Oh Deer

It looked like a deer I encountered years earlier —body intact, lying awkwardly next to the road; "Glancing at its head as I rode by, our eyes met and it blinked at me. I called animal control as soon as I got to school, but felt nauseous with guilt and shame for having left the creature to its fate"; I hopped out of my truck and ran my eyes over the deer as I approached, searching for any indication of the trauma that brought it here. No sign of breathing was apparent as I circled to inspect its head and neck, but its eyes immediately locked onto me. I recognized the desperation in those big, black pools. Not pain, not fear, but pleading. “Don’t leave me like this.”; I crouched down to cradle and gently lift its head. The deer gasped and I felt an unnatural grinding in part of its neck. A familiar sickening feeling came over me, and I rested its head limply back onto the ground, slowly stroking its cheek with my thumb. Even as its breathing came in rapid, raspy pants its gaze never left me. Overcome with thoughts of the deer I’d left to suffer all those years ago, I dropped to one knee. I leaned over to hug the poor deer and as my other knee came to rest on its neck I tightened my grip and twisted the head away from me with every ounce of strength I could muster. With the sharp crunch of its spinal cord snapping, its pleading expression relaxed into one of relief; It wasn’t much. Just a few moments. I was going to call it my good deed for the day but as the weight of my own guilt lifted, I realized the shared benefits of sparing that deer a slow death, alone