Susan
No matter when it happens, those same emotions immediately surface. In those few seconds when the doe appeared in my windshield sight,standing on the edge of the highway, I owned her panic. As I drove by her, her panic and mine can best be described as one and most definitely the same. Her eyes were filled with a calculated terror about what to do, while mine were filled with a terrible longing to stop the inevitable. Talk about doe eyes; hers were bigger than Bambi's. In my rearview mirror, I watched as she made her decision. With the form and speed of a superbly trained Olympic athelete, she took off along the side of the highway mindless of anything but her mission. Her sense of purpose so evident as she drove her body toward the prize -finding the right place to cross over the four Indianapolis Speedway-like lanes. Then she was gone. Gone from my sight,only,I hoped as my panic crescendoed. Should I pull over? Run after her? I wanted to tell her, no I needed to tell her, that I would stop the traffic for her. But I didn't do any of it. I just kept driving waiting for my confidence to replace my panic.
Comments [3]
from "norman": reminiscent of a moral dilemma; the story goes something like this: on a winding mountain road, a driver finds a car struck deer; by local tradition, the dead deer is pushed over the side of the mountain thus allowing clearing a hazard; however, in this case, the deer has life, though tentative; the drive considers he has two choices: sacrifice the deer or potentially humans; with regret he sacrifices the deer, yet the regret and the sheer fact he thought about saving the deer he redeems himself, his evidence of humanity instead of casual cruelty. our encounter with nature as our encounter with ourself … preservation.
Short story, but too long in characters.
perhaps slightly over the 420-character limit?
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