A Female Deer.....

This evening, I was leaving my job at the theater and walking down the path along Sheridan to middle campus when something took me by surprise. I was mostly focused on how filthy my hands were and how repulsed I was at grit that I could feel on my teeth. I had been cleaning in the props basement for two hours, and had my mind set on a shower when I happened to glance to my left, at the path to Rosemary House.

I was embarrassed at how loudly I gasped.

Barely four feet from me was the boxy black nose of a doe. She looked at me curiously with wet eyes, her long, slender neck extended to sniff the air. I had seen deer before, but she seemed strangely unafraid of me. I was surprised to see how mangy and shabby her fur was. She looked slightly battered. She was actually rather intimidating up close, and I somehow felt that she would tower over me, should she come any closer. Peering out from between her legs was a spotted fawn. It stood bow-legged and, unlike its mother, had a fur coat with a beautiful sheen.

I remembered the camera I had in my bag, from taking inventory of all the props in the theater. I went to take it out, but my bag had a velcro closure, and the ripping sound proved to be too much noise for the pair. They took a few elegant, loping strides into the bushes. I realized I had made kind of a scene, between gasping loudly and stopping suddenly, and some of the other students on the path were looking at me strangely.

I watched from the crosswalk as cars stopped for the pair to gallop frantically across the road and vanish into a fenced yard.