Graffiti covers the bricks of a narrow alleyway, screaming chaos that clutters Jamie’s already disastrous brain. A blanket of darkness and fog lay over the small suburban campus, giving the summer air a weight Jamie didn’t get to experience often. A certain queasiness had settled in the pit of his gut. He stares at the ground and mutters to himself, attempting to sort the gibberish pounding against his skull, but goes silent when his eyes catch on a small box. It’s soft and somewhat warm, and as Jamie flips it open, he’s greeted with the stern face of an elderly man.
How could he have not noticed he dropped his wallet?
He picks it up, then raises his eyes to try and find the man. The warmth of the leather should mean he’d dropped it recently, and if he’s as old as he looks, he couldn’t have gotten very far. However, Jamie is only met with passing cars on both sides of the alley. He slips the wallet into his back pocket and continues walking, making a mental note to take it to the police station when he next got a chance. This series of events was not unusual for him. Having again been relieved of his responsibility as a designated driver of sorts for some reason or another, he walks home in the dark, completely sober. Even the uneasy feeling that was now spreading from his stomach to his chest was to be expected. While he never knew where it came from, he experienced it quite often. Jamie had tried to connect the dots before, making fruitless attempts to remember who had been near him, what he might have eaten, or previous experiences that might cause discomfort when brought up again. He pulls his phone from his pocket and checks the time, expecting something far later than the 11:00 that greets him.
Despite the hour, a number of fellow college students are out on the street, walking to their respective destinations. Jamie smiles as two young women from his Religious Studies class, clearly drunk out of their minds, pass him. The one furthest from him winks as she stumbles by, and as she and her friend continue forward, they look back at him, giggling. The queasiness had begun to spread into his upper chest and throat. Instead of looking at the young women, who had started trying to get his attention, he searches through the fog for the lights of his apartment building. Various exclamations of celebration reach Jamie’s ears as he runs across the street and stands outside of the park. Upon further investigation, he comes across several young men tossing tethered rocks into the air.
“What’re you guys doing?” He shoves his hands into his pockets and watches as another rock goes up, then comes down again.
“We’re fishin’ for bats!”
“What do the rocks do?”
“The bats fly into the rock and…” As the sentence is being completed, a whooping cheer cuts through the air, and one of the older men holds a small, black ball in his closed fist.
“Wait, be careful! You don’t want to hurt it,” Jamie begins to walk over to the guy holding the bat when another shout is heard, accompanied with a fog-dispelling light. This voice, stern and reprimanding, sends the boys running. The bat falls to the ground, landing in the grass.
“What’re you doing?” A young woman dressed in a campus police uniform approaches Jamie, who had kneeled to the ground to pick up the animal. He looks up, explaining what had been going on and that he was only trying to get to his apartment. The officer rolls her eyes, shrugs, then tells him to hurry and to take the bat with him. His fingers gently wrap around the animal’s tiny body, scooping it up and cradling it in his palm. With the little bat in hand, Jamie walks to his apartment building.
The bat, icy to the touch and completely limp, slides from his hand onto the small wooden table in Jamie’s room. He’d never held a bat; thus, he had no idea where its body temperature should lie, but he definitely knew it wasn’t as cold as this bat was. After several moments of attempting to coax the bat awake, using fruit, water, and his warm desk lamp, Jamie sighs and stands up.
I’m heading to sleep, little one. Will you be okay for the night?
Jamie chuckles to himself. This bat couldn’t hear him thinking, nor would it be able to understand him had he been speaking out loud. He grabs a container and lines it with a small blanket. Then he gently places the bat within the box and loosely places a cover on top, before setting it onto his desk. The feeling of uneasiness had spread through his whole torso. Jamie looks around the room as though someone might be there, then looks back to the box with a smile.
“Goodnight you sweet thing, I hope your noggin doesn’t hurt too much when you wake up.” He whispers. Feeling satisfied, he tosses the wallet onto the desk by the box and heads to bed for the night.
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