Just for a minute, let's go back to somewhere along the way. To where this story began. To, the mustache.
I stood in the shower of my Antalya apartment in Turkey, the water spraying on me for almost an hour. I had just tested positive for COVID-19 and was subject to two weeks of quarantine. The least I could do was have a nice warm, long shower to relax.
My phone was going off like crazy, but whoever it was calling me could wait. Then again, who could be calling me? Maybe it was my mother or father. Yeah it probably was them. They could definitely wait until after my shower.
The phone, however, kept ringing constantly.
It was getting annoying now.
I came out of the shower, my body dripping water everywhere, and answered the phone.
"Hello," I said.
"Mr. Gonzales?" It was The Mustache.
"Speaking," I said.
"I'm calling to check up on you to see if you are obeying your quarantine rules. Are you at home?"
"Yes," I said.
"Go to your window," The Mustache ordered.
Geeez!! Urgghhh!! I reluctantly did as The Mustache said. I wrapped a towel around me and went on over to the window.
Downstairs, in front of the apartment The Mustache stood leaning on his police vehicle with the phone to his ears.
"Wave," The Mustache said.
I waved.
The Mustache waved back. "Thank you. And please. Next time I call, try to answer your phone as fast as you can."
"Okay chief," I said.
I hung up the phone and remained at the window looking at The Mustache drive away. It was a beautiful day out in Antalya. The sky was blanketed with blue without a single cloud in the sky, and the temperature was somewhere in the 20's. Why couldn't the weather be shit like it was yesterday, I thought to myself. I felt like a caged bat. I was once free to fly and go wherever I wanted. The world was my oyster. And now, I was here, stuck in this cage near the window. I felt like Fen Xi.
Speaking of Fen Xi, whatever happened to her?
Fen Xi, the caged city bat, longed for freedom. She had been stuck in a cage in Wuhan for weeks. She lived with a family who made their living selling produce and animals to the local market. They mostly sold ducks, pigs, and potatoes but occasionally, they sold bats that snuck into their homes and became a menace. Fen Xi was one of those bats. She had gotten lost during a hunt in the rain and found herself stuck in the house. The owners captured her, but the owner's little son took a fancy to Fen Xi and asked his father to be able to keep her as a pet. And so, they did.
Fen Xi was lucky that she hadn't been killed that night, the little boy saving her life. But she felt as though death would have been better than captivity. She wanted to be back outside in the wild, flying amongst her fellow bats. She wanted to be free.
One day... well, night, Fen Xi spotted a cute bat staring at her from the forests beyond the house. He looked healthy, very plump, and fat. Fen Xi liked that. It showed that he was a good hunter, and she grew quite fond of him. His name was Brody. It was love at first sight. She wanted to go meet him, she wanted him to come free her from this cage and take her away. She wanted him to be her dark knight in shining armor, her Batman.
But Brody never lived up to that expectation. He wasn't confident enough to approach her or to save her. He thought he was too fat and that she would never like a fat bat. He then flew away, disappearing into the forest.
"No! Come back! Come save me!" Fen Xi squealed. She wanted to fly after him, but she was confined to this small cage. She fluttered around the cage, manically, trying to escape, pushing against the walls of the cage. The cage slowly slid closer and closer to the edge of the table until it fell to the floor and broke.
Fen Xi was free! She quickly flew out of the cage to her freedom. The owners of the house woke up to the sound of the falling cage. Fen Xi could hear them coming. If they saw her, they would definitely kill her this time. But Fen Xi lived in the house long enough to know how to get out. Dozens of bats got stuck in the house on a weekly basis, and she knew where the bats flew in. And if they could fly in from there, they could just as easily fly out.
Without a moment's hesitation, Fen Xi set out to escape. She flew through the house, and there were the owners, all of them, mother, father, and son, streaming into the living room where the cage had fallen. Fen Xi had to fly through the raging humans to get to her escape. She plowed through them as quickly as she could, but Mr. Wu was fast. He grabbed Fen Xi by the wing. Was this it? Was her escape plot now foiled? No, Fen Xi wasn't going to let it slip through her fingers that easily. In defense, she sunk her vampirish teeth deep into Mr. Wu's hand.
"Ouch!" Mr. Wu yelled before letting Fen Xi go. She then took off through the escape opening and into the night. She was free.
Fen Xi flew for miles and miles in search of Brody, but after many days she still couldn't find him. She was beginning to lose hope when one night, he flew past her in a hurry, the rain pouring. Fen Xi quickly sprung after him. He was too fast for Fen Xi to keep up with. She soon realized where he was going. He was going back to the house.
"Oh no!" Fen Xi said.
She sped up to try to stop him, but the pouring rain and overall exhaustion from searching for Brody for the past few days weighed her down.
She eventually got to the house, but by that time it was too late. She saw Brody fluttering in the house and Mr. Wu swinging at him with a broom.
"NOOO!!" Fen Xi squealed. She needed to go guide him out of the house. She knew where the exit was, and he probably didn't. The house was too big and disorientating for a bat new to the surroundings. Before she could get into the house, she heard a loud squeal.
Brody was hit.
She peeked through the window and saw Brody laying on the floor with Mr. Wu and his family looking down. Brody appeared to still be alive, but he was unconscious.
Mr. Wu asked his son, "Do you want to keep this bat as a pet?"
"No!" Little Wu said. "He's too big and ugly!"
Mrs. Wu then said, "But he might sell quite well at the market. They pay top dollar for a meaty bat."
Mr. Wu picked Brody up, put him in a bag then told Little Wu, "I don't feel too well, I think I have a fever coming on. Tomorrow, go to the market and try to get a good price on this."
"Yes Papa," Little Wu said.
Fen Xi felt hopeless and defeated. She saved herself from the cage, but she couldn't save Brody from the one he was about to find himself in. The next day she went to the market where the family sold their produce in search of Brody. Maybe she could still save him but no. She was too late again.
She saw little Wu selling off Brody to a market vendor for a few dollars. Brody was as plump and fat as ever but there was no longer life in his eyes. His life was over and whatever future she saw with him would now cease to exist. Fen Xi was heartbroken. She was heartbroken from a bat she didn't even know. There was nothing more she could do. Brody's story was over.
Now, the COVID-19 pandemic may not have started there. It may not have even started in Wuhan. Maybe it started in Puebla, Mexico with a tall Trinidadian man who was deathly sick in October. Maybe it had started from a lab leak as some conspiracy theorists say. There is no concrete evidence of where or how it started. All we know is that the first recorded case of COVID-19 was in Wuhan China. And bats are among the easiest ways new viruses can get into humans. You put these two facts together and we can assume that the virus started in Wuhan China in a market. But we don't know for sure, and we may never know.