What the Deer know
Denver, CO
2024, Senior, Creative Writing
A hot breeze blew through the garden where I stood, carrying the scent of zoo animals, the dog food factory, and smoke. Enough smoke to make your eyes water, enough to make your throat feel like sandpaper. The fires started up again this year, worse than before. A cloud of filthy smoke lingered over the city, and shrouded the jagged mountains that stood to the west. I sighed, and turned toward my back door, turning on the lawn and gardening boxes I had faced before. My math class would be starting soon, and that seemed reason enough to go back inside, where I was safe the feel of ash coating my esophagus.
“Does your throat hurt from the smoke, too?” said a soft, yet unsettling voice. My feet froze. I threw my hands in the air in a instinctive attempt to surrender to whoever was there. I’m still not sure how much time passed. No voice came again, and soon my thoughts turned to self-deprecation as embarrassment warmed my cheeks. Obviously there couldn’t be anyone there. The burning in my shoulders implored me to drop my arms, and so my hands fell to my sides. A hand, my hand I guess, reached out and grabbed the handle on the back door. The fingers tightened around burning metal, hot from the sun, but my wrist never turned. A nagging filled my mind. Something pulled and twisted the neurons, urging me to turn back around, to figure out the mystery of the voice. My lips parted, a silent breath passing through them, as I turned to face the yard. As my eyes settled on the presence in my backyard, the breath caught in my throat. Something stood in my garden, though not a man or a woman. Long ears twitched, scraping against tall, powerful antlers. A reddish-brown coat covered the animal, interrupted by a tar black nose, light brown hooves, and dark eyes, eyes filled with something I couldn’t understand. As I looked closer, I saw imperfections in its coat. There were burns at points, and one of its legs was bent slightly at the wrong angle. Grass protruded from its lips, and smaking noises filled the yard. A deer stood in front of me, surrounded on all sides by cars, houses, and humans. The deer swallowed its mouthful, and the lump of grass traveled down its powerful neck. I took a step forward without thinking, and my hands moved in time with my feet, reaching up and out like a child running to their stuffed animal. As I moved, the deer mirrored me, backing away warily. I slowed. Holding my hand out, I cooed at the deer.
“I won’t hurt you sweetheart,” I puckered my lips and made kissing sounds, as if that would somehow get a wild animal to understand English. Its lips opened, and for a striking moment, I though it was going to bite at me. What came next was much worse.
“I know. I would not have come here if I thought that.” The unexpected response pierced me, causing a wave of nausea. I blinked a few times, then, realizing that was futile, rubbed at my ears. The voice perfectly matched the one I had heard before; a soft lilt, but accompanied by alarming quality. It was the kind of voice that would sing you to a sleep filled with nightmares.
“Listen to me, and listen closely. We do not have much time to discuss. My name is Briony. I-”
I cut her off, the situation overwhelming me. My words came out stilted, sounding as if I were being smacked in the windpipe between each word.
“You are a deer.” As obvious as this fact was, I felt the need to say it, to put it out into the world. The deer – Briony – smiled as much as a deer can, tight skin stretching over bone.
“And you are a human. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, can I say what I came here to say?”
My mouth hung open, so Briony pressed on.
“I am here because of the fires in the mountains. Much of my kind has died due to the ash, and many have fled down here to the city, only to be crushed by a car or shot by a human. This cannot go on any longer, but seeing as I have hooves and you have hands…”
She trailed off.
“I would like to take you to the mountains and show you the secret we have been hiding for sometime.”
There was something off about how she talked. The way she strung words together caused a pang of revulsion, though I’m not sure why. I finally regained control of my faculties and snapped my mouth closed. Briony stared at me for a beat, waiting for a response. The beat passed, and we stood like that for a while, my eyes wide, hers calm. Eventually she sighed, raised a hoof, and hit me directly in the chest, hard enough to bruise.
“What was that for?!” I shouted, the pain shaking me out of my stupor.
“You took to long to respond,” Briony said matter of factly.
A muscle ticked in my jaw. Anger overtook my surprise.
“I don’t know what you expect of me. You come here to my house and talk to me as if I should fix the world. You know nothing of me, and I know nothing of you. I think you should leave me alone, and you can find another person to lecture.”
I didn’t believe anything of what I was saying. When I was a child, I had suffered the intense desire to save the world. My head was filled with literature, literature that I consumed without separating from reality. I used to truly believe that a day would come where I would have to embark on a quest to save humanity. I realized as I grew older that was a fallacy. I could not save the world, I was not a hero. I was a small person, with a small voice.
“I will never get over how stupid humans can be. Of course I have talked to other people. Do you think I would rest the fate of my blood-line, of all blood-lines, on one person?”
Briony’s voice had a disapproving tone, one that hurt almost as much as the blow to my chest.
“I wish to convince as many of you as possible, so that we might have a chance.” It was difficult to reconcile this angered and razor sharp voice with the restrained one I had known. It seemed that Briony had run out of patience and no longer intended to coddle my sensitive spirit.
“Oh,” I could only muster one syllable. Apparently, I still suffered the same delusions of grandeur as when I was a child. I cast my eyes downward, this indication of regret forcing a huff out of Briony.
“Humans are so utterly breakable. Not just your bones, your muscles, but your minds too. Will you get over yourself and come with me?”
I nodded. Then everything went black.
When my eyes opened, everything was green. Trees, grass, and buds filled my vision. My heart skipped a beat, not recognizing the area I was in. I sat up quickly, leaves rustling around me, the sound adding another spike of fear. Slowly, as I adjusted to my surroundings, whispers came from all around me. I strained to understand, my ears trying to reach out and grab the words. No matter how hard I tried, nothing made any sense. The words didn’t even seem human. That’s because they’re not human. Rubbing my eyes with my hands, the motion distinctly childlike, I looked around for the first time. At first, I only saw the flora of the forest, the pine trees, wild grass swaying in the wind. But as my eyes adjusted, the blurry, grainy quality rubbed away, brown filled the space. Deer surrounded me, their appearance menacing. Although I wasn’t adept at deer expressions, each seemed to hold malice in their eyes. I scrambled to my feet, my limbs not yet fully coordinated. The whispers ceased, the silence that filled the space almost more eerie than the noises before. Briony stepped forward.
“Finally,” The word sounded so exasperated I felt the need to apologize, but before I could force the sorry out, Briony spoke again.
“You have come here of your own accord.” It wasn’t a question, but I nodded nonetheless. “Normally, we would not tolerate your kind here, but times are desperate.”
Guilt bubbled in my chest, and once again I wanted to beg their forgiveness.
“People have been polluting and wasting since the first of you crawled out of the mud. Humans do not care for their consequences. They consume and consume without thought. And of course, in accordance with your nature, you have no idea how to stop the problems you have created. Luckily for you, we have figured it out.” Briony’s voice turned smug with that last word.
“Thanks?” I muttered, not sure how to respond.
“We will tell you how to stop the pollution, and waste, and heat, and hurt, if you promise us one thing.” Briony looked me in the eyes. Her gaze had the quality of a dagger.
“Anything,” I’m not sure why I said that, but I found no fault in the statement.
Briony smiled. “You must tell everyone.”
I faltered a bit at that, scared of the embarrassment, an utterly human response. But as I looked around, I saw the urgency behind her words. Some deer in the crowd had burn marks on them, others were missing eyes or ears. The trees in the clearing were charred, and there were flowers missing heads. And so I agreed. Briony leaned forward and whispered in my ear her solution. I almost laughed at its simplicity, its beauty.
I woke in my garden, my head filled with clarity. I ran through my house, down the street, through town, just shouting. I spoke to everyone I saw, telling them the secret to the problem we had created. But, after all, I am just a girl.
Not one person listened.
Reflection
Reflection
My story starts out truthfully. One day in 2020 I was standing in my yard, taking a break from the constant Zoom calls that came with the COVID-19 pandemic. I remeber that day, not just because the smoke that came down from the mountains was particularly thick and choking, but because I saw a deer standing in my yard, staring at me. Deers are beautiful creatures, yet the sight of this deer brought no good feelings. All I felt was fear. The only reason a deer would be caught in a city was due to the fires that raged in the forest. Fires were a constant of Colorado life in 2020. Every night I went to bed with an air purifier whirring beside me, the noise present in every room in my house. When writing this story, I was taken back to that time. The feeling I remember the most was an overwhelming sense of guilt. It was humanity's fault these wildfires raged. The guilt also stemmed from the knowledge that not enough people were trying to change this. That inspired the message in my story. I wanted the writing to feel unsettling and unnerving, to reflect the feeling of living during the climate crisis. I wanted to capture the frustration that many young people feel in knowing that this crisis has arrived, even as many in the world seem to ignore both the crisis and our calls to action. This process brought out many feelings for me. As a leader of the Sustanability Club at my high school (and as a vegetarian), I try to offset the intense climate anxiety I feel by reaching out to communities and attempting to live a eco-friendly lifestyle. When writing this story, I was reminded of how small one feels when trying to help the earth. I hope this story inspires others to speak up.