Lot's of it. Did you know there's a cave in Mexico where they have a whole mountain made out guano?

We was used to each other in the way I s'pose two old bats can get used to hangin upside-down next to each other in the same cave, even though they're a long way from what you'd call the best of friends.

The most famous lenders in nature are vampire bats. These bats congregate in the thousands inside caves, and every night fly out to look for prey. When they find a sleeping bird or careless mammal, they make a small incision in its skin, and suck its blood. But not all vampire bats find a victim every night. In order to cope with the uncertainty of their life, the vampires loan blood to each other. A vampire that fails to find prey will come home and ask a more fortunate friend to regurgitate some stolen blood. Vampires remember very well to whom they loaned blood, so at a later date if the friend returns home hungry, he will approach his debtor, who will reciprocate the favour. However, unlike human bankers, vampires never charge interest.

They shall exist, and so long as society shall be what it is, they will be what they are. Under the dark vault of their cave, they are forever reproduced in the ooze. What is required to exorcise these goblins? Light. Light in floods. No bat resists the dawn. Illuminate society.

Yes, I’m the crazy rock’n’roller who bit the head off a bat and pissed on the Alamo, but I also have a son who likes to mess around with the settings on my telly, so when I make myself a nice pot of tea, put my feet up, and try to watch a programme on the History Channel, I can’t get the f**king thing to work. That kind of stuff blew people’s minds. I think they had this idea in their heads that when I wasn’t being arrested for public intoxication, I went to a cave and hung upside down, drinking snakes’ blood. But I’m like Coco the Clown, me: at the end of the day, I come home, take off my greasepaint and my big red nose, and become Dad.

It is getting dark. In the low mists over the hills, an orange glow broods, as if the trees are on fire. Bats are flooding out from the hundreds of caves that perforate these mountainsides. I watch them plunge into the mists without any hesitation, trusting in the echoes and silences in which they fly. Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silences between words spoken, analyzing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us?

Ghosts are drawn to the dark underground areas of a house like bats to a cave. Maybe it reminds them of the graves where they belong.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote movingly about having her own equivalent of a Bat Cave, but in the end, she found consolation by telling herself, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” I agreed with this, but I still couldn’t get the small things or people out of my head. EVENTS IN MY PERSONAL LIFE required me to understand better where my “bats” were coming from.

On my way through the living room, I stopped to check on Keet, who hung upside down from his swing like a bat from a cave ceiling. I reached through the bars and scratched his cheek. "Stay weird, my friend.

In the world outside this glass room, songbirds are feeding and resting in the trees. Some will take off tonight and not land until they reach Venezuela. Sandpipers, plovers, and broad-winged hawks have already left for Patagonia and Panama. Bats are headed for caves in Kentucky and Tennessee. Out in the Atlantic, humpback whales pass by on their way to the Caribbean. Even now, Canada geese are honking toward us from Quebec. It is a good day for the beginnings of journeys. Every time I look at you, I think, Now I cannot die.

Nick and the Candlestick I am a miner. The light burns blue. Waxy stalactites Drip and thicken, tears The earthen womb Exudes from its dead boredom. Black bat airs Wrap me, raggy shawls, Cold homicides. They weld to me like plums. Old cave of calcium Icicles, old echoer. Even the newts are white, Those holy Joes. And the fish, the fish ---- Christ! they are panes of ice, A vice of knives, A piranha Religion, drinking Its first communion out of my live toes. The candle Gulps and recovers its small altitude, Its yellows hearten. O love, how did you get here? O embryo Remembering, even in sleep, Your crossed position. The blood blooms clean In you, ruby. The pain You wake to is not yours. Love, love, I have hung our cave with roses, With soft rugs ---- The last of Victoriana. Let the stars Plummet to their dark address, Let the mercuric Atoms that cripple drip Into the terrible well, You are the one Solid the spaces lean on, envious. You are the baby in the barn.

A witch there was, who webs could weave to snare the heart and wits to reave, who span dark spells with spider-craft, and as she span she softly laughed; a drink she brewed of strength and dread to bind the quick and stir the dead. In a cave she housed where winging bats their harbour sought, and owls and cats from hunting came with mournful cries, night-stalking near with needle eyes.

Bats are flooding out from the hundreds of caves that perforate these mountainsides. I watch them plunge into the mists without any hesitation, trusting in the echoes and silences in which they fly. Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silences between words spoken, analyzing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us?

He heard someone playing an Andalusian guitar, the drumming of a thousand bat wings inside a dark cave. He heard an ancient lyre, the leaf of autumn falling to the ground, someone whispering "I love you". He heard the sound of winf, a beating heart, and a mother saying good night to her child.

Last night Vicky was talking about the ineffability of inner experience. She told you to imagine what it was like to be a bat. Even if you knew what sonar was and how it worked, you could never know what it feels like to have it, or what it feels like to be a small, furry creature hanging upside down from the roof of a cave. She said that certain facts are accessible only from one point of view - the point of view of the creature who experiences them. You think she meant that the only shoes we can ever wear are our own. Meg can't imagine what it's like for you to be you, she can only imagine herself being you.

The closest relatives of bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) are parasites of cave bats—which indicates that that was also bed bugs’ original niche.

But unlike Vegas, what happens in a poet's cave never stays in a poet's cave... We tend to release the bats

He has, like, a bat cave,” he gasped. “But the bat cave is just, like, moldy old books. That is excellent!”—

The Lord was living with a great colony of bats in a cave. Two boys with BB guns found the cave and killed many of the bats outright, leaving many more to die of their injuries. The boys didn’t see the Lord. He didn’t make His presence known to them. On the other hand, the Lord was very fond of the bats but had done nothing to save them. He was becoming harder and harder to comprehend. He liked to hang with the animals, everyone knew that, the whales and bears, the elephants and bighorn sheep and wolves. They were rather wishing He wasn’t so partial to their company. Hang more in the world of men, they begged Him. But the Lord said He was lonely there.

A school library is like the Bat Cave: it's a safe fortress in a chaotic world, a source of knowledge and the lair of a superhero. True, the superhero is more likely to be wearing a cardigan than a batsuit, but still...

Edward’s house. I’d never really hoped to see where he lived. He was like Batman. He rode into town, saved your ass, then vanished, and you never really expected an invitation to see the Bat Cave. Now here I was standing in front of it. Cool. It

I'm too much of a romantic to share my heart so casually. My heart's got wings and shadows and strength and hands. Hands that need to be offered more consistency and vulnerability. Retracting back into my bat cave, your friend always, Batman.

Actually, what he had done is come out of his cave looking for a woman, got his bat out, walked into the first place that had women, and hit the prettiest over the head with a bat and dragged her out kicking and screaming. A Neanderthal man! Nikita thought,

What? You haven’t named your wahoo?” “No.” She giggles again. “ Well, maybe you should. Start calling your bat-cave She-Ra Princess of Power and you’ll jumpstart that motor of yours in record speed. Or maybe Hello Kitty? Delilah? Jaws? Any of those speak to you?

I turned my bedroom into a bat-cave of band posters, dark curtains, and the occasional skull. I think by now my distraught parents were seeking advice from their pastor. Andy, meanwhile, calmly remarked, “I like how you’ve found a way to use Halloween decorations year-round.

Anywhere you wanted to travel to?” ‘I’m suffocated by the darkness and this question. I wish I was brave enough to have travelled. Now that I don’t have time to go anywhere, I want to go everywhere: I want to get lost in the deserts of Saudi Arabia; find myself running from the bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas; stay overnight on Hashima Island, this abandoned coal-mining facility in Japan sometimes known as Ghost Island; travel the Death Railway in Thailand, because even with a name like that, there’s a chance I can survive the sheer cliffs and rickety wooden bridges; an everywhere else. I want to climb every last mountain, row down every last river, explore every last cave, cross every last bridge, run across last beach, visit every last town, city, country. Everywhere. I should’ve done more than watch documentaries and video blogs about these places.

Seeds achieve their highest potential in dirt. Birds achieve their highest potential in air. Fish achieve their highest potential in water. Stars achieve their highest potential in darkness. Serpents achieve their highest potential in grass. Monkeys achieve their highest potential in trees. Bats achieve their highest potential in caves. Flowers achieve their highest potential in soil. Worms achieve their highest potential in clay. Crocodiles achieve their highest potential in rivers. Sheep achieve their highest potential in pastures. Termites achieve their highest potential in woodlands. Sharks achieve their highest potential in oceans. Vultures achieve their highest potential in droughts. Sharks achieve their highest potential in oceans. Spiders achieve their highest potential in wildernesses. Camels achieve their highest potential in deserts. Wolves achieve their highest potential in forests. Foxes achieve their highest potential in bushes. Lions achieve their highest potential in jungles.

Scrambling to his feet, he saw Amber in her vampire gown rushing toward him. He felt her long nails rip down his cheek as he sidestepped and swung the bat with all his might. Her pale face exploded as the side of her head caved in from the blow. He saw the fury in her remaining eye as she struggled to her feet with her bloody claws groping. A vicious downward swipe took out the other eye, and she crumpled in a bloody heap at his feet. With his adrenalin flowing like a river through his sinews, he caught the first wolf in midair with a bone crushing upward thrust as the beast’s gnashing grisly teeth opened to grip his throat in a death lock. When he looked down at the wolf’s battered head, he saw the open eyes of his son Kyle staring up at him. The horror of the son’s face startled him awake. The forest and the monsters had disappeared. He found himself in the upstairs hall of his home on Loving Forest Court amid the twisted, battered remains of his wife and children still swinging the bloody, baseball bat.

Let your eyes get used to light. Don't miss your own splendor! Don't stay in the batlike mind that loves complexity and doubt, the unlit niches. Bats seek those to live in, because there a bat's accomplishments seem greater than they are. He can impress as he confuses you with cave ramifications. Little by little accustom yourself to your own light,

Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, in that gray vault. The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History. First, there was the heaving oil, heavy as chaos; then, likea light at the end of a tunnel, the lantern of a caravel, and that was Genesis. Then there were the packed cries, the shit, the moaning: Exodus. Bone soldered by coral to bone, mosaics mantled by the benediction of the shark's shadow, that was the Ark of the Covenant. Then came from the plucked wires of sunlight on the sea floor the plangent harp of the Babylonian bondage, as the white cowries clustered like manacles on the drowned women, and those were the ivory bracelets of the Song of Solomon, but the ocean kept turning blank pages looking for History. Then came the men with eyes heavy as anchors who sank without tombs, brigands who barbecued cattle, leaving their charred ribs like palm leaves on the shore, then the foaming, rabid maw of the tidal wave swallowing Port Royal, and that was Jonah, but where is your Renaissance? Sir, it is locked in them sea sands out there past the reef's moiling shelf, where the men-o'-war floated down; strop on these goggles, I'll guide you there myself. It's all subtle and submarine, through colonnades of coral, past the gothic windows of sea fans to where the crusty grouper, onyx-eyed, blinks, weighted by its jewels, like a bald queen; and these groined caves with barnacles pitted like stone are our cathedrals, and the furnace before the hurricanes: Gomorrah. Bones ground by windmills into marl and cornmeal, and that was Lamentations - that was just Lamentations, it was not History; then came, like scum on the river's drying lip, the brown reeds of villages mantling and congealing into towns, and at evening, the midges' choirs, and above them, the spires lancing the side of God as His son set, and that was the New Testament. Then came the white sisters clapping to the waves' progress, and that was Emancipation - jubilation, O jubilation - vanishing swiftly as the sea's lace dries in the sun, but that was not History, that was only faith, and then each rock broke into its own nation; then came the synod of flies, then came the secretarial heron, then came the bullfrog bellowing for a vote, fireflies with bright ideas and bats like jetting ambassadors and the mantis, like khaki police, and the furred caterpillars of judges examining each case closely, and then in the dark ears of ferns and in the salt chuckle of rocks with their sea pools, there was the sound like a rumour without any echo of History, really beginning.

Scientists discovered that 82% of subjects tested for COVID-19 in a study had a Vitamin D deficiency. That makes sense. Exposure to sunlight creates Vitamin D in the human body. Sars-CoV-2 is closely related to the bat virus RaTG13 and other viruses in bats, and they live in deep, dark caves and usually only emerge at night. The lack of Vitamin D made those subjects physiologically similar to the natural host (it's alleged COVID mutated in some unknown vector into a more virulent form) and created ideal conditions for zoonosis to occur.

Now let me tell you something. I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers. I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously. I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten. I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends. I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes. I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things. But— All this I did without you. This was my loss. All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain. All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever-surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

The young man could stand it no more. "What is this? I've been ambushed by a night patrol in full daylight! Your blitherings try to keep me from the presence of a holy man, but I know what light led me here, the same that turned the golden calf into words in a sacred story. A saint is a theater where the qualities of God can be seen. Don't try to keep me out. Puff on this candle, and your face will get burned! Rather try blowing out the sun, or fitting a muzzle on the sea! Old bats like you dream that their cave-dark is everywhere, but it's not.

Something was crawling. Worse still, something was coming out. Edmund or Lucy or you would have recognized it at once, but Eustace had read none of the right books. The thing that came out of the cave was something he had never even imagined--a long lead-colored snout, dull red eyes, no feathers or fur, a long lithe body that trailed on the ground, legs whose elbows went up higher than its back like a spider’s, cruel claws, bat’s wings that made a rasping noise on the stones, yards of tail. And the lines of smoke were coming from its two nostrils. He never said the word Dragon to himself. Nor would it have made things any better if he had.

The most famous lenders in nature are vampire bats. These bats congregate in the thousands inside caves, and every night fly out to look for prey. When they find a sleeping bird or careless mammal, they make a small incision in its skin, and suck its blood. But not all vampire bats find a victim every night. In order to cope with the uncertainty of their life, the vampires loan blood to each other. A vampire that fails to find prey will come home and ask a more fortunate friend to regurgitate some stolen blood. Vampires remember very well to whom they loaned blood, so at a later date if the friend returns home hungry, he will approach his debtor, who will reciprocate the favour.

If I have been given any gifts in this life, it's my ability to live simultaneously in the rational world and the world of imagination. I'm in my eighties now, and if there's one thing of which I am most proud, it's that I have permitted no authority (neither civilian nor military, neither institutional nor societal) to relieve me -- by means of force, coercion or ridicule -- of that gift. From the beginning, imagination has been my wild card, my skeleton key, my servant, my master, my bat cave, my home entertainment center, my flotation device, my syrup of wahoo; and I plan to stick with it to the end, whenever and however that end might come, and whether or not there is another act to follow.

Nevertheless they come up with their own history of creation, the Dreaming. The first man was Ber-rook-boorn. He was made by Baiame, the uncreated, who was the beginning of everything, and who loved and took care of all living things. In other words, a good man, this Baiame. Friends called him the Great Fatherly Spirit. After Baiame established Ber-rook-boorn and his wife in a good place, he left his mark on a sacred tree—yarran—nearby, which was the home of a swarm of bees. “ ‘You can take food from anywhere you want, in the whole of this country that I have given you, but this is my tree,’ he warned the two people. ‘If you try to take food from there, much evil will befall you and those who come after you.’ Something like that. At any rate, one day Ber-rook-boorn’s wife was collecting wood and she came to the yarran tree. At first she was frightened at the sight of the holy tree towering above her, but there was so much wood lying around that she did not follow her first impulse—which was to run away as fast as her legs could carry her. Besides, Baiame had not said anything about wood. While she was gathering the wood around the tree she heard a low buzzing sound above her head, and she gazed up at the swarm of bees. She also saw the honey running down the trunk. She had only tasted honey once before, but here there was enough for several meals. The sun glistened on the sweet, shiny drops, and in the end Ber-rook-boorn’s wife could not resist the temptation and she climbed up the tree. “At that moment a cold wind came from above and a sinister figure with enormous black wings enveloped her. It was Narahdarn the bat, whom Baiame had entrusted with guarding the holy tree. The woman fell to the ground and ran back to her cave where she hid. But it was too late, she had released death into the world, symbolized by the bat Narahdarn, and all of the Ber-rook-boorn descendants would be exposed to its curse. The yarran tree cried bitter tears over the tragedy that had taken place. The tears ran down the trunk and thickened, and that is why you can find red rubber on the bark of the tree nowadays.” Andrew puffed happily on his cigar.

It is rumored by the wise-brained rats which burrow the citied earth and by the knowledgeable cats that stalk its shadows and by the sagacious bats that wing its night and by the sapient zats which soar through airless space, slanting their metal wings to winds of light, that those two swordsmen and blood-brothers, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have adventured not only in the World of Nehwon with its great empire of Lankhmar, but also in many other worlds and times and dimensions, arriving at these through certain secret doors far inside the mazy caverns of Ningauble of the Seven Eyes—whose great cave, in this sense, exists simultaneously in many worlds and times. It is a Door, while Ningauble glibly speaks the languages of many worlds and universes, loving the gossip of all times and places. In each new world, the rumor goes, the Mouser and Fafhrd awaken with knowledge and speaking skills and personal memories suitable to it, and Nehwon then seems to them only a dream and they know not its languages, though it is ever their primal homeland. It is even whispered that on one occasion they lived a life in that strangest of worlds variously called Gaia, Midgard, Terra, and Earth, swashbuckling there along the eastern shore of an inner sea in kingdoms that were great fragments of a vasty empire carved out a century before by one called Alexander the Great. So much Srith of the Scrolls has to tell us. What we know from informants closer to the source is as follows:

As I climbed back out of the sinkhole entrance, I met three men sitting in the shade of an oak tree. They were speculating on how much fun it would be to sometime throw a stick of dynamite into the cave to see how many bats would come out all at once. Of course the answer was none. They’d all be dead. These men weren’t maliciously inclined. They were simply ignorant and were quite apologetic when I explained the consequences of such an act. The appalling spectacle of how easily the world’s largest remaining bat colony could be destroyed by simple ignorance provided a strong reminder of just how important public education could be. I had no idea yet that the organization I had just founded would one day own and protect this key cave and use it to educate millions of people worldwide to understand the importance of conserving bats.

It may be no more than an intriguing coincidence, but the area of Cro-Magnon’s cave paintings is also the area containing Europe’s oldest and most mysterious ethnic group, the Basques. Their language, called Euskara by its speakers, may be the last surviving remnant of the Neolithic languages spoken in Stone Age Europe and later displaced by Indo-European tongues. No one can say. What is certain is that Basque was already old by the time the Celts came to the region. Today it is the native tongue of about 600,000 people in Spain and 100,000 in France in an area around the Bay of Biscay stretching roughly from Bilbao to Bayonne and inland over the Pyrenees to Pamplona. Its remoteness from Indo-European is indicated by its words for the numbers one to five: bat, bi, hirur, laur, bortz. Many authorities believe there is simply no connection between Basque and any other known language.

A snake doesn't need feet in grass. A seed doesn't need eyes in soil. A bird doesn't need a parachute in air. A fish doesn't need a suit in water. A bee doesn't need sugar in a hive. A spider doesn't need thread in a bush. A flower doesn't need perfume in a garden. A bat doesn't need binoculars in a cave. A giraffe doesn't need a ladder in the woods. A cricket doesn't need a violin in nature. A camel doesn't need wheels in a desert. A wolf doesn't need a knife in a forest. A lion doesn't need a spear in a jungle. If you throw a bird off a cliff, you are helping it find its wings. If you throw a fish into water, you are helping it find its fins. If you throw a seed into soil, you are helping it find its roots. If you throw a bat into the dark, you are helping it find its eyes. If you throw a flower into dirt, you are helping it find its petals. If you throw a cub into the jungle, you are helping it find its fight. If you throw a camel into the desert, you are helping it find its stride. If you throw a scorpion into nature, you are helping it find its sting. If you throw a serpent into grass, you are helping it find its fangs. If you throw a wolf into the jungle, you are helping it find its bite.

I still don’t see why we couldn’t sleep in that cave,” Mari said as MacRieve led her out into the night. “Because my cave’s better than their cave.” “You know, that really figures.” After the rain, the din of cicadas and frogs resounded in the underbrush all around them, forcing her to raise her voice. “Is it far?” When he shook his head, she said, “Then why do I have to hold your hand through the jungle? This path looks like a tractor busted through here.” “I went back this way while you ate to make sure everything was clear. Brought your things here, too,” he said as he steered her toward a lit cave entrance. When they crossed the threshold, wings flapped in the shadows, building to a furor before settling. Inside, a fire burned. Beside it, she saw he’d unpacked some of his things, and had made up one pallet. “Well, no one can call you a pessimist, MacRieve.” She yanked her hand from his. “Deluded fits, though.” He merely leaned back against the wall, seeming content to watch her as she explored on her own. She’d read about this part of Guatemala and knew that here limestone caverns spread out underground like a vast web. Above them a cathedral ceiling soared, with stalactites jutting down. “What’s so special about this cave?” “Mine has bats.” She breathed, “If I stick with you, I’ll have nothing but the best.” “Bats mean fewer mosquitoes. And then there’s also the bathtub for you to enjoy.” He waved her attention to an area deeper within. A subterranean stream with a sandy beach meandered through the cavern. Her eyes widened. A small pool sat off to the side, not much larger than an oversize Jacuzzi, and laid out along its edge were her toiletries, her washcloth, and her towel. Her bag—filled with all of her clean clothes—was off just to the side. Mari cried out at the sight, doubling over to yank at her bootlaces. Freed of her boots, she hopped forward on one foot then the other as she snatched off her socks. She didn’t pause until she was about to start on the button fly of her shorts. She glanced up to find him watching her with a gleam of expectation in his eyes. “You will be leaving, of course.” “Or I could help you.” “I’ve had a bit of practice bathing myself and think I can stumble my way through this.” “But you’re tired. Why no’ let me help? Now that I’ve two hands again, I’m eager to use them.” “You give me privacy or I go without.” “Verra well.” He shrugged. “I’ll leave—because your going without is no’ an option. Call me if you need me.

If I sneezed, writers’ vitals would spew out my nose like bats from a cave mouth, fiery balls from a roman candle, water from an open fire hydrant.

264. The longest passenger rail service currently running directly between two cities runs from Moscow, Russia to Pyongyang, North Korea, a distance of 6,380 mi (10,267 km). The trip takes 206 hours (8.5 days). 265. There is a popular myth that bats always turn left when exiting a cave but this is not true. In fact, some bats can fly in any direction, and some bats don’t live in caves. 266. The Assyrian New Year is celebrated on the 1st of April. However, this day is better known as April Fools’ Day. 267. A person who looked very like you or even exactly like you once lived or will live on the planet. There’s even a small chance this person lives today and that you will meet one day.

We’ll have a dip in the spa pool, and a massage and lunch. We can use it after that horrible cave and bats in our hair.” “They don’t really get in your hair, you know,” Liv said quietly. “Bats have echolocation. They never hit anything.” “Well, it feels like they’re in your hair,” Dayna shivered.

She switched the headlamp on and saw bats clinging to the side of the cave inches from her face. Someone whimpered. She supposed it was her. She switched the lamp off and played out the rope, dropping more slowly, trying to control the whimpering.

Your….your bat cave?” Emily responded. “Yes, I’m quite proud of it. I put those visiting Boy Scouts to good use building bat houses, and now I’ve got dozens of them lining the walls of my tool shed.” She ran a hand down her long, witchy hair. “Bat houses, I mean. Not Boy Scouts. I don’t have any Boy Scouts in my shed.” She looked around, and Ryan couldn’t help but wonder if anyone might indeed be missing a Boy Scout.

A vampire bat flies back into his cave after a big night...he has blood all over his face. Perches himself on the roof to try and get some rest. But before too long the other bats smell the blood, and start to gather around him. They ask feverishly where he got the blood from. Knowing that they will not let up till he tells them where, he says ‘OK, follow me!’ He flies out of the cave, across a valley, over a river into a dark forest. Deep in the forest he stops, all the other bats gather round in an excited frenzy. ‘OK’, says the bat, ‘see that big oak tree over there?’ ’Yeah, yeah’ reply the other bats, drooling in anticipation. ’Well I fucking didn’t!

I watched as this behemoth as he battled the goblins, swinging his fiery torch. Once the fire touched the creatures in the cave, they succumbed to death quickly with a pig-like squeal of agony. They used their tiny claws to slash the minotaurs’ flesh, but his fur was to thick and he batted them off like one might a mosquito. One he could deal with, but they were surrounding him, clawing at him, like some black mass of flies. I watched from a corner, I could do nothing with no weapon. I heard Darak yell angrily, batting the creatures away with both flame and fist.

The Coming Out Dawn has ushered in Yet another era Whilst the sun sets on the other Bidding it farewell Rotating like the globe Each era getting its time to shine Like a star as it should Fulfilling its destiny before the sun sets Ushering out yet another era Shuttered for too long Shunned Dismissed Scattered underground among thorns Bristles,debris and twigs Among inhabitable bats, rats and stones Stalactites as chandeliers Stalagmites as cedar floors Mustaches touching their feet Beards touching the ground Disheveled unshaven hairs covered their entire bodies The people looked around They noticed their sharp resemblance To the animals living above them Surely the people thought... They must have evolved from these creatures living above them And as time passes they outgrew their long tails “Oh God!” Pleaded the people “Did You not make room for us too?” God heard the pleas of the people and pitied them And God showed the people mercy Grateful were the people Pale from the dark shelter of the caves and unshaven hairs They were guided to a place where they could share in the land The people thanked God for taking them to green pastures They set up systems On the money the people put God first and boldly proclaimed “In Almighty God We Trust" The people established a Holiday specifically to thank God for remembering them God prospered the people He brought out from the underground caves As time passes the people became selfish, greedy and violent The underground people forgot how God took them out of the dark caves The people from below forgot God's mercy Because the people lived among the stony caves They knew not how to make the land productive The people sought expertise exploitively The people concocted and instituted bitter irrational laws To hold the experts as hostages against their will Experts brought great success The experts grew crops that were traded profitably Experts were unpaid Even with the huge booming success of the crops they grew The people that came out from below the caves Unrelentingly wants everything above the caves As the era rotates From one era to the next Like each era is destined to be Until the era's sun sets

More important, it allows the brain to discover and strengthen creative links between these memories. Perhaps some strategy you learned while exploring a cave will help you in the maze task, or conversely, maybe something you learned from the maze task will help you next time you’re down in a cave. Your brain suddenly realizes, hey, exploring mazes and caves is really the same thing. And, of course, that’s exactly what Erin’s participant dreamed: “that led me to think about when I went on this trip a few years ago and we went to see these bat caves, and they’re kind of like, maze-like.” It’s a perfect example of the function of dreaming we suggested earlier—the extraction of new knowledge from existing information through the discovery of unexpected associations.

Standing in the mouth of the cave, he watched sea and sky cleave in graded blue harmony, enjoying a brief connection before the sky bruised and cast a wine-dark stain on the sea. Seconds later the sun launched a spectacular volley of vermilion spears over the horizon just before it sank. The rising tide shattered breakers against the boot of the cliff and the seventh wave, always the largest in a set, exploded against the rocks, sending a jet of spume over him. He leapt back, shaking the water from his robes and hair, and moved deeper into the cave. The bats were stirring, squealing and stretching leathery wings, waking up for the night’s foraging and soon a dark silent stream would head west to raid suburban bowers. The sky rapidly deepened from purple to indigo and a bright display of stars, planets, asteroids, comets – the flotsam and jetsam of past galaxies – popped to light.

A god of war is also the god of those who are caught in the wheel of eternal struggle, who fight on despite knowledge of certain defeat, who stand with their companions against spear and catapult and gleaming metal, armed with only their pride, who strive and assay and press and toil, all the while knowing that they cannot win.’ ‘You are not only the god of the strong, but also the god of the weak. Courage is better displayed when it seems all is lost, when despair appears the only rational course.’ ‘True courage is to insist on seeing when all around you is darkness.’ And Fithowéo stood up and ululated. As his voice filled the cave walls and bounced back to his ears, he seemed to see the stalactites hanging overhead like bejeweled curtains, the stalagmites growing out of the ground like bamboo shoots, the bats careening through the air like battle kites, the night-blooming orchids and cave roses blooming like living treasure—the cave was filled with light. The god of war laughed and bowed down to the orchid and kissed her. ‘Thank you for showing me how to see.’ ‘I am but the lowest of the Hundred Flowers,’ said the orchid. ‘But the tapestry of Dara is woven not only from the proud chrysanthemum or the arrogant winter plum, the bamboo who holds up great houses or the coconut who provides sweet nectar and pleasing music. Chicory, dandelion, butter-and-eggs, ten thousand species of orchids, and countless other flowers—we have no claim to the crests of the great noble families, and we are not cultivated in gardens and not gently caressed by the fingers of great ladies and eager courtiers. But we also fight our war against hail and storm, against drought and deprivation, against the sharp blade of the weeding hoe and the poisonous emanations of the herbicide-sprayer. We also have a claim on time, and we deserve a god who understands that every day in the life of the common flower is a day of battle.’ And Fithowéo continued to ululate, letting his throat and ears be his eyes, until he strode out of the cave, emerged into the sunlight, and picked up two pieces of darkest obsidian and placed them in his eye sockets so that he had eyes again. Though they were blind to light, they sowed fear into all who gazed into them.

Swingin’ my pick And singin’ my song Mining in the dirt All day long “Workin’ in a cave, I hope there’s no bats But at least down here I don't smell the cat...

I didn’t realize that one tragedy can beget another, and another—bright-eyed disasters flooding out of a death hole like bats out of a cave.

Aw, MK, it's cute how you think we're not secretly superheroes in disguise. I mean, shit, Arch even showed you the Bat Cave.

Once upon a time when his chances of survival were greater than a mosquito in a bat cave. Dallas

Hpa-An A small and fairly average town in Southeastern Myanmar but it is a base for exploring some of the fantastic surrounding areas. There are lots of curious caves to discover with the giant Saddar cave and its reclining Buddha and the Bat Cave the best ones. The Bat Cave is best visited at sunset when a ridiculous number of bats (hundreds of thousands) fly out of it only to return the following morning. You can also rent a bike or motorbike and explore the tranquil Burmese countryside. Another option is to climb to the top of Mount Zwegabin which is home to a monastery where the resident monks will let you sleep.

My hands shivered like twin albino bats in an Antarctic ice-cave, assuming such caves served as lodging for such bats. I’m not really sure. They’d have to be pretty hardy bats. What would they eat?

I will not expose you to these men.” “Give it a rest, Jacques. I mean it. We’re in this thing together. I hate to brag and put you at an obvious disadvantage, but I can take more of the sun than you.” His hand caressed the nape of her neck. “That doesn’t mean I will allow you to be exposed to danger.” Shea burst out laughing. “Just being with you is dangerous, you idiot. You’re dangerous.” She shook back her hair, her chin lifting a bit defiantly. “In any case, I can feel the vampire and you cannot. Neither, it seems, could Byron. Maybe the others won’t be able to either. You need me.” Reluctantly Jacques was allowing her to pull him toward the cave entrance. “Why do I never win an argument with you? I cannot allow you to be in danger, yet we are walking into the dawn and facing brutal killers when we are at our lowest strength. In the afternoon, Shea, we will be completely vulnerable, at their mercy, at the mercy of the sun. Both of us will be.” “Then we’ll just have to be in a safe place by then. Contact the others, Jacques, tell them what’s going on.” “I think you just want to get out of this cave. You would rather face a vampire and human killers than a few little bats.” He tugged at her wild mane of hair. She flashed him a grin over her shoulder. “You’ve got that right. And don’t you ever turn into a bat.” She shuddered. “Or a rat.” “We could get kinky and see how bats and rats make love,” he suggested in a whisper, warm breath against her neck. “You are a sick man, Jacques. Very, very sick.” The passage was narrowing again, taking her breath. At least Jacques was complying, even if he was grousing a bit.

Your vagina is roughly the size of the girth of a penis.  It has to stretch and open and turn into a giant bat cave so the life-sucking human you’ve been growing for nine months can angrily claw its way out.  Who in their right mind would do that willingly?

The healer is right, you know. This is far too dangerous to allow you to do. I do not know what I was thinking.” “The healer can mind his own business.” Shea sent Jacques a haughty, over-the-shoulder glare. “The healer may be an intelligent miracle-worker, but he does not know the first thing about women. Don’t make the mistake of listening to him in that particular department. Even with your memory lost, you know far more than that idiot.” Jacques found himself laughing again. His mouth brushed the nape of her neck, sent a shiver rushing the length of her spine. “How easily you get around me.” He couldn’t help the surge of possessive triumph sweeping through him. Shea might admire the healer for his abilities, might even wish to learn from him, but his attitude definitely grated on her independent nature. Jacques found he was particularly fond of that independent streak in her. “You’re a mere man, what do you expect?” she asked straight-faced. “I, however, am a brilliant surgeon and a woman of many talents.” “The bats are beginning to get very nervous. I am not certain I can keep them from charging us,” he teased wickedly. An involuntary shiver ran through her, but she simply tugged at his hand, assuring herself he was close, and returned to the matter before them. “Think of where we can take Byron when we find him.” “The cabin is too dangerous. It will have to be a cave or the ground itself. We can turn him over to the healer and find a safe place to rest, perhaps make it back here.” “That thrills me, it truly does.

I can read your thoughts. The amusement was soft and caressing, wrapping her up in strong arms. I was perfectly sane and sensible until I met you. Now look at me. I’m crawling around inside a mountain. Suddenly she stopped and held herself perfectly still. I’m hearing something. Tell me you are not taking me into a cave full of bats. Say it right now, Jacques, or I’m out of here. I am not taking you into cave filled with bats. Shea relaxed visibly. She was not squeamish about very many things, but bats were creatures that were on the earth to remain a safe distance away from her. Miles away. Bats were one of those things she could stare up at in the night sky and think how interesting and wonderful they were, as long as they stayed high above her and nowhere close. Her nose wrinkled. The sounds she was trying to ignore were getting louder. Her heart began to pound in alarm. The walls of the passageway were so narrow, she had no way to move fast. All at once she felt trapped, as if she was suffocating. I’m going back, Jacques. I’m not a cave person. She did her best to sound firm and matter-of-fact, not at all as if she were seconds from screaming her head off. She turned her head cautiously to keep from scraping her face on the jutting surfaces. His fingers circled her wrist like a vise. There must be no disturbance. If any creatures exit the cave or warn others of our existence here, we could be found. A piece of paper couldn’t fit in here, certainly not a person. No one is going to look for us here. A vampire would know the moment bats flew from the cave. Bats can’t fly out of here if there aren’t any in here, now, can they? She was sweetly reasonable.

Are those--” “Bats,” he said in a low voice, but he sounded triumphant. While I was trying to decide whether to be amazed or terrified, I settled for being put out. “Bats are not rodents.” “I know, but don’t they look like mice with wings? Pretty cool, huh?” “Unless they wake up, swoop down, and attack us. Don’t they carry rabies?” “That’s an old wives’ tale,” he said. “A very miniscule percentage actually have rabies. Watch this.” Reaching up, he unhooked a bat from its perch. “Are you insane?” I whispered. “Shh. It’s okay. They’re hibernating.” He hung it on the sleeve of his jacket and held it up to my face. “Is that awesome or what?” It was kinda awesome. I’d never seen a bat up close like this. “Go ahead and pet it,” he said. It looked pretty harmless. I reached out-- It released an ear-splitting screech and flew toward me! I let loose a blood-curdling scream and found myself face down on the floor of the cave, with Josh lying on top of me, covering me, while the cave filled with the horrendous echoing of a thousand angry wings. When things finally quieted, we scrambled out of the cave, sliding down the snowy embankment until we landed on even ground. I was breathless, my heart beating so hard that I figured it would wake up all the hibernating creatures within a five-mile radius. Laughing, Josh dropped back in the snow, like he was planning to make a snow angel or something. But I figured that was the last thing on his mind. “They’ve never done that before. Scared the crap out of me,” he said. I figured I’d just scared ten years off my life expectancy. I was shaking, and it wasn’t from the cold.

More than two dozen kids lined a low railing around the gazebo. They were all tied to it by a rope leash that gave them no more than a few feet of movement. Neck to rail, like tethered horses. Each of the kids was weighed down by a concrete block that encased their hands. Their eyes were hollow, their cheeks caved in. Astrid used a word that Sam had never imagined coming from her. “Nice language,” Drake said with a smirk. “And in front of the Pe-tard, too.” A cafeteria tray had been placed in front of each of the prisoners. It must have been a very recent delivery because some were still licking their trays, hunched over, faces down, tongues out, licking like dogs. “It’s the circle of freaks,” Drake said proudly, waving a hand like a showman. In a crusty old wheelbarrow to one side, three kids were using a short-handled shovel to mix cement. It made a heavy sloshing sound. They dumped a shovelful of gravel into the mix and stirred it like lumpy gravy. “Oh, no,” Lana said, backing away, but one of the Coates kids smashed her behind the knee with his baseball bat, and she crumpled. “Gotta do something with unhelpful freaks,” Drake said. “Can’t have you people running around loose.” He must have seen Sam start to react because he stuck his gun against Astrid’s head. “Your call, Sam. You so much as flinch and we’ll get to see what a genius brain really looks like.” “Hey, I got no powers, man,” Quinn said. “This is sick, Drake. Like you’re sick,” Astrid said. “I can’t even reason with you because you’re just too damaged, too hopelessly messed up.” “Shut up.

My mouth went dry. My vagina bats fluttered. My Carly-cave collapsed. Fuck. F.U.C.K. Fuck.

Manhood feels like I’m spelunking without a flashlight. I’m crawling and bumbling around in the cave, trying to find my way through the bat guano and the blackness and the muck. But I keep bumping into stuff.

That’s something, right? (that’s everything when you have nothing, actually…) I

He felt her long nails rip down his cheek as he sidestepped and swung the bat with all his might. Her pale face exploded as the side of her head caved in from the blow. He saw the fury in her remaining eye as she struggled to her feet with her bloody claws groping. A vicious downward swipe took out the other eye, and she crumpled in a bloody heap at his feet. With his adrenalin flowing like a river through his sinews, he caught the first wolf in midair with a bone crushing upward thrust as the beast’s gnashing grisly teeth opened to grip his throat in a death lock. When he looked down at the wolf’s battered head, he saw the open eyes of his son Kyle staring up at him.

Then you repeat. The thing that goes badly wrong means that the someone we like has to take another step to get around the bad wrongness and back toward the something he wants VERY BADLY. He takes the next step, and everything goes even more badly wrong. Then he loses his map. Then his flashlight falls into a storm drain and he has an asthma attack and his seeing eye dog dies. Then the cop who pulls him over for speeding while driving drunk in the nude turns out to be the short-tempered father of the bride he is marrying tomorrow. Then it goes more badly wrong for the someone we like, much more badly. Then the party is attacked and scattered by a band of goblins, and then the Gollum is on his trail, and the lure of the Ring is slowly destroying his mind. Then he finds the blasted corpses of his foster parents killed by Imperial Storm Troopers, and his house burnt to the ground. Then Lex Luthor chains a lump of Kryptonite around his neck and pushes him into a swimming pool and fires twin stealth atomic rockets at the San Andreas Fault in California and at Hackensack, New Jersey. And the spunky but beautiful girl reporter falls into a crack in the earth and dies. Then he is stung by Shelob and dies. Then he is maimed by Darth Vader and discovers his arch foe is his very own father, and he loses his grip and falls. Then he steps out unarmed to confront Lord Voldemort and dies. Then Judas Iscariot kisses him, Peter denounces him, he is humiliated, spat upon, whipped, betrayed by the crowd, tortured, sees his weeping mother, and dies a painful, horrible death and dies. Then he is thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale and dies. Then he gets help, gets better, arises from his swoon, is raised from the dead, the stone rolls back, the lucky shot hits the thermal exhaust port, and the Death Star blows up, the Dark Tower falls, the spunky but beautiful girl reporter is alive again due to a time paradox, and he is given all power under heaven and earth and either rides off into the sunset, or goes back to the bat-cave, or ascends into heaven, and we roll the credits.

But then, on a brisk February evening my junior year, I attended a free yoga class at the Harvard Divinity School Andover Chapel. I came in fully expecting to do cat, cow, and child’s pose. Our instructor, Nicholas, who was also a graduate student there, had us on our backs with taut abs, legs held in the air in a ninety-degree position, neck lifted off the ground, hands stretched above our heads. I had become the sleeping dragon. One minute in, my body was trembling. You can’t. I told myself I could. You can’t. I opened my eyes and saw everyone else peacefully holding their pose. This voice yelling at me wasn’t my own. So where was it coming from? You can’t. It was Hang telling me to dump my elementary school best friends who still played with toy horses at thirteen. He said I needed to be more strategic about my social ranking. You can’t be friends with them. My sister excluding me from her life when we became teenagers. You can’t hang out with us. Ba calling me pathetic when I told him I wasn’t pursuing med school. You can’t even try because you’re too dumb. I screamed, You can’t, right back inside of my head, telling all of them what I never had the courage to say. My body shuddered as the rage escaped my body like bats flying out from a cave. Hot tears fell from the sides of my eyes into the chapel carpet floor. And then I heard a clear voice inside of me speak. It was not mine, it was someone else’s. “All those times you’ve felt unloved or alone, you weren’t. God, through the presence of the body, has always been there for you.” Who was this voice? And how could my body be the key to loving myself? My body was always something I had seen as an inconvenience, a detached thing I had to fix. But tonight, I felt welcome to get to know my body.

Caves are classic convergence zones where cross-species viral jumps occur. Bats and their guano, sheltering mammals, human hunters all passing in and out of a confined, humid, temperature-neutral space. Diseases love to make the first big leap from animal to human in caverns. Did you know the first major Ebola outbreak was ultimately traced back to a single cave in central Africa?

We have increased our population to the level of 7 billion and beyond. We are well on our way toward 9 billion before our growth trend is likely to flatten. We live at high densities in many cities. We have penetrated, and we continue to penetrate, the last great forests and other wild ecosystems of the planet, disrupting the physical structures and the ecological communities of such places. We cut our way through the Congo. We cut our way through the Amazon. We cut our way through Borneo. We cut our way through Madagascar. We cut our way through New Guinea and northeastern Australia. We shake the trees, figuratively and literally, and things fall out. We kill and butcher and eat many of the wild animals found there. We settle in those places, creating villages, work camps, towns, extractive industries, new cities. We bring in our domesticated animals, replacing the wild herbivores with livestock. We multiply our livestock as we've multiplied ourselves, operating huge factory-scale operations involving thousands of cattle, pigs, chickens, ducks, sheep, and goats, not to mention hundreds of bamboo rats and palm civets, all confined en masse within pens and corrals, under conditions that allow those domestics and semidomestics to acquire infectious pathogens from external sources (such as bats roosting over the pig pens), to share those infections with one another, and to provide abundant opportunities for the pathogens to evolve new forms, some of which are capable of infecting a human as well as a cow or a duck. We treat many of those stock animals with prophylactic doses of antibiotics and other drugs, intended not to cure them but to foster their weight gain and maintain their health just sufficiently for profitable sale and slaughter, and in doing that we encourage the evolution of resistant bacteria. We export and import livestock across great distances and at high speeds. We export and import other live animals, especially primates, for medical research. We export and import wild animals as exotic pets. We export and import animal skins, contraband bushmeat, and plants, some of which carry secret microbial passengers. We travel, moving between cities and continents even more quickly than our transported livestock. We stay in hotels where strangers sneeze and vomit. We eat in restaurants where the cook may have butchered a porcupine before working on our scallops. We visit monkey temples in Asia, live markets in India, picturesque villages in South America, dusty archeological sites in New Mexico, dairy towns in the Netherlands, bat caves in East Africa, racetracks in Australia – breathing the air, feeding the animals, touching things, shaking hands with the friendly locals – and then we jump on our planes and fly home. We get bitten by mosquitoes and ticks. We alter the global climate with our carbon emissions, which may in turn alter the latitudinal ranges within which those mosquitoes and ticks live. We provide an irresistible opportunity for enterprising microbes by the ubiquity and abundance of our human bodies. Everything I’ve just mentioned is encompassed within this rubric: the ecology and evolutionary biology of zoonotic diseases. Ecological circumstance provides opportunity for spillover. Evolution seizes opportunity, explores possibilities, and helps convert spillovers to pandemics.

Laughter flapped out of people like bats from a cave.

Some tiny micro-organism fed on the bat guano on the floor of the cave; a maggot ate the micro-organism; a beetle ate the maggot; a spider ate the beetle; then a bat ate the spider. It was a perfect food chain. The bat was smart, all it had to do was shit and wait.

He went back home, to its cave,” he muttered, genuinely sounding disgruntled as he walked away. He was leaving me here. To fend for my life. Because this was no big deal to him. Then I remembered it was a bat and just about anyone would scream. It wasn’t my fault he was a mutant with no fears.

Bats roost in the caves north of the village. They’re known to carry diseases like Ebola and viruses like Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever.

Caves are cool in warm weather. Beware of bats, however. Bat urine will give you, as well as animals such as dogs, the rabies. Photograph supposedly shows an early man drawing on the walls of a cave. Such cave drawings are nearly all faked but are great tourist attractions. Cave drawings are invariably "discovered" in remote parts of a cave. If they were allegedly found in readily accessible areas of caves, they would be quickly declared to be fakes.

Afraid you won’t be able to keep up,” needled Volant, interrupting. “I thought you were The Fastest Flier in the Sky?!” “Really,” said Gabby. “That’s how you’re going to play this?” “Yep, slowpoke, that’s how I’m going to play it.” And without another word, Volant the eagle launched into the air, pointed south, with not so much as a glance back.

Sometimes—at the same time—I am a dinosaur, a fish, a bat, a bird, a single-celled organism swimming in the primordial soup, or the embryo of a mammal, sometimes I’m in a cave, sometimes in a womb, which is basically the same thing—a place protected (against time).

The sunset of the forest had given the signal to robin and tanager to begin their vesper song. The sunset of the mount had issued the dew-time call that conjures out of the caves and hollow trees the smallest of the winged Brownie folk, whose kingdom is the twilight and whose dance hall is high above the tree-tops.

Reluctantly the four people backed away from the fence, the young man shouting to the young woman and cupping his hand to his ear as if holding a phone. The young woman shook her head yes, then turned to walk back up the coast, holding the small girl’s hand, the uniformed man close behind. When the young woman looked back over her shoulder one last time, the small girl broke away, sprinting out onto the beach. The young woman raced out and caught the small girl, but not before she had scattered a flock of seagulls into the sky.

Wow, so much to learn!" said Volant the eagle. "Fish-eating bats, pale bats, bats with little ears, bats with long noses, bats with noses that look like leaves… Next thing you know, you’re going to tell me there are bats that drink blood like vampires!” “There are those, indeed, as well,” said Sully the Leaf-nosed bat.

Some of the guard bats hung from the tall cardón cactus that partially blocked the entrance to the cave; some guard bats hung along the edge of the cave entrance. The presence of these burly guards, along with the big cardón cactus, created a formidable boundary, a wall of sorts that could be used for controlling entry to the cave. And for the Pallid bats controlling who could enter the cave was precisely the goal.

As they moved to push off the boat, a loud squawk sounded near at hand. The people pulled up short in time see the outline of a seagull fly past, the bird chattering wildly. Before anyone could speak, another bird took flight from the palapa. This bird, far larger than the first, passed overhead as a dark apparition. The big bird made no sound, save the gentle whoosh from its massive wings.

Once she’d lifted the bat out of the cage, the younger woman turned slowly, lifted her hands high, then said, “Time to go home, little one” as she opened her hands. The bat hesitated for a moment, as if unclear it was free to go, then it fluttered away. The people watched by headlamp as the bat circled them twice, before disappearing into the sky. All the while, the older man with the camera had been positioning himself to record the moment. His photo caught the young scientist silhouetted on one side of the image, the dark outline of the island on the other side, just as the bat took flight into the orange sunrise glowing across the water.

I’ve always wanted to go to Australia," said Volant the eagle. "Just think of it: kangaroos and koala bears, wallabies and wombats!” “Cool enough,” returned Gabby the seagull. “But I’ve always wanted to see a platypus. Sort of a beaver with a duckbill?! How can that possibly be?” “Nothing surprises me much anymore,” said Volant. “Seems like almost anything is possible.

The people said there might be disease in the cave," said Gabby the seagull. "They seemed really worried. They kept talking about how people can give the bats something called COVID and how bad that would be because even if the bats don’t get sick they can pass it on to other animals or right back to people later. And also they talked about a fungus and white noses and feeble bats and bats flying off-kilter and about how bat colonies around the world have been wiped out.

The cave bats gave us a ride all the way to the Milkwood Forest Biome.

You’re a pain in my ass, Porter.” “If you ever again want to be a pain in mine, you’ll get me out of this damn cave before the bats wake up.” “Insane. Fucking insane.

It’s a throwing stake,” she told me. “A vampire once tried to escape from me. He thought it would be safe, flying off in bat form. The fool. I hit him in the wing with one of these.” She held up the throwing stake, stroking its polished, red oak point. “The metal makes it heavy, so it flies better. The oak makes it lethal. The vampire was easy to trap once I took him down.” Without a flicker of hesitation, she took aim and threw the weapon straight into the heart of the bats’ roost. One of the bats dropped to the floor like dead fruit from a tree. The cave exploded with dark, flapping shapes. My heart skipped a beat as they screeched and squealed. “That’s how you kill a vampire,” Mum whispered triumphantly.

Hello! Sorry for interrupting you while you are having your…grass…your lunch, but may I ask you something?” “Moo!” “Umm…is  that a YES? Or is that NO?

Thank you! Umm, what are you…?” “I am a Cow, honey…” “Well, thank you, Cow!” “You are all welcome sweetie!

Bats are one of the coolest—and most useful!—animals on earth. A single bat can eat over a thousand mosquitoes an hour. (That’s a lot of bugs!) Many plants, including some of our favorite fruits, are pollinated by bats too. The smallest bat on earth weighs less than a penny, while some flying foxes have six-foot wingspans. Unfortunately, bats are in trouble. People are often scared of bats, thinking they all carry rabies or will get caught in your hair. And bats have been hit hard by diseases and destruction of their home caves. So these days, bats need our help.

She couldn’t look at Jacques, who had somehow made his large body thin and weird looking. Carpathians were capable of doing things she didn’t want to think about. How had she gotten herself into this mess? Sex. A good-looking intense man with black, hungry eyes, and she fell like a lovesick calf. Sex. It ruined many otherwise sane women. I can read your thoughts. The amusement was soft and caressing, wrapping her up in strong arms. I was perfectly sane and sensible until I met you. Now look at me. I’m crawling around inside a mountain. Suddenly she stopped and held herself perfectly still. I’m hearing something. Tell me you are not taking me into a cave full of bats. Say it right now, Jacques, or I’m out of here. I am not taking you into cave filled with bats.