Obligatory disclaimer regarding posting frequency and my delinquency goes here.
This morning, on my walk in to school, I came across two mule deer in the residential streets of Casper. A doe and her fawn from this year, they cut across three streets and several lawns (disregarding the broken sidewalks the way I'd like to do), and they bounded further into town as I watched. The doe had some manner of growth dangling from her neck: a striated dark ball of fur and scar, perhaps, but still attached. Some cervid goiter or tumor that bounced like a tennis ball below her neck, suspended by a thin strand of flesh. If it had been hanging from me, I'd have ripped it off, but her grinding teeth wouldn't sever and her deery neck wouldn't let her bend to reach it, even if she could pull it away.
It bobbed, grotesque and unnoticed and even more ugly for her ignorance of it: she knew only machine: wait and two legs: go faster, and the fawn followed after, learning their unmarked crosswalks and the yards with no fences.
