A night to remember
Jun. 26th, 2002 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupWe went to the Lucerne Inn for a big dinner, ahead of word of a storm. The dinner was to commemorate seven years since our first kiss... a long story in and of itself. Dinner was a large, heavy pasta meal and big chocolate dessert.
It was dark out by the time we left, and you could see lightning off in the distance. I was determined to pay close attention to the road, and I drove a little under 55. Typical Maine 2-lane highway with no lights. We were sharing pleasant banter, classical music on the radio. Then as though a strobe light had been attached to the front of the car: shot 1: deer standing; shot 2: deer leaping away. We could practically see the fleas in its fur. I slammed on the brakes and gave out a yell (in that order) that came from I know not where inside of me... and the thing had leaped away and, aside from my heart feeling like it was about to burst, we were all right.
About 2 minutes later it started to storm, and by the time we got to Ellsworth, it was pouring in enormous buckets and all the lights were out everywhere. We pulled over at a darkened Dunkin Donuts, watched a bunch of EMTs and police cars go by... plenty of time to think and freak out further.
I get very upset by things like this. My parents always told me I was irresponsible and forgetful when I was growing up, so the slightest lapse in attention or expectation hits me hard, a personal failing, so amid feeling scared and relieved is this pit of guilt. In this case, it was knowing that I hadn't turned on my brights... don't know why, suppose that they hadn't seemed necessary, and a bother to turn on and off with the cross traffic on that road... Mrs. says that she saw it on the side of the road; I wonder why I didn't... You hit a deer at that speed, you're in serious trouble, and the road had no shoulder... What if there had been a car behind us... Mrs. points out that if I had seen the deer at high noon and full sunlight jump out in front of the car, there still wouldn't have been anything I could do.
I did have a bad feeling about the day and things in general seeming too good somehow. Too lucky. In retrospect everything seems like an omen. (This afternoon, in some of the low scrub behind the yard, I found what I'm pretty sure is a dog skull. Looked like something out of a cartoon about the desert.) The more we think about how damn happy we are and how perfect life is becoming, the more nervous I get that some damn thing is going to come out of left field and destroy something, because life is like that. And when good things happen, I get suspicious.
This day needs to end. But my stomach is putting on its own internal fireworks display, and I don't want to know what I'm going to dream tonight.
It was dark out by the time we left, and you could see lightning off in the distance. I was determined to pay close attention to the road, and I drove a little under 55. Typical Maine 2-lane highway with no lights. We were sharing pleasant banter, classical music on the radio. Then as though a strobe light had been attached to the front of the car: shot 1: deer standing; shot 2: deer leaping away. We could practically see the fleas in its fur. I slammed on the brakes and gave out a yell (in that order) that came from I know not where inside of me... and the thing had leaped away and, aside from my heart feeling like it was about to burst, we were all right.
About 2 minutes later it started to storm, and by the time we got to Ellsworth, it was pouring in enormous buckets and all the lights were out everywhere. We pulled over at a darkened Dunkin Donuts, watched a bunch of EMTs and police cars go by... plenty of time to think and freak out further.
I get very upset by things like this. My parents always told me I was irresponsible and forgetful when I was growing up, so the slightest lapse in attention or expectation hits me hard, a personal failing, so amid feeling scared and relieved is this pit of guilt. In this case, it was knowing that I hadn't turned on my brights... don't know why, suppose that they hadn't seemed necessary, and a bother to turn on and off with the cross traffic on that road... Mrs. says that she saw it on the side of the road; I wonder why I didn't... You hit a deer at that speed, you're in serious trouble, and the road had no shoulder... What if there had been a car behind us... Mrs. points out that if I had seen the deer at high noon and full sunlight jump out in front of the car, there still wouldn't have been anything I could do.
I did have a bad feeling about the day and things in general seeming too good somehow. Too lucky. In retrospect everything seems like an omen. (This afternoon, in some of the low scrub behind the yard, I found what I'm pretty sure is a dog skull. Looked like something out of a cartoon about the desert.) The more we think about how damn happy we are and how perfect life is becoming, the more nervous I get that some damn thing is going to come out of left field and destroy something, because life is like that. And when good things happen, I get suspicious.
This day needs to end. But my stomach is putting on its own internal fireworks display, and I don't want to know what I'm going to dream tonight.
