I was recently drinking a beer and driving south on 69 at about 60 miles an hour,
lost as I so often am in bipolar thoughts of how my entire life has always for some reason seemed to be a case of either screaming reckless exhilaration or devastating emptiness,
and locked in the attempt to remember what it felt like to get struck by inspiration and saved at the last minute from yet another episode of days spent high above treeline trying to taunt some lightning out of god and nights whiled away with too much whiskey and a pistol with a predilection for pointing itself in the wrong direction,
when suddenly up from the dusk at my nine o’clock came a deer I’d never met before but had the pleasure of getting to know for a few milliseconds till she killed herself right in front of me on the hood of my car.
Blindsided as much by the violence as by the surprise,
I barely stayed the highway as her body buried itself in the rearview and my mind redlined to wrap itself around a bevy of fresh conditions to process including but not limited to
blood and shit spattered across the windshield,
a temp gauge gone mental,
the mystery of the missing side mirror,
the flashing of wildly unfamiliar dash lights,
about half a can's worth of beer everywhere except for in the can,
and this present darkness now unpenetrated by headlamps.
A mad mile drags by till I can find a safe place to pull off. I get out to investigate. It’s a lot worse than I thought. My car is fucked and no cell reception way out in these parts. I bet I can count the number of people who’ll drive by between now and sunrise on one hand.
So at this point it seems to me as if there's only one sensible option. Only one card left to play, if you will.
Or I guess you could technically call it eleven cards, depending on how you want to look at the situation.
I pull the 12-pack out of the backseat and check the remaining cans for damage. 11/11 beers, would highly recommend. I plop the box down on the ground next to a slowly growing puddle of what I suppose is probably coolant and get right to it. This is my first deer so you'll have to forgive me if I'm doing something wrong here. Hell if I know what the rules are for this sort of situation. But what I do know is I sure didn't move to a Dark Sky Community to sit around inside every night staring at a screen. The stars out here are incredible.
Where was she from?
Where was she headed when fate decided that our paths should cross?
Did she have a family? A significant other perhaps?
What were her hopes and her dreams?
Hell, I didn't even have time to get her name. But I tell you what she was a good deer. A damn fine good deer that's for sure. And she's at peace now. We have to remember that and focus on that above all. No matter that she was taken from us far too young—at least she's at peace.
I'll miss you my dear but I'll never forget you. Godspeed in your journey through whatever's next. Maybe sometime between now and whenever I black out alone on a dirt road in the dark beside a bleeding car, inspiration will strike.
Sounds daemonic, I counted 3 sixes in that line.
Another six, albeit inverted. So many daemonic signals early on in this story from hell. Is there anything left to your car after the deer suicided itself on it?
Think of the food you could make. Teeth for when you need to make yourself a set of false teeth. A pelt for cold winter nights. Hooves for when you want to practice devil dancing. What more could you ask of a dear deer like her?
p.s. I feel like I’m falling off the mountain in each of those photos except the last two where I found some solid eyeholds.
Me and the devil are so close that sometimes he just manifests in my writing without me even really being aware of it 👺
Somehow, my car is still driveable. Maybe it's fueled by supernatural devil power now.
Next time you feel like you're falling off a photo of a mountain, just turn your computer screen sideways until you find a level eyehold.
Is that a good thing?
I can't believe your car is still functioning and drivable. Must be the devil power. I bet your car is possessed by a daemon.
I'd have to flip the entire desk due to my set up. I lack the manpower for that maneouver.
Yes.
^ the devil made me say that
That's it! Thee shall be turned into stone before the next dark moon.
Don't take this the wrong way, but.... I found this piece extremely captivating and very moving. Not moving like bowels or anything, don't worry. It wasn't one of those so good it made me shit my pants blogs. You already have enough mess to clean up.
But did this really happen? Is Yolo ok??
First James, then the deer. I don't envy you much right now save for the star canopy you're probably ogling now that you've run out of tokens for the beer vending machine.
Yes, I really did hit a deer. Yolo is severely injured but still somehow limping along. The amount of abuse that car can take is incredible, but it's time for me to start looking for a new set of wheels because if I don't I'll probably be talking to a tow truck driver sooner than later. The first half of 2023 has been nothing but trouble for me. James and the deer are only half of it. I don't think I've ever had to take so many sucker punches from life in such a short amount of time. But hey, at least I have beautiful mountains and stars and a beer vending machine.
The only tow-truck talking experience I ever had was when I was 24 years old. It took less than three minutes for the driver to show me his Jesus. I was stuck in that cab for fifteen minutes listening to him try to bring me to the light.
Sorry to hear about the sucker punches. The term "sucker punch" always makes me think of someone dissolving a bunch of lollipops into a big party punch bowl. We can spike it with rum if you want.
If Yolo dies maybe you should have him cremated. In the desert.
Jesus people can be really annoying. It's infuriating to me how they think they're somehow helping when they come at me with their heaven and hell bullshit. But that's the nature of brainwashing I guess.
I've put serious thought into scraping Yolo's VIN, pulling the plates, and setting him on fire way out in the woods somewhere. The desert is probably a better idea though because there'd be less risk of burning down a national forest. I know some incredibly remote and desolate spots in Utah. Maybe I will mix up a big bucket of spiked sucker punch for the occasion.
And then bike home.
Nah, I'll just walk. Utah isn't that far away from Colorado.
You'll probably be running, though, once @otherbrandt finds out that you littered with his own car.
Good thing you came to your senses. Can you still smell it? I can still smell the time I had a similar bevy of fresh conditions.
I'm blacked out alone on a dirt road in the dark beside a bleeding car right now, but I'll let you know exactly what I can and cannot smell if/when I wake up.
You're sick.
Haven't seen you around these parts for a while. Welcome back.
Potentially silly question, what is this?
Thanks :)
That thing you're asking about is called a summit register. They usually contain a roll of paper and a couple pencils so you can record your name and the date you summited if you so desire. I don't know if this is a common practice in other parts of the world, but it's pretty normal to find these on high summits in the US. I've found records from people going back as far as the early '80s. It's really quite interesting.
Incidentally, this register is one of the sturdiest ones I've ever seen. It's made of heavy duty PVC pipe with threaded caps… you could probably drop one of those boulders on it and it would be fine. Plus it's actually anchored to the rockpile with stainless steel cord to keep the wind from blowing it off the mountain. A lot of summit registers are just little glass jars crammed into crevices between rocks :)
Cheers. So it is a bit like geocaching for mountaineers :)
It is pretty cool that these even exist. I thought by now it would all be on an app.
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