Flap flap the first bat courageously emerges into the barren strip of sky over the Brisbane River, braving no-man’s land before the sun has even truly sunk into evening, sparking babble and gossip among its more staunchly nocturnal peers.
Eventually, however, as the horizon’s glow blunts into dusk these conservatives follow their outrider, first in groups then in a steady stream of determined shapes flap flapping across the unbroken river into the fig trees where they will feast and squeek and revel in the opacity of the humid night.
The ground under the figs gains another layer of fruit shaken loose, to be pounded into jam by joggers, cyclists and commuters when the sun completes its half-revolution.
To me, unlucky enough to be without shoes, the figs ooze between my toes and give me the horrible feeling of stepping on snails after rain (if the snails came almost up to my ankles).
The endless migration of bats across the river at this appointed hour is making me uneasy, because I may be able to distinguish them now against Brisbane’s bruised sky, but when it becomes truly night, the whole sky might as well be bats. They will only be briefly revealed when they flap flap in front of the towers over the water, or swoop near the park lights for insects. Standing under lights at night makes me uncomfortable, like being interrogated, like being on stage. Good thing I don’t mind the bats themselves. But against the dark I wield only the last half of my smoke, and then that’s gone and ground into the ground I won’t be able to draw the lines anymore, I won’t be able to make the divisions, it won’t be night, bat, me but just flap, flap, flap and the patter of falling figs.
