A Few Feet Back

Her eyes were silken dark gems.

And her caramel-colored fur looked soft like velvet.

She seemed quite peaceful, standing elegantly over the grass. Her muzzle concealed the rows of small teeth she used to crush my mother’s red and blue flowers, which sat in a perfect circle around a maple tree in our backyard.

When I trotted across the green, my white shoes thumping down on the ground and my arms flailing in the air, she immediately took refuge in the forest crowding the edge of the open yard. But then she stopped, and I stampeded past the threshold and onto the shore of woodchips, and further on into the dimness of the woods. I came to a severe halt; it’s in my head now that I’m some warrior, some loyal guard pledged to the holy mission of protecting my mother’s yard work. And I stood there as if this doe were some familiar enemy of mine, the kind you get to know so well you can almost call her your friend. You can almost invite her to family events. You know she sees your weakness, and you know that she knows that you know all of hers.

I made this ridiculous yawping noise like I’m entertaining a child. She blinked indifferently. She then turned and looked right at me, raising her head high into the air to allow her lengthy neck with the white fur running below her mouth down toward her belly to glow.

I think she was trying to face her fear, the way she seemed to harden her stance, turning her body into sturdy ice. I stiffened my knees and waited. We both waited, out there in the muggy late summer afternoon.

We both glanced around, as if each of us had strategically planned a team of allies to pounce upon the other from behind or from the side. But then she turned back to me again.

I waited some more. And then I yelped and shouted and jumped. And then I took a few quick and resolute steps forward, stopping maybe ten yards away but shunned off by the villainous throngs of unfamiliar green plants spiking out of the ground between us. (They could be poison ivy.)

So I stood there. And I yelled out one more time. But the deer would not move. Not at all. Instead, she postures herself directly toward me. She looked to be leaning forward just a bit, just enough.

What do I do now? I wondered.

And then with great effort she raised up her right front leg, never breaking eye contact with those silky gems… And then she slammed her hoof into the ground, sending me a few feet back.