deer05

    The deer awoke with a soft thud. He opened his eyes and looked around...Darkness. Wait a minute. He hasn't opened his eyes yet. There we go. It looked like he was in some sort of jail cell. It was made out of stone on three sides and wooden bars on the fourth. There was hay matting the ground, and a couple of bales scattered in his cell. There were a few pebbles in a pile, and a piece of string caught in the wood. The deer took the string and the pebbles; no telling how ong he'd be in here or how scarce materials would be. He decided to keep any and all unusual items, to start stocking for a future break-out...
     How was he going to break out? He studied the room. The wooden "gate" seemed to have a small removable piece, presumably for feeding, the deer thought. He filed that into his memory for later use. Let's see now. In the back-left corner, there was a small puddle of water. He looked up. There was a small drip coming from the ceiling. "Odd", thought the deer. "I wonder what that means". He continued his survey. In the back-right corner, there was a large male deer with a white--What the....!! The deer yelled. He rubbed his eyes. There really was a large male deer in the cell with him. A deer with a long white stripe on his nose was standing in the corner staring at our pondering deer.
     "I'm sorry, I didn't see you!", said the pondering deer (In deerspeak, of course).
     "Oh", said the corner deer.
     "Uh....What's your name?"
     "Harvey."
     "Pleased to meet you Harvey. My name is The Pondering Deer."
     No response.
     "Uh.....How long have you been here?"
     "I don't know."
     "A long time?"
     "I don't know."
     "Can you make some kind of estimate?"
     "I'm hungry."
This went on for a little while longer. After a bit, the pondering deer came to a conclusion: "You are genuinely stupid.", said the pondering deer. Not that he didn't expect it, but he was still aggravated by another non-response. Just as the pondering deer was pondering whether or not he was going to poke Harvey in the eye, Coog walked in.
     "You trample Boog."
The pondering deer looked into Coog's fierce eyes. Harvey looked at the wall. The pondering deer glanced at Harvey. Harvey looked at the wall. The pondering deer looked back at Coog. Coog looked at him. The pondering deer pointed at Harvey.
     Coog swung the gate open (without unlocking anything. This might not seem important during this tense stare-fest, but keep it in mind). Coog walked up to Harvey and yanked his antlers off. He left, shutting the gate behind him.
     "Are you OK?"   Harvey stood there and bled. "Come on!!.......You can't possibly have nothing to say about that!"
     "I'm hungry"
     "You know what?", said the pondering deer. You remind me of a guy I once knew. Back when I was in college. We called him The Captain. He was genuinely stupid also.
*Side Note*: Coincidentally, I knew a guy in college, called The Captain, who was also genuinely stupid. Now there's a weird coincidence.
     Anyhoo, Harvey looked up at the Pondering Deer. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something. The Pondering Deer felt his heart skip. "Have I actually gotten through to him?", he thought. "I think I have! What did I say?" Harvey was still looking at him. The Pondering Deer didn't say anything. He didn't want to ruin th moment. Maybe he could actually deal with Harvey after all. "I wonder what he's thinking". Harvey started to make some kind of buzzing noise. "Pardon me?"
     "Buzz"
     "I-I don't understand what you're saying". Then he realized. "No". He was incredulous. "I swear to Jesus, you'd better not be!"
     But he was. Harvey was sleeping. "How can you be too stupid to close your eyes before you fall asleep?! But....your antlers were just...." The Pondering Deer was irate. He charged. Wham! The pondering deer chuckled. "How do you like that?" But to the pondering deer's dismay, there was no response. No, that doesn't describe what happened well enough. Harvey didn't even wake up! He didn't wake up. He kind of crashed down, but he didn't stir. One eye closed though. The pondering deer walked over. He looked at his one open eye. He poked his one open eye. Harry kept it open.
     The pondering deer went to sleep for the night. It's been a rough day. Hit by sticks, head-butted by Coog, he was physically tired. But Harvey had him more mentally tired than he had ever been in his life.