The Deer in My Backyard

The deer comes about an hour before dawn, its large eyes watching me from just beyond the sliding glass door. My bedroom faces the forest out back, and I can’t see it from anywhere else. It appears to know this, and it isn’t until I hear the scratching of branches against the window that it reveals itself. Only once I’m looking at it, watching it, does it begin to eat. When the sky turns pink and the world starts to wake up, it trots away, leaving me to begin another day. This is a routine it follows every morning, without fail, for as long as I can remember. As a child, I was terrified of the deer. Its presence, its behavior, everything. It was an invasion, my room being watched by this creature, the sound of its breathing outside my window. But my mother thought it was sweet. She would tell me stories about Bambi and The Deer Hunter, and read me articles about hunting and the life expectancy of a deer in the wild. When I would cry, she would look at me and say, “It’s just trying to survive.” I hate her for that. When I turned 16, I decided to approach it. My mother was cooking dinner, and I slipped away, outside to where the deer was eating. It didn’t flinch, even as I drew close. But when I tried to touch it, it let out a sound, almost a scream, and it fled. The next night, it was back. I tried again to touch it, and I was met with the same reaction. I was starting to get mad. Why did it have to do this? Why did it have to come and stare at me while it ate? What did it even eat? *Why couldn’t it just let me touch it?* I was consumed by it. That thought, that singular goal, it became everything. The deer and its refusal to let me touch it. I couldn’t focus in school, I couldn’t sleep. I would lie awake at night, waiting for it, watching for it, waiting for it to show its face so I could try again. And when it inevitably ran, screaming and terrified, I would cry. I would lay there and cry, and my mother would hear, and she would come into my room and look at me and say, “It’s just trying to survive.” And I would hate her for it. I tried rope. I tried a gun. I tried starving it away. I did everything I could think of to catch it, to get close, to touch it. I could get close, but the moment I would reach out, it would let out that same sound and run. And in those moments, I hated it. I hated it so much I could feel myself shaking. I wanted to rip its head off and kick it and stomp on it. I wanted to hurt it so badly, so badly it would never dare come back. One night, I caught it. I was waiting for it, staying up late to catch it off guard. And when it came, finally, I snuck up behind it and I touched it. I put my hand on its back, and I held it there, and I told it to never come back. And it did. It screamed and ran. It ran through the forest, and it didn’t come back the next night. Or the night after. It didn’t come back for a long time, and when it did, I ignored it. I ignored it and I looked away and I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think about much of anything. I didn’t think at all. I just existed, and I waited for it to come back. It’s all I could do. And when it didn’t, I was empty. I had nothing left, nothing to think about, nothing to feel. I felt dead. My mother came into my room and looked at me. She said, “Maybe I should have let you touch it.” I said nothing. Two years have passed since then, and the deer has never shown its face again. I don’t sleep much anymore. I’m always awake, always waiting. Waiting for it to come back, to show me its face again. To let me touch it. But it hasn’t come back. It’s gone. I still hear it sometimes, the sound of branches scratching at the window. And I wake up, and I look, but it’s not there. Just a dream. I think about it a lot, especially at night. And I realize now, it was never about touching it. It was never about being close to it. It was about it being close to me. It was about it coming to me, and it watching me, and it being mine. I miss it.

The Deer in My Backyard

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