The Indicator x The Student: “Doe, a Deer”

Trigger Warning: Mention of sexual assault

When I am thinking of what to write, I pick at the skin on my lips. I hold the cracked bits between my nails, pinch, and pull transparent flecks of thoughts as a snake peels off its skin, exposing soft flesh underneath. This, too, is an act of translation. I wonder — if I picked, and picked, and picked, maybe I would have a story for you. Maybe I could trade my mouth for the fullness of the world.

Maybe this is what the world would say:

It is the warmest day of winter when I decide to walk. On the way down, I hear voices between my steps resounding on the stairs—

Why are you outside

—step—

I’m not, it’s the staircase of my dorm

—step—

If someone attacked you right now, no one would hear you scream

—step—

Mom, please

—step—

Why aren’t you in your room

—step—

My friends are in there and I don’t want to bother them

—step—

Do your doors lock behind you

—step—

No (and I did not say that I never lock my door)

—step—

When I was in college, our doors locked behind us

—step—

and one time I was with someone I thought was a friend

—step—

and he tried to take advantage of me

—step—

and I realized that if I screamed no one could come in and save me

—step—

Okay, I’m sorry

—step—

Don’t be angry

—step—

I’m not

—step—

You don’t understand

—step—

You’re just like a deer who can’t see the car in front of her

—step—

Silence as my feet give one final bite to the stairs.

It is the warmest day of winter and I want outside. I want the path to swallow me whole. I want the doe to taste the fender. I want.

Just off the path, the fields are as pale as my dried-up-dusted-off-old-bits-of-skin. The mud skulking below sups at my boots with every squelching step. Clouds crowd the air, as they are wont to do after a storm. The earth today is especially ugly, and I breathe it in. The word is not content, but free.

There are birds in the trees; I know this, but I cannot see them. There are only their endless calls, at once close and far, echoes echoing echoes, repeated in such rapid succession that the sound becomes a communal, unyielding scream. I, too, wish to hold open my jaw and empty myself to the muffled sky.

Beyond the birds are two overpasses standing like two shoulders hunched together — one across a river, the other across a road. I surprise myself by favoring the latter. I like how the cars sound like rushing water as they rip past, whistling with the wind, making the structure shake with every element that passes through its concave gut. I close my eyes and feel nothing but motion.

When the shaking stops, there is a figure approaching from where I came. As he advances I can make out a stocky frame, gray whiskers, something — it could be anything—gripped in his right hand. In him, I see the tall old man from the neighborhood I left for college, the tall old man who would pull his German Shepherd by the leash in the mornings. Once, while I was walking the half-mile to the bus stop, the man and his dog paused on the other side of the road, turned, and began to follow me. When I stopped at the bus stop he stopped too, bringing his dog to poke around an unfinished home next door. When the bus was in sight he and his dog left the house, passing behind me just as the bus pulled its brakes, my brightly-colored kid scissors damp in my grip. I remember how once, when my mom drove me to the bus stop, I saw the old man standing past our winding driveway, into our side yard, outside my shuttered window. I remember how my mom bought me a rape alarm, this little grenade-like machine that would pour out noise if pulled. I remember how I accidentally set it off once in school and never wore it again. I remember that it wouldn’t matter; no one would hear it scream above the water and the cars and the wind. I stand on the overpass as the man draws closer. If the soft animal of my body trembles, it is because of the stream of cars passing beneath my feet. I wonder — how does a deer decide when to run and when to stare, doe-eyed, at the light? The man walks by me in silence — the cars are gone. The shoulder of the overpass is steady. I stand still until he walks out of sight. The earth is especially ugly today. I breathe it in. The word isn’t content, but alive, but free.