I pull myself up from my bed in caution, I was late, I had overslept like an inattentive deer. I must make haste quietly, the trees are filled with alarm as they usher me to use them as cover as I climb into the water. I stand up trying to make myself not seen, long ago the trees made this point to me. You mustn't let them see you. They chimed, though they did not let me know as to why I listened, curiosity would be the death of a lesser being, not I. That would not be my story. I stepped through the snow as it covered my hooves, I stepped off my little island out from under the willow as a breeze ripped through the land, Man’s scent rippled through the air, finally the deer would awake. I would hear the starting of their hearts as the older few warned the others of Man's presence. I stepped off the island into the underbrush not daring to make a sound, the only sound to be heard was the slow and silent dip as my first hoove dove into the water, freezing all around my body. I was not made for this, not made to hide in the liquid, the water was for drinking.
The Man claimed the water was dirty, but they made it that way. They claim the trees and wildlife made the water dirty, they made it brown and cold, undrinkable, but they did. The Man came and poisoned the water, like they did everything else. Their simple presence was anything but simple, they took away the sky, they took away the life, they took away the magic of the world. I to this day wonder what was beyond the fields, I glanced out not many months ago onto the field, in cover of the trees, in the distance I could hear rolling and screeching of something large and deadly. It scared me. I was rarely scared anymore, Man had scared me once before the day they broke into the world taking the lives of those first fallen deer, but never again. I would not let them hold fear over me. I was not scared of the fleshly beings, I was displeased and angry with them, anger was something rare for my kind I was told. The fact I was able to hold it in my heart was a mere miracle. It did not feel like a miracle, it felt like a boulder which I carried everywhere, it felt like an unshakable cold. The world carried anger, the world had an unshakable cold, the earth used to speak to all living things. But Man killed her too. Maybe she was alive somewhere deep underneath the surface, sometimes I would hear a mighty breath, a feeble attempt to get Man out and off of her, he did not belong.
