Can't sleep.
Almost midnight finds me here in the Chair, blanket draped from chin to floor.
The house is dark and quiet. Well, not really dark. The window blinds are all up. The living room is a little surreal, glowing faintly from the streetlight up high reflecting off the snow down low.
I actually kinda like this time. Thinking about anything and nothing, all at once. No Elixir though . . . that's probably for the best.
I start to stretch, then stop.
A dark shape glides by the window, walking in the street. It's a deer. A big doe. Its silhouette is framed by the snow in Millie's yard. There's even enough light for a bit of a sparkle from its eye. It stops momentarily at the corner, then continues across the street to Adams Cabins and the woods beyond.
After it come seven more deer of various heights and weights, all bald-headed, (does and yearlings, I think), and all stopping briefly at the intersection before gliding silently by.
I almost laugh. On the corner is a big red and white Yield sign.
It's like they can read.
Too bad it isn't a Stop sign. There would've been venison gridlock.
(Our corner doesn't have enough traffic for a Stop sign.
No sense inconveniencing anybody.
Just slow 'em down enough so they don't hit a kid or a car . . . or a deer.
But it might have been a budgetary situation.
Maybe we were outta Stop signs.
"Here, Harv. Use one of these instead. Gotta a bunch of 'em."
Waste not, want not.)
Suddenly the irony of my situation hits my sleepy brain.
Here it is, almost midnight, and from the comfort of the Chair I watch a HERD of deer pass by. Eight, count 'em - "8".
Rock, my neighbor, and his brother hunted every day of the Gun Deer Season. It ended Sunday, two days ago. They saw nada.
Zippo.
Zero deer.
Wow.
A fragment of a poem crawls out of a memory from college.
It's from "Caught in the Quiet" by Rod McKuen. (Funny what you remember, eh?)
"I'd rather lie down with sleeping bears than track the does by moonlight."
I like both parts of that line. The deer part . . . and the sleeping part.
G'night.