Deer

His hardened fingers glided over the bushes and the leaves and the branches, searching for something, anything he could eat. He hadn’t eaten since the last darkness, and, as the light began to disappear, he began to grow sleepy. Hungry and alone, he crouched on his haunches and squinted up at the canopy of trees, the dome of leaves that hardly let any light through. A tiny bird squawked and took flight from a branch, and he followed it with his eyes as it nimbly navigated through trees and branches, eventually, in a flurry of wings, coming to rest on the moist, grassy ground. His throat was rough and his tongue was thick with dryness, so he touched the ground and brought his wetted fingers to his mouth, and sucked the moisture from them.

As the man began to lie down to fall asleep in the forest, a deer, tall and sleek and light brown, emerged from the brush, and cautiously stepped towards him until it was within arm’s reach. The man, having never seen a deer before, slowly reached out to touch the deer. The deer gently ducked back, just barely out of reach and, when the man had lowered his hand, the deer stepped backwards. The man reached out once more to touch the deer, but the deer ducked out of reach again, and took another step backwards. The man stepped forward, and the deer stepped backwards, again, and again, and again, until the man didn't try to touch the deer anymore, but was content to let the deer lead him. And so they continued, the deer taking a step backwards, and the man taking a step forwards, until the man found himself in an unfamiliar part of the forest.

The man realized that the light was getting stronger the further he followed the deer. Finally, the deer stopped, and the man saw that he was at the edge of the forest. Looking out from a gap between two trees, the man observed that ahead of him, out of the shelter of the forest, was a ridge, over whose edge he could not yet see. The deer stepped out from the forest and walked forward, stopped at the edge of the ridge, and turned back towards the man.

The man used his hand to shield his eyes from the brightness as he followed the deer and walked forward, out of the darkness of the woods, and he gasped. He felt, for the first time, the warm, glaring caress of the sun on his cheeks and his back, and the breeze gliding over his tough, sinewy muscles, and he breathed in air lighter and crisper than any air he had ever breathed before. He stepped to the edge of the ridge and looked down into the valley far below to find a group of men, just like himself, smashing rocks against trees, stacking tree trunks on top of each other, and emitting loud, strange noises from their mouths. The man stood motionless and frowned a nervous frown, terrified of all that he had not known before. When the man finally tore his gaze from the valley below, he turned back to the deer. The deer held his gaze for what seemed to be an eternity, and then dashed away, back from where they had come, back into the forest.