When the baby inside me was no bigger than a bean, deer began eating out of my hand. Well, only one deer and it was a carrot I stored in my jean pocket before I set out on my daily hike. Actually, there were two deer. Only one ate out of my hand. The other watched. I sensed the watcher might have been in charge. Or had more self-control. When I found out I was pregnant, it wasn’t a shock. You hadn’t pulled out, the way we’ve played it since college, and then you went UH OH. You’ve only said that twice before. And I said: ‘REALLY, I’m too old. I just got grooving in my career and we don’t need another baby. The ones we have can finally fend for themselves. Get their own juice, put themselves to bed. Stuff like that.’ You shrugged; your naked-self sprawled on our pillow. You curled yourself around me. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got your back,’ you said. When I found out I was pregnant, I pretended not to notice that you began staying up later than me, drinking Wild Turkey while watching YouTube videos. Emptying one bottle a week and then one bottle every three days. It wasn’t a total surprise. ‘MAGNIFICENT!’ I said, as they cracked when I threw them in the recycling. The deer never came up to me before the pregnancy. I’d seen them many times of course. That’s why I sprayed myself with DEET. You know. Ticks. But you didn’t pull out and now their white tails aren’t bouncing away; they stop and stare at me as if they have something to say. Why did you do this now? At this time in your life? Why did you get yourself knocked up? Who says knocked up anymore? The deer who likes to watch, maybe is the one in control, and says this to the other one. I’m kind of surprised how judgmental deer can be. Maybe they’ve been together a long time and now bring out the worst in each other. I suspect they know I’m no longer making healthy kale smoothies. Instead, I’m eating toast with butter. It’s the only thing I can keep down. (Well, the wine.) Gluten and dairy. Can’t be good, the deer says, but after he takes the carrot in his long teeth. I Imagine the fetus as big as a bean curled with unformed fists resting under his own cheek. I imagine the fetus has teeth and wiry dark hairs like the bucks. I know this is not feasible.
I started drinking again, not in a problematic way. A glass of chardonnay with dinner. Maybe a glass and a half. My mother’s mouth was smug when she said, ‘You are the only person I know who starts drinking in the first trimester. Don’t think I’ll help out as much with this one. I’m not as young as I used to be.’ I hadn’t smoked since my early twenties, but then and there I wanted an after-dinner cigarette. Maybe this was taking things too far.
My hikes began by walking up a hill. Some say the hill is too steep to start from. Take another path. My blood grew hot, and the volume felt like it swelled too big to be contained by my veins. Blood is blue until it hits air, then it is corpuscular red. Last time you were watching a YouTube video, you were straight-faced and whisky breathed when you told me not to hike in the woods alone anymore. You said you saw this video where a hunter got attacked by two deer. ‘HONESTLY!’ I said. I put a hand over my mouth. Another on my belly. I could barely stifle my giggle.
The next day, as I puffed up the hill, I could barely wait to tell the deer about how silly you are. Thinking they would harm me. Maybe if I doused myself in deer pee like the guy who made the video. I had to look it up and show you it was staged. Maybe you are losing it? I hear shots in the distance. One and then another. Hunters I suspect. Like the one who covered himself in deer pee so they would fight him. The leaves are falling at a fast rate. They are at the stage where they are bright yellows and reds, coating the ground. I see their hearty veins rise from soft matter. Weeks away from breaking down into brown organic ground cover. When the abdominal cramping begins, I know immediately what’s happening. I grab my belly. I say out loud ‘OH NO!’ I lose my footing on some rocks and catch myself with one arm. Standing back up, I want to peel down my pants right there and then and see for myself if there’s any blood. I don’t want there to be any blood. It is right then that I hear one of the deer snort. A warning. I turn myself and face the two of them. The shy one in the back. They both stare me down. There are no other sounds except for the wind. The one in front stamps his front hoof as if to tell me something important. As if to wake me from a dream. I want to tell you something important. I’m scared.
This story parallels the observance of deer with the anxious possibility of parenthood. This device is used to play with our perspective. The author is asking for close observance of nature but also the way our human nature is tested when a woman has to consider the way their life will change after the birth of a newborn. There are poetic lines that can be attributed to both the speaker and the observance of deer. Such as: “Some say the hill is too steep to start from.” These delicate insights are scattered across the text and help us understand the internal world of our protagonist while fully embedded in reality.
Nick Makoha
I love the way this story invokes magical realism to tell a nuanced tale about a woman coming to terms with a pregnancy. The more times I read it, the more the voice grew on me; through one short story, we shift through multiple moods and watch the character move into new territory, both physically and psychologically.
Ingrid Jendrzejewski
Anne Falkowski has had work published or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Pithead Chapel, The Coachella Review, Entropy, Change-Seven, Hunger Magazine, and Quarter After Eight. Her work has been a finalist in Best of the Net, Solstice Literary Magazine, and Writer’s Digest. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Demott Prize. She graduated from Boston GrubStreets 2023 Memoir Incubator and is seeking agent representation for her memoir Ordinary Body. She can found on @AnneFalkowski
Gambar oleh Rinnie Deer dari Pixabay
Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 