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Driving down a gravel road again.
I hate driving down gravel roads. Especially this one.
You couldn't even see it anymore. It was like it never happened. You would need to look very closely, but I knew. I would know it by the texture of dirt beneath my hands.
Right there... a small patch of grass. Slightly, just slightly, greener than its surroundings...
My father had driven the car. It was a sleek gray car, one of his favorites. Was Mom in the passenger seat? I close my eyes, dredging the dreary scene from the depths of my memory once again.
Rocks pattering against the metal hull of the car as the gravel road stretched ahead. Father's white-knuckled fists on the steering wheel, a black hazy mist shielding the passenger's seat from my view.
Why can't I remember?
Nevermind. It's not important.
I imagine Mom's form in the seat, and my memory warps, accommodating the shape.
Wait, I remember now! Yes, Mom was there. I'm certain. Right, because she and Father were arguing. They'd always argue over the silliest things!
That must've been what distracted my father from the road. He was arguing. I couldn't hear what they were fighting about, though. The gravel hissed and thunked and thudded over even the loudest of sounds.
But the gravel wasn't loud enough to drown out my father's screams. No, not loud enough to smother the horrific sensations. And it was certainly not loud enough to counter the bone-crunching thud that wormed its way into my fragile head.
The car jolted to a stop... almost as if hitting an invisible wall. A small spray of blood hit the windshield, and the impact set the wipers smearing blood across the window. Over. And over. And over and over again.
Time froze. My parents sat in their seats, utterly unmoving. The sleek gray car's hazards flashed and clicked an unwavering beat. The insufficiently moisturized wipers squealed weakly across the brilliant red windshield.
I did not see what we hit. My parents sat in their seats, unmoving, seemingly frozen in place.
Out. I needed to get out.
I fumbled stupidly to rip off my seatbelt. Off. Off. Off... off, off, off! I threw open the door, drinking in the sight.
I almost didn't see it. The night spilled before me, only interrupted by occasional flash of amber hazard lights spewing from a broken headlight. The normal headlights must've broken in the crash or something. I didn't understand how cars worked back then, and it was not important to me at the time. Not important, for a beautiful brown deer laid scrambling in a ditch.
So feeble and weak...
It tried to run from me as I crept to its side. I held my hands low and in eyesight of the deer, trying to be as unthreatening as possible.
Look. I am not your enemy.
The deer couldn't run. But, even as I crouched and sat nearby, it never gave up.
I moved closer.
I moved closer still.
The deer fought to move with its broken body. I couldn't see where the blood was coming from, but I felt the warm liquid spread across my hands as I took the flailing deer's head into my lap. The wet warmth flowed and seeped into my clothing, and if it weren't for the dying animal thrashing from my firm grip, it could've been comforting.
I held the deer back until the struggles slowly ceased their ebbing from the pretty deer's body. Not from resignation, but simply a lack of energy to continue the fight against an inevitable death. When I could finally allow my hands freedom, I stroked the soft fur of the pretty brown deer.
Sharp, brown eyes stared back at me with an intelligence I'd never seen before in an animal. Even as the wet, labored death rattles slowed and the deer's painful heaving calmed, I stroked its unearthly soft fur until I felt an unnatural stillness that signaled death had arrived for the beautiful tawny deer.
"Girl, you get back in the car!" my father shouted over the silence. His voice wavered. I knew he was not as angry or strong as he seemed.
Carefully, I stood, gently relocating the deer's head onto the soft grass.
Father's figure was illuminated by the occasional flashing of the hazard lights as he moved toward the deer. He leaned close to the deer, maybe to mutter an apology...
"Stupid fucking deer," he swore, kicking the lifeless creature.
"Come on. Let's go."
I smoothed the top of the beautiful tawny deer's head once more in a silent farewell before I reclaimed the car's backseat.
Father drove away in near-silence, leaving the deer's corpse to rot in a ditch on side of the lonely gravel road.