The Doe

The deer ran out of the dark nowhere, as if a large field had separated us for too long. As if her body was a maternal warning. It is in moments like these that three seconds is a year. Three seconds is a communion that leads to kinship and love. Three seconds, a symbiotic waltz. There was also the wonder at this large creature, her ligaments and length, her desperate ballet leap across the road. My chest rose in deep inhale as her body grew in size white my car careened into her body. Her body jettisoned into the darkness as my car lit up in its reds and whites, coming to an abrupt halt on the on-ramp to the interstate.

I sat in my car, remarkably calm and in denial. Immediately, I imagined the deer’s body bounding up the hillside, resilient and supernatural. I imagined a slight dent in the front passenger side because the car was still running. No bells were ringing, no sputter came from the engine, no lights lit on the dashboard. My car continued to purr softly in the quiet hour before sunrise. I recalled barely feeling a thing on impact. I recalled the millisecond of well, this is definitely going to happen. I texted my job that I’d be a little late, thinking that the car was still good to drive another 30 miles.

I grabbed my phone and exited the car to assess the damage. The car still purred as I opened the door and light shot forward from the headlights. I walked around to the front of the car. Holy shit, I said, looking at the gaping hole where the passenger headlight should have been. The still illuminated headlight hung from a bundle of wires like an optic nerve. The wound smelled sweet as antifreeze puddled beneath the car, following gravity to the grass. I only briefly thought about the effect of antifreeze on the grass but looked up, behind the car, realizing that the deer may not have been as supernatural as I thought. I walked along the side of the car, noting a trail of her hair sticking to the panels. Flashlight from my phone engaged, I walked into the darkness behind my car hoping not to find her body.

Donned in a long dress and sandals, I walked along the shoulder, my bad eyesight fooling me to believe that random debris was her body. I noted the steep hillside that she would have to trek if she wanted to escape into the woods at the base of Brush Mountain. I imagined the stamina she would have needed after the collision. I imagined the lactic acid and adrenaline in her veins. I imagined the dark understory being her medicine, or worse, her final resting place. Not seeing her, my own body began to relax, that is, until I did see her. Again, I was in denial. I slowly stepped into the grass, approaching what could have been any strewn deer. My sandals gathered dew and stuck to my feet. When close enough, I shined my light at an unscathed body on its side as if sleeping with their eyes opened. The steep hillside might as well have been a wall, for there is where she lay. I waited for a rise and fall of breathing or a startle of alertness in her eyes. There we were, I imagine, looking at each other in our small aura of white light surrounded by darkness. In hindsight, I realize that all she saw was light.

It was when her body thrashed on the ground as if she were upright and full of bounty that I stepped back, all the blood in my body running for cover in my heart. I thought of all the power still left in the unmaimed parts of her body. I watched in horrific sadness as she thrashed on the ground, unaware that I meant no harm. The thrashing did not last long. I imagined the pooling and bruising inside her, an internal drowning. After several seconds, I approached her, my careful path to her body ending at her back. Her eyes didn’t blink but she was still breathing. Lowering to my haunches from a short distance, I placed my hand on her right rib cage. It was when I felt her warmth that I began to weep and apologize to her. Just minutes ago, she was warm and entirely healthy, grazing on grass in the median dividing the on-ramp from the interstate. But also, I was angry with her. I was angry that she had to involve me in what seemed like a purposeful incident. I was angry that she was an animal that was simply acting on an instinct that seemed so foolish to me. In hindsight, again, I feel awful for approaching her from behind a light. The first time to harm her, the final time to scare her.

While pressing my hand into her ribs, I felt helpless. I’ve read many brazen and seemingly barbaric stories about putting animals out of their misery. I had done it only once to a pet rabbit. For only a moment did I wonder if I had something blunt in my car. I briefly thought about William Stafford’s poem about a man finding a dead doe pregnant with a still-alive fawn. The man pushed the doe down into a river. I quickly called the non-emergency number and reported the incident very matter-of-factly like a stoic. Like a hunter. I am good at being calm in drastic situations as I do it for a living when working with people who live in the stifling darkness of wanting to be dead.

I thought of how ridiculous I seemed, assessing and loving a dying deer more than assessing and stressing over a car. Such a fuckin’ hippie, right? But that’s not the case, really. Every body has a narrative. Every body’s experience has chapters. I didn’t want to be an ender of narratives. I understood that deer die anonymously and often savagely every day. In Pennsylvania, deer are a sport and even a nuisance in high numbers. When thinking about deer in numbers, they are a neighbor or meat or both, depending on whom you ask. But this deer under my hand was a victim of my narrative. She died under my hand.

It was only the day before that I was walking my dog Silas on River Road in the evening light. The hillside to the meandering river was thick with September understory. While waiting patiently for Silas to key out certain smells, I gazed down into the flood plain and caught the eye of a deer, peering at me through leaves. I stepped closer to the edge of the steep hillside to get a better look. This startled the deer into an elegant gallop upriver, following one of the many game trails. Silas and I continued our walk back home, playing leapfrog with the deer. A gaze into each others’ eyes always leading to a bounding white tail escaping into the brush. When Silas and I arrived home close to sunset, my husband greeted us in the yard and pointed down to the bottom of the yard where three deer were grazing near the dead apple tree. Brian and I stood side-by-side in wonder and watching, the sun at our backs and illuminating our graceful, golden neighbors.

She died. Her narrative ended but her body’s narrative has not. Whether she is absorbed back into the earth or if the game warden comes and collects her is beyond me. I left her body there at the bottom of the hillside and stood within the flashing four-ways of my car, waiting for Brian to pick me up and take me home. While gathering items from my car and handing them to Brian, I told him the story while also wondering how long it would take for her body to cool.

I was granted the ability to work from home that day. I was relatively calm and laughed at the irony of the next day being the first day of deer hunting season. Amid doing my job and making necessary phone calls regarding claims and towing, I took a brief break to refresh myself. I had a stress headache and was exhausted. I sought out Silas who was on the floor of my bedroom, laying on his side, legs straight out, eyes looking up at me. He is large and golden and warm. I knelt next to him, placed my hand on his ribs, and wept.