A. Frond Minks stares out her back porch window wondering where all the deer were this past winter. There was a time when they could be seen 8 at a time, appearing and disappearing amidst the snow and same-color trees and bushes.
This year showed just one – a beautiful buck who stared at her for as long as she stood still and quiet. Certainly if he was there, others were as well, but she never saw them.
In a flash she is back on that night; the last night before leaving a once-part-time-home for the very last time. The early dusk that hung faintly in the sky. The quietness that hung heavy in the air. The deer in the backyard that seemed to come out of nowhere. The young buck that paused, just below the balcony, the gaze of his huge, limpid eyes fixed eerily upon her.
Freezing her.
There was something about him. About his presence on that particular night…
She sighs, back on her porch, time and distance away from that night, she has only one thought: yearning for a small parcel of zen she is surrounded by chaos.
A. Frond Minks stands on her porch, all the empty caverns of her mind filled with swirling chaos.
And she knows why the deer do not come.