There I was,strolling along minding my own business when quicker than a George Bush gaffe,down came the torrential rain and the loudest,ear-splitting crack of thunder I have ever heard.I seriously envisioned clouds parting,maybe some kind of golden torrent pouring through the gaps,and an event of biblical proportions taking place.Having been told in the dim and distant past,by an incompetent school nurse,that I had a weak heart I was minded to sit down and relax for a few minutes.
Time passed and I arrived back home.With the sun setting,I decided to take in the sights and sounds of Street 19 on my balcony,listening to the street vendors calling out their names,whilst trying to sell anything from snails to the largest brooms you have ever seen,and watching the construction workers returning home,having earned $5 a day(skilled)or $3 a day(unskilled),perched on trucks loaded up to heights that you would think were gravitationally challenged.
Suddenly.......whooosh!.....what the hell?......whooooosh!.....
there it is again.I leapt out of my brightly coloured swing,and leant over the edge of the balcony to try and work out what I had just experienced.I realised that I had just risen from an Ankgor beer induced slumber,and perhaps I had imagined it all,but with spectacular lightning bolts now lighting up the increasingly darkening skies,I saw them.
Like small arrows,travelling at break neck speed,the bats were shooting back and forth between my building,and the one next door.The really bold ones circled around the edge of my balcony,and I realised that this is what I had felt.I could see them in the dusky sky,heading for the top of the coconut trees,that were still being lit up by the angry sky.
Later on in the evening,I mused over the thoughts that if I was of a nervous or even ultra religious disposition,I would think something enormous was about to happen.However,I come from a land that is both secular,and quite unremarkable when it comes to these issues.I almost had to think again however,when just before retiring I saw the largest black rat frolicking on the very spot where I had witnessed the bats earlier on!