I was out walking one night last week, and I passed a yard and happened to glance over at it. In the shadows beyond the glow of the streetlight I saw three male deer lying in a perfect triangular pattern on the grass as if posed. I took these pictures. I used a long exposure, but in real life they were more difficult to see. I stood there on the street and watched them and they silently watched me too. By my reckoning I stood there for five solid minutes and none of us made any movement.
Truth is, I was a little stoned. So after I got down the street a bit, and being prone to such paranoia, I wondered if I had hallucinated them, and considered also that maybe they had been plastic lawn decorations. I could have sworn I saw them slightly turn their heads as I moved on, but then I couldn’t be sure. I figured I’d take the same path home and see if they were still there by the time I got back.
I returned about two hours later, and sure enough they were gone. For a lonely moment I had a delusion that maybe I really had imagined them, but then I remembered that I had photographic evidence to the contrary, and supposed that maybe I wasn’t crazy after all.
Well: I felt as though I had gazed into a secret world. Sometimes you get lucky and just so happen to bear witness to such a thing. It is not something you can ever anticipate happening, and when it does happen you get a surreal and dreamlike sort of feeling. They were no threat to me, and they knew I was no threat to them. We were just four dudes hanging out at night. It was cool little pocket of time. I’m glad I got to experience it with them.
