The bat(s):
The cat leaped up to fireplace vents and pulled out a small bat. It fluttered in her teeth as she brought it the ground. Her recent experience being only with mice, she let it go to watch it run and begin the game. Unfortunately for her, the bat had wings and lifted off in flash. To my side, the shrieking begins; “Get it! Get it! Get it! o! o! o!”. I can see my wife reach up to cover the hair on the back of her neck. In some atavistic memory at work in her mind, bats and other beasts tangle themselves in her hair.
The gopher:
My 5 year old daughter and I were working in the yard, the Santa Cruz weather just right as always. If I remember correctly, we were picking the sweet Meyer lemons that grew just outside the living room window by the side of the house. Of course, some of the bight yellow fruit never made it into the basket. Our lips we tingling from the sharp, sweet taste of the still warm lemons.
Looking down I saw a gopher stick its head out of one of the many gopher holes that littered our yard. I quietly picked up a shovel and waited. My daughter looked over at me wondering what I was up to. The gopher then stuck its head out the hole to take its last look around. “Kill it! Kill it! my daughter shrieked again and again. I was almost laughing to hard to dispatch the hapless rodent. Where did that come from I wondered?
