Encounter

It's only two hours into my overnight shift. I spent the first surfing the internet and checking on the kids. I knock on their doors gently to accounce my presence and slowly open the creaking old doors with my key that's tethered to my belt loop and peer in to see if they're sleeping. It's aboslutely silent here, except for the clock which ticks loudly. The ouside world is frozen with cold and sleep, an icy sheet on every surface. I went to the fire escape for a cigarette, standing on the 2nd floor platform with a keen ear for moving children. The house is in the woods across from a river, nestled in a mountain valley. This is the area that Washington Irving wrote about, with Rip Van Winkle's sleepy town. On the fire escape, I heard a rustling in the woods, the soft, slow crunching of snow. The full moon aided in my sight, making everything a silvery blue color like looking at a monochramatic painting. I follwed the shadow making the noise and quietly dragged from my cigarette without moving more than my hand to and from my lips. It hadn't seen me yet, and carefully walked closer to the house. Its hunched shadow looked like a wolf from the distance, creeping like a hunter through the dark. There are no wolves this far south, I thought maybe a coyote hunting deer. It stood further upright, arching its neck and the moonlight made it out to be a deer. Slowly, the doe crept closer and closer until I could make out all its parts. It stood on the dead, frosted grass of the backyard twitching its ears in an oscilating motion. I made a gentle exhaling sound that caused it to look up at me. It made no alteration in its movement, and only came closer, writing me off as harmless as a sparrow. I stood watching it, long afer my cigarette was finished. Two others came out, one behind the first, and another from the other side of the wood. They ran when I opened the door to go back outside. In this beautiful moment, where deer were only fifteen feet from me I could only imagine hungry coyotes finding their next meal before me. The deer are alive in reality, but my imagination has made them a midnight snack. If the human imagination controlled reality, the world would be sinking ships and car wrecks.