My Hart

My Hart

            The darkness hides amongst the reeds, waiting to escape and take over the fertile land with waters running through, feeding the parched mouth that opens to receive its drink. The darkness murmurs silent behind the line of trees to enter the dim woods, waiting for its chance to strike quick and deadly. The wind feeds the woods with life as rays of sun, beam down and lay gently on the fern. The winds blow the seed to and fro and permit the garden to teem with joy at the spreading of the kingdom. The darkness creeps and crawls, slithers and sleeks, waiting, ever waiting, and ever watching.   

            Johnny the buck is a young hart of only two and a half years and would by any hunter be labeled as having too few tines to shoot, sporting only the hat of a spike. Johnny gallops through the woods, running up and over steep hills, gazing outwards over creation, standing strongly on the peak of Pride Hill. Johnny the hart runs alone, enjoying the stillness and peacefulness of the woods, breathing in the morning air with the feeling of dew melting off the clover, nibbling in the field a morning snack before embarking on his mission to meet the call he hears from Lonely Valley. With a leap and a stomp, his hooves leave tracks as he follows a path down Pride Hill then all of the sudden he stops. His ears rise with his white puffy tail and then he sees it, the darkness.

            “What could this be in the light of morn?” wonders Johnny as he stands pin-drop still, waiting again for the darkness to move. It doesn’t, rather it lays slothfully in a patch of the valley, just as still as Johnny stands. Johnny hears only his heart beating in his woolen chest and the sound of his breath rising in vapor from his black nostrils. His winter coat has grown warm and his antlers are covered with velvet, awaiting the release that comes in spring to be scratched off on a scaly oak. Johnny waits, still as can be, for hours on end until the sun rises high in the sky, yet the darkness does not move, the game of patience persists.

            “Does it see me?” wonders Johnny (as any proper hart asks when spotting danger). “Perhaps if I stand her long enough and remain still it will not be able to find me out!” Then, all of the sudden, as if the earth under him began to move, he found himself covered in the darkness. Johnny panicked and tried to run, but anywhere he went the darkness remained around him. Johnny moaned his throaty bellow for help, but heard no answer. He was trapped, completely surrounded in murky pitch-black air. Johnny had nowhere to run and heard no call of help, so he decided to lay down amongst the old fallen leaves and be still. There he lay all alone, unable to escape the surrounding darkness that mysteriously appeared in the midst day. All alone Johnny began to cry... with big deer tears running down over his snout and onto the cold leaves below. “I’m all by myself,” said Johnny, “And no one has responded to my call. Perhaps they left me long ago. It’s been a while since I called to them.” Bucks always run alone.

To be continued...