All the bats are dying. Their little bodies are piling up at the entrances of caves and abandoned coal mines and no one knows how to stop it. It’s in this week’s New Yorker and it was enough to break my easy heart.

They used to live behind the shutters of the house I grew up in and terrify housepainters who disturbed them from sleep. I never had the nerve to look for them there, but my sister and I would watch them darting overhead while we rode our bikes at twilight on muggy summer nights.