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Lightning and Deer

 Wake up. It’s dark. So dark. 


Is it always this black in the bedroom? I thought I left the bathroom light on, but I can’t see anything, just the outlines in the room. Allie asleep next to me, like a rock, always asleep when I wake up, never stirs. I left the bathroom light on, I know I did, didn’t I? Why isn’t it on? 


Can hear the rain outside. Thunder. Allie was so excited for it, she loves the rain. Trying to calm down. Swallow like I’ve got something in my throat but it won’t go down just right, like I’m barely above water and my body knows, just a fraction above drowning. It’s so hot. I’m burning up, I’m blazing, so soaked through I think there’s a leak or I pissed myself, something. Just dark. Sweating. I know I left the bathroom light on. I know I did. 


Try to talk to Allie, nothing comes out. Nothing, no words. Allie, baby, help me, wake up. Please. Wake up, Allie, wake up. You never wake up when it happens, please just this once, wake up. Can’t reach for her. Can’t reach the light. Can’t reach the gun. Everything is frozen, everything is syrup and ice and it’s like I’m locked up, I’m held down. Stuck. I’m stuck. 


Lightning outside but it stays, just bright as daylight. Lightning for a second, a minute, two minutes. Allie can’t see it, won’t see it. She never remembers. 


I’m out in the rain and it’s so cold, I can see my breath. No shoes, no coat, just pajamas and the rain under the branches. Allie is going to be so upset when I get back into bed, soaked and muddy over everything but I know I won’t bring anything back with me. Someone is telling me I won’t be messy, that I won’t cause any problems. I can hear them. They don’t make any steam in the air when they talk. I don’t like them, I’m frustrated with them but it’s like being mad at a kid, they just, they don’t understand and they can’t. We keep walking. There are other people there, twos and threes, like the other person. They don’t talk but they feel very lost, they are afraid. Are they afraid of me? Why are they afraid?


I try to reach down to the person walking next to me, I have to almost get down on my knees because he’s so short. His skin is like clay. Weird. Cold. Slick under the rain. I almost want to hug him even though I’m so afraid, so angry and sad and confused, even though I hate him so much. But I know he is afraid of me. They all are. His eyes are black like a button, like a toy bear. Black and lifeless and very sad. I can’t hug him but I squeeze his hand and then we get back up and walk because now the others are talking, saying we have to hurry, please hurry and I know when they’re saying those things that they mean them. I slip. He doesn’t. 


We get to the lightning light. But it isn’t lightning. It is lightning. My mind wants me to see both things and it overlaps. Lightning in a cloud, something else. Lightning in a cloud, something else. Just like it wants me to see him as a deer but I know he isn’t a deer. Deer, not deer. Deer, not deer. It’s so bright. It’s so cold. They are all here now, all the people, all the deer. It’s making such a beautiful noise, it makes me weep and scream like I’m a baby again being taken from his mother, listening to so many angels sing. I wish Allie were here, I ask them why can’t I bring her and they say that she’s not who they want, that I’m special. I laugh and I cry and I know they are lying. They tell everyone that. We are all sad in the lightning light. The deer and me.

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