I don’t remember parking or getting out of the car, but I realize I am in the middle of the
dark road holding the carcass of a doe—a doe I hit with my father's car.                           
              I had grabbed the keys to my pickup truck from the pile of things that sat on my kitchen
counter, which I couldn’t be bothered to clean up. I never had anybody over anyway, so I figured
it didn’t matter much. The truck had been my father's before it was mine. It was dirty and beat
up, but it had once been bright red. My parents didn’t let me drive until I was eighteen because of
my history. So I received the old truck as a gift for my eighteenth birthday. My mother cried that
day. For my parents, it signified my living to see adulthood; for me, it signified my freedom, but
also the beginning of a long, lonely adulthood. I grabbed the keys and stuffed them into my
pocket as I made my way out of the front door.
              My hands are sweaty, I know it won’t bother the doe much, though, she is dead after all. I
begin to stroke her coat. She is beautiful. She has these brilliant brown eyes, and I can imagine
they were once so full of life. She is lean, and she appears to have been healthy prior to the blow.
She is still warm. Her tan body is freckled with dark brown spots, and she is bleeding. Her blood
is soaking into my clothes, and it is all over my hands and getting under my fingernails. I am
letting it drip all over me. I can’t believe I have just taken the life of such a beautiful creature.
              I had been up all night. I could close my eyes and picture my body falling from the
Brooklyn Bridge or some skyscraper or something dramatic. I wanted my dead, limp body to be
found in the morning by some unsuspecting party who knew nothing about me, but it would
change the course of their life nonetheless. Maybe the news would report on it, and it would be
some sort of local tragedy. My friends from high school would post on social media about how
much of a good friend I was, despite not having talked in years. I wanted to make a scene. I

could see it. I could see my family wishing they could have done something; receiving the call,
crying at my funeral, pictures of me from brighter days displayed on the walls. I always felt they
were too blank anyway, I figured it would look better covered in memoriam photos.
              The cold air is burning my nose, but the doe’s body fills mine with warmth. I feel her
weight like a blanket. She brings me comfort.
              I rubbed my eyes so hard I forgot the image. My mind went blank. I didn’t want to die, per
se; I just didn’t care much for life. I found no joy in it. I stared at the concrete wall of my studio
apartment for hours all day and all night, and I began seeing pictures in the popcorn ceiling; I
started hearing voices in the wind. The sinking feeling of eternal loneliness only seemed to get
worse. I missed feeling at peace. I sort of figured there was peace in death. Even if things went
dark forever, I thought I could find peace in the nothingness.
              I stroke the doe’s back, her body in my lap. I just stare at her. I am so envious of her. Her
divine corpse lay there to be admired by onlookers. She would lie there for people to drive by
and feel sorry for her, and wonder what they could have done to change her fate. But they can’t.
She is dead. The thing about humans, though, is that they will forget they even saw the roadkill
in mere minutes; their days will go unchanged. I wonder if she had a family; I wonder if her
mother will be mad at her for dying; I wonder if they will mourn her.
              I grabbed my brown leather jacket from the side of my bed and walked out onto the fire
escape. It was chilly out. The brisk wind hit my back, which was wet with sweat. It hurt, but it
was nice to feel something. The inside pocket of my jacket housed my Marlboro Reds, my pink
lighter, and a handful of little blue pills I was saddled with. I started smoking to make friends,
but nobody ever asked for a cigarette, and now it was just something to take the edge off. I
looked down off the side of the fire escape. 2 floors weren’t enough to kill me. I had thought

about it countless times. I would just break a few bones and piss my mother off, and then
everyone would forget about it, and I would have to continue living. I grabbed a cigarette and lit
it. I had always hated the smell.
              I hold up my bloodied hands and run them along her muzzle, and then bring them to my
own face. I cover myself in her sticky, warm blood. It brings me comfort. I let a tear fall from my
face onto her body.
              I stared off the edge of the fire escape for too long. The darkness of the room behind
began to engulf me. It was heavy on my shoulders and back. My mind started to wander. I had
been to the psych ward before, when I was sixteen. That was when I had tied myself a noose and
stared at it hanging in my hot pink childhood bedroom. I just stared at it, thinking of what it
would look like with my neck in it. The image was thrilling to me. My mother was horrified when
she walked in. She asked me how I could possibly not think about how she would feel if I died
and she had me checked in. It was a memory I would often revisit in times like these. At the
hospital, they said if I ever felt bad again, I should come back. But I didn’t feel bad, I never felt
bad, I just felt nothing. My mind and body were numb. I felt like I wanted to smoke cigarettes on
the fire escape and imagine my own death in countless different ways, and how my dead body
would look for an eternity, and not do anything else. That was probably a bad sign. I dropped the
cigarette onto the floor and stomped it out.
              Then, I feel a bright light hit my back. I do not turn, I just stare into the doe’s lifeless
eyes. I feel as though we are connected, she and I. I want what she has.
              I trudged slowly down the stairs in my apartment building. The stairs were so old and
creaky that I usually ran down them so as not to be a bother. But I didn’t have the energy for that
kind of thoughtfulness that night. Every step I took echoed down the halls. I walked down into the

parking garage, my truck right where I had left it. I was going to do it, I was going to get better,
and for good this time. I wanted my parents to be proud of me, for finding a cure or for getting
help or whatever. They always wished I’d get better. I always wished it were that easy.
              The light is coming closer now at a faster rate. It didn’t start to slow. I felt hope. I felt like
the end was finally coming. I felt like I would finally be free.
              I pulled out onto the dark roads of my college town and drove down the empty streets.
The hospital was in the next town over; the drive should’ve only taken me about 20 minutes of
driving through vast forests. I was used to it, though, I quite enjoyed having the option to run
into the wilderness when things got hard. I felt as though returning my body to the wilderness
could heal me if I let it, but I didn’t have time for that. I needed a quick and clinical fix. My
mother always told me that the doctors could fix me. Sometimes I would start to believe her, but
things would always get bad again.
              It is getting so close that I can make out the man behind the windshield, looking over his
shoulder into the backseat, unaware that the doe and I are sitting on the road, intertwined, right in
front of him.
              As I drove, I was distracted by the deep, dark beauty of the unending lines of trees on the
side of the road. It looked like a green portal to serenity that I had to fight the urge to enter. My
eyes moved from the road to the shoulder, and they stuck there. I yearned for an eternity of
nothingness. My soul was pulled into the gravity of the obscurity, that is, until I was taken away
from my daydreaming by a large being smashing into the hood of my truck.
              The doe had been so brave, letting herself die. I can be brave, too. I take a deep breath.