I was driving home from the stable Tuesday night when I was hit by a bird. It was a blur of brown and black feathers in the corner of my eye and then it thunked into the side of my car, right in the spot where the driver side mirror connects to the car. The force of the collision managed to wedge the bird’s body between my mirror and the car. As I kept driving, those brown and black feathers waved at me through the window, the wind giving false life to the bird’s wings. Eventually the bird slipped from its spot between mirror and car and landed on the road, a dark speck against the asphalt. I rounded a corner and it was gone as quickly from view as it had arrived. I inspected my car when I got home and there was nothing to show where the bird had been, not even a stray feather.
I hate that my car turned out to be the worst surprise of that bird’s life.
It reminded me of another twilight drive home from the stable back when I was in high school. My dad must have warned me about a hundred times after I got my license that I needed to be careful driving home from the barn at night during the fall, since it’s deer season and they can come at your out of nowhere. I wasn’t going particularly fast that night. I had my brights on. For this reason, I saw the half a dozen deer sprint across the road well in advance. I hit the brakes and the deer finished their crossing unmolested. Once they had safely crossed I began to accelerate.
This is when the last deer decided to cross the road and catch up with its buddies. The other deer ran. This deer sauntered. It meandered. It eased its way across the road, all the time in the world, and stepped out right in front of my car. I had picked up just enough speed that the bump sent it cartwheeling a perfect 360 across the road until it landed in a heap on the other side. The frozen tableau might have lasted minutes, or maybe it was only seconds, the deer collapsed on the ground, my foot smashed against the brakes, both unmoving. It felt like a lifetime.
The deer was the first to move. It stood up, gave itself a little shake, and bounded away into the corn field, presumably catching up with the others. It moved fast and smooth and was swallowed by the corn and the night in an instant.
I burst into tears. I sat in my car alone on the side of the road and cried for the deer that I hit, even though it got up and ran away.
I hate that not every animal can get up and run away. I wish I could have skipped tonight’s surprise.
This week’s synchroblog prompt was Surprise. You can read the others here:
Years That Ask Questions–Word Shepherd : Surprise Ending–muddleddreamer : whale–m : they didn’t–i write to be rid of things
The first time I took a woman home from college to meet the parents, a truck in front of us hit a deer on the way there. It happened moments after we got off the interstate, 100 miles from our college town, and I could see in my partner’s eyes that she finally believed everything I’d been telling her about where I grew up. That deer’s sickening spiral across 4 lanes of traffic was arrested by the guard rail, and it did not get up. I helped the guy who hit it throw it into the back of his truck, and later he brought some of the butchered meat to my parents’ house.
Welcome to the country?
Pingback: Surprise | The Creative Collective