I was thankful at dinner last weekend, feasting on spiced turkey and cranberry-stuffed squash, when this shy couple beside me (a business dude and his fuzzy-haired professor wife) drop a story on the table that rocks my world and makes me question my relationship to all living things. I wonder what you think.
It hit Fred and Sonya that they had too much (work, anxiety, angry teens) and not enough (happiness, sleep), so they stock up on comfort food and bust out of the city- to a ginger-bread rental in the woods. On the freeway to inner-peace, their hopes and dreams for the weekend are struck dumb by shrieking tires and a loud THUD. Fred yells, STOP THE CAR. Sonya floors the brakes. A massive beast falls to the asphalt in slow motion. The car in front of them smashed into a deer. The car that hit her does not stop. Dark clouds form in the night sky.
Is it a dream? Sonya can’t believe her eyes. Fred gets out of the car and loosens his tie. When he sees the deer up close, his ear, nose and throat twitch. Road-kill. Untried muscles and curly chest hair burst out of his straining shirt; his back goes up; his mind floods: my childhood… my children… my beautiful wife. Fred gnashes his implants into his suddenly square jaw, and his orderly brain turns to… steak. He he-mans the carcass over his shoulders like his father would, ambles back to the car and hoists the dead meat into the trunk. Sonya stares up at the sky. Thunder rumbles. Lightening cries.
In the shadows of the gingerbread-house in the woods, Fred heaves the hairy remains of the deer out of the car, drapes the hulking beef across his abruptly ripped shoulders, and pleads with his wife to get the camera. Sonya shakes her head, unable to form words. It starts to rain. She takes an umbrella from the back seat.
The rain pours down. Fred ties the deer’s hind legs and hangs her upside-down from a tree. He skins her body, slashes her throat and bleeds her dry. Sonya holds the umbrella to protect her husband, her children’s father from the rain. He chops off the deer’s head and proceeds to saw her body into steaks. Blood spurts and sprays everywhere. They are soaked in red. Fred is happy as he works. Onions, mushrooms and garlic fry in his head.
Click here for Part Two, Flesh and Blood…
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