The Lonesome Fawn

Small fawns live in the wheatfields, their noses of shiny obsidian and fur of speckled snow. Year after year, twin fawns come. Prancing through bluegrass, leaping across creeks, they cascade from the mountain’s cheek–from home. Their limbs are fragile and thin. They grow to be such elegant ballerinas. They nibble on the grass and enjoy the crisp, sour crab apples that fall from the trees. If they could, their lips would pucker.

Intertwined like threads of lace, the two young deer are always together, circling each other like little girls playing ring-around-the-rosie. The mother doe would laugh, then return to her earthy supper. In bickering bleats the fawns giggle–inseparable sisters.

When I was young, wandering along the feathered wood’s edge, I would gaze up into the hillside, past trees, squinting. I was looking for the birds and rabbits I knew were there, just hadn’t seen yet. One midday, with the spring breeze tickling the wheat, I was doing just that–mindlessly piddling around where the forest and valley hugged. At my feet lay a fawn.

The nameless Bambi was sleeping, waiting for its mother. It was left behind, separated and twinless. I imagine it was dreaming of its nonexistent sister, frolicking, eating crabapples, giggling.

It must be sad to be left behind.

I thought about my own sister. She wasn’t my twin, nor my best friend, but she was my sister. We didn’t really get along, even though I wanted to. I was too young, and she was too old. We hardly played together. She was my sister, but it didn’t feel like it.

I imagined lying next to the fawn, curling up in its same position. We would be wrapped together in the clovers and daisies in the little bed of grass under the sugar maples. We would listen to the birds chirping as it lulled us to sleep, as our stomachs gently rose and fell with our breaths. We would prance and leap and bleat. We would be sisters.

The moment was fleeting. I took a picture of the little fawn, its legs woven together, its blackberry eyes looking up at me. I walked back to the house.

Despite everything, from the bottom of the stairs, I called for my sister.

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Josie Osborne is a junior at Saint Leo University studying English. Her creative nonfiction piece “Blackberry Muffins” has been published in Sandhill Review, Saint Leo University’s journal. She has also published articles with the school paper, Lion’s Pride Media Group, and is the current secretary of Saint Leo’s chapter of the English Honors Society, Sigma Tau Delta.