Pretty Lynne Writes

It all began with the soft wings of a bat.

One night I was sitting in a little pergola at a friend’s cottage, and felt a brush of something against my hair. I reached back, as one does, and felt something very soft that flapped and was gone in almost an instant. The next day, I spotted a bat hanging from the roof of the pergola and made the connection.

Bats carry rabies, and have the added threat of needle-sharp teeth. Not only will you not be aware that a bat bit you, you can’t usually see a bat bite with the naked eye. And you will only know that a bat infected you with rabies when you begin to show symptoms. Once you show symptoms, chances are better than 97% that you will die.

“Should I get the rabies shots?” I asked, canvassing those around me.

“You’re probably fine,” person after person said. Some of these people were really important to me.

“You’ve got a 95% chance you don’t get rabies,” one of the most important people in my life said, and I wondered. Was that person willing to take a 5% chance that I would have rabies and die?

I finally called the Health Unit in my area, and the infection control person told me right away to go to my doctor. She said any contact with a bat needed to be taken seriously. She would have the serums sent to my doctor and we would start inoculation that afternoon. There would be 5 shots the first day, and a shot each week for several weeks after that.

Something shifted for me that afternoon. I don’t know whether it was the possibility of a fatal disease, or the casualness with which others met that possibility, but a little part of me woke up inside and said it was serious. That I was worth taking seriously. That I was worth saving, and that I would maybe need to rely on myself to know what to do. That inside me, there was a voice that knew what to do, and I should listen to it.

I did not know what the soft wings of a bat would spur me towards, but I can tell you for certain I did not think it was writing erotica and making erotic audios.