It was a breezy morning; I was laying in the tall grass, waiting for my mother to wake up from her rest. The sparrows have just roused up from their nests. I look around as I take in nature and all that it is. Mother wakes up; she stretches out her legs and starts walking over. She bows to the large pool of blue water as she takes a drink. She looks over at me and sees me awake. She walked over and nudges me with her snout. I slowly get onto all fours, I start standing up, my legs are sore from laying so long. I look into her large brown eyes; I can almost see the love. I see myself for the first time in the reflection of her eyes. I suddenly think of myself as a full grown buck, soon to be in charge of a large herd. My mother and I left the herd when I was born. She wanted me to be safe so she brought to this hollow. I sit waiting for her signal to get out and graze in the prairie. I’m a peculiar deer. I have two little nubs on the top of my head; a thick coat with long hair; and a star-shaped spot on my neck. We get up and head out to this open prairie. It is fall the leaves are changing and the forest is busy with life. Critters building their nest for the winter and gathering food, I sit and wonder about the winter to come. I wonder if I will be warm and if I will have enough food. As I resume reality I notice my mother is already in the meadow. I scamper my way over there. We eat in peace for awhile as the sun shifts from the horizon to the middle of the sky. A few weeks pass as this became a new routine. My antlers are starting to grow I have four points and I’m as wide as my ears.
The first sign of winter has come with a light snow fall that covers the ground. We are in the field eating around dawn when my mother heard a noise flicked her ears, this sign told me to get low so I bedded down in the long field of alfalpha. I heard a yelp and my mother’s tail shot up. She bolted and I got up, I saw a figure approaching it was small and quick with large ears and a tail. It was a grey color and I decided to run. I started off towards the woods. As I’m running I lose sight of my mother in the underbrush. The smells of these animals fill my nose as I run down the hill and cross the creek. I don’t slow my pace until I reach the top of the hillside. I no longer smell the dog creatures. I think to myself where is my mother? I start heading in the direction she went, walking as silent as a spirit. I stop and listen every few steps waiting for the yelps and the barks. I hear nothing; I catch a faint smell of a deer. My heart starts to race, but I keep my cool. I stalk my way through the woods as the smell grows stronger.
I reach a clearing as I see a large doe standing in the middle of a field panting. Her tongue was out and she was tired. I watched her carefully; I noticed something uneasy about her. I look at her and thought she was hurt. I took a step into the field. I saw a flash in the trees, I knew that flash it’s a sign of a hunter I got behind a tree. I hear a large boom, the trees shuttered with a magnifying sound. I look and there’s my mother……. She was lying on the ground not moving. I knew what had happened I just didn’t want to believe it. I looked around for a hunter, I saw nothing. I watched as my mother’s lifeless body lay absolutely still in the field, I waited till night had fallen. I approached her slowly with my eyes shifting around, scanning waiting for the slightest movement.
I reach her body, a hunter shot her for fun, not for her body. I nudged her with my nose, I knew what had happened, but I had to make sure. I layed there watching her body as morning drew closer I knew that I shouldn’t stay long but I couldn’t bring myself to go. I finally got up and tried to gatherer my thoughts and started towards the sun. This being my last look at my mother, I knew I would not get to come back and see her I started walking and I didn’t look back. Three years later I’m looking down into a large pool of blue water. I see a large buck with a big rack. Next to him stands a doe. She watches as he stares into the water. He looks up a tree where he remembered his mother laying the night before she died. He studies the terrain as he walks around taking in the forest. It is now fall; he realizes how much of the forest is the same. He walks around remembering that time when he was a little buck with his mother alone in the world. He thinks back to the night he saw his mother die in the field; he visioned her drop in the field. I look up and see a flash in the woods, there was a boom and everything was dark.