Mason
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Not at it, just to get it to move on.
The deer didn't flinch.
It watched the pebble land, and then it watched Caleb again.
Then it turned its head farther than it should have been able to without moving its shoulders, and it stepped back into the trees so cleanly it looked like it had been erased.
That night I didn't sleep well, and at first I blamed the usual things.
The ground.
The unfamiliar noises.
The brain that stays alert in a new place even when you're tired.
But there was a pattern to the sounds that I couldn't make fit into forest.
It was the spacing.
Crunch.
Pause.
Crunch.
Pause.
Always at the far edge of our firelight.
Never close enough for me to kick the tent wall and scare it off.
Never far enough to drift into the background.
Caleb heard it too.
I could tell from the way he stopped breathing when it happened.
We lay there listening, pretending we weren't listening, waiting for it to either approach or leave.