BROKEN HART
He was bouncing around on his spindly legs in short stints of youthful glee feeling safe in the nearness to Mother. In short attention spans he took interest in the tiny many colored fluttering beings as they also flitted from one bright fragrant blossom to the next without any seeming direction or pattern. He turned his gaze to see Mother still munching on those tender green shoots sprouting all over the thick bushes in front of her. He did not understand her long rapt attention to these as she was still his only source of food and nourishment. But the light was bright and warm from up above with a gentle breeze keeping him pleasantly comfortable without those stinging little black nuisances when there was no breeze making the day so much warmer.
It was just then that he heard the sharp clap, kind of like the ones from above before water fell all over everything making him wet, but that was usually when the above was darker blocking out the light. But this clap was different and unknown making him scared. So he turned again to where mother was, but mother wasn’t standing anymore, she was lying in the grass on her side. Not on her belly like they did when it was time to rest and this scared him even more.
As quickly as he could he ran on shaky legs to Mother and nudged her belly, but Mother did not move, she made no sound. So he nudged her again, and then again. That was when he felt the warm sticky smelly water running over mother’s belly and leaking onto the grass below her. He moved around to her face and nudged her snout with is head, most times she would lick him with her tongue when he did this. But not this time, this time Mother did not move or make a sound at all. All he could do was turn his head to the above and bawl, just as loud as he could. Maybe Father would hear him, and come, and wake Mother up. He was scared and didn’t know what else to do. He had not seen Father during this light, sometimes he did not see Father for more than one light. It was always Mother who was there and now Mother would not wake up, would not make a sound and the bad smelling water kept leaking all over her and onto the ground.
It was just then that he heard another strange sound, the sound of something cracking twigs and smashing dead leaves as it came closer to where they were. It wasn’t the silence of the sharp teeth when they were near, this did not care if it was heard or not and it had a funny unknown smell to it carried on the breeze. More fear leapt all through him, all he could do was flee in the opposite direction from the sounds. Quickly unsure legs carried him into one of the prickly stinging thickets with the dark green leaves and the red berries that Mother never ate and he fell to his belly there, looking back now to where Mother lay on her side a distance away, looking smaller than before when he was close.
In what seemed like forever, finally a strange creature he had never seen came crashing out of the trees and stopped where Mother lay. It had strange fur, not all the same color and baggy like it swung loose around it and not all sinewy together. It walked on just two legs, it had four but the others hung in the air, one even carried a strange stick with shiny stuff on it, shiny like the shimmering of the light above on still water where they drank when Mother was thirsty. Now he noticed that there was no sound here now either. He could still here the breeze through the trees, and the fluttering things still flitted from blossom to blossom, but there was no singing of the feathered creatures who flew on the above, not one sound of even one. It was quiet and this quiet was full of danger.
Then he saw the creature put the strange stick against the broad trunk of a tree and bend over Mother on its bent legs. He could not tell what the creature was doing but after a long time the creature lifted Mother up onto its body and stood up again on its two legs. Then with one of the two hanging legs it picked up the strange stick and started walking back into the woods from where it had come earlier. He waited a long time to be sure the creature was not coming back before he went to see where Mother had been laying, but now the grass was soaked with the smelly water and there was squishy bulbs and big wormlike things laying in a pile in the middle of the soaked grass. Bad smelling things that had a different but still faint odor of mother, but now the biting black flies were buzzing all over them all and he felt sick, sick enough that hunger was extinguished from his senses. But a new pain filled him a pain that only Mother could stop.
He noticed that the light was leaving again, but it was not the dark of resting time because he began to hear the more familiar claps from above that meant the water was going to start falling from the above again and get everything in the world wet and soaking and cold. So he ran back to the thicket that had protected him earlier and laid down on his belly. Soon the falling water came, it fell for what seemed like forever and so long the light did not come back when it stopped. Now he was very hungry and Mother was not there so he could nuzzle her belly, find the soft teat there and feed of her warm tasty milk. So he bawled again, a long mournful, sorrowful sound full of fear, sadness and want. One of the little red berries caught his and he remembered Mother chewing on leaves he strained his head up, took the berry between his teeth and pulled it off. He tried to chew the tiny morsel, but when its juices splattered on his tongue the taste was awful and he coughed and gagged trying to force the taste out of his mouth. But in the process most of the offending juice slid down his throat which only made him cough harder. So he bawled again and laid his head down, he needed to rest. He was tired, hungry and Mother was not there to make him feel better and let him nurse.
His sleep was interrupted in the blackness of the night and he was gripped with fear, first because he heard the low guttural growls of sharp teeth, close, so very close. But he could not focus on anything, his throat hurt and his belly felt hot, like the middle of a breezeless day without the cooling shade of the forest. He strained to focus on the menacing sounds but there was too many and they seemed to come from everywhere around him.
Just for a second clarity, huge gleaming white fangs dripping with mouth juices and then the white hot pain at his throat and howling sounds engulfing him with searing pains at his belly and legs, just as all around him went dark, darker than he had ever known until there was nothing.
Just as dawn was breaking over the ridgeline in the east, the giant hart walked slowly into the clearing. His instinct had told him the doe would be here, here where the leaves she so enjoyed sprouted on some of the bushes in this clearing. But he saw no doe, nor did he see the doe’s calf.
As he neared the tangle of bushes he caught a faint sense of her, not completely washed out by the rains of the night. Nor were the remains on the ground free off their stench or the maggots and buzzing flies, here was her faint scent. But this was not a kill site of the sharp teeth, there were no bones broken and smashed about, no remnants of hide scattered and flung around. There was no scent of sharp teeth either. But there was a more dangerous scent, faint as it was after the rains, the lingering smell of the beast, the one who kills from afar, the one of loud noises, the one you must flee at all costs. But its smell was faint too, as faint as the does.
He could just barely scent the calf and as he followed his scent to where it became stronger, now he scented the sharp teeth, many sharp teeth and stronger, from after the nights rains. The smell was stronger as he got close to the thicket. In the midst of the bushes, here was a sharp tooth kill site, here were the remains of the calf. Broken and ripped, gutted from the gluttony of the baying sharp teeth. He was too late, they were no more. If he had been with them he could have defended them, as he fought sharp teeth before, his massive antlers stained with sharp tooth blood and his hooves covered in their blood and fur where he reared and stomped them. He still had the scars of that fight, luckily it had only been two. One left lifeless on the ground and the other fleeing dripping its own blood as it ran away. But that day his doe was safe.
Not so today, he was too late. He turned and started walking out of this clearing of death. Walking to anywhere but here, he would go to the crisp, fast running stream and slake his thirst. That he could do, he would miss the doe. If she had sensed the beast, she could have fled. But now there was no doe
