The Pale Deer
This is a short story written for the Soaring Twenties Social Club Symposium. The STSC is a small, exclusive online speakeasy where a dauntless band of writers, artists, philosophers, flaneurs, musicians, idlers, and bohemians share ideas and companionship. Each month STSC members create something around a set theme. This cycle, the theme was “Fiction.”
The Richardsons were a hunting family. They had them a nice acreage of woods extending from their solid wooden house; virgin forest, though technically it wasn’t; it was actually like second or third generation growth after the logging companies that swept the area in the centuries of settlement. But anyway it was undeveloped Nature to the Richardson’s perspective and that’s good enough.
And it had deer, so, they were a hunting family, as were much of the other people in these parts. Mr. Richardson, he had a job. The family was not wanting, so the hunting was supplementary; but it was for food and the Richardson’s never hunted until they wanted more of it so it wasn’t a hobby. It’s what they did.
Anyway it’s from this hunting that the Richardsons had the story of the Pale Deer.
The first time Mr. Richardson saw the Pale Deer, it was foggy. He wouldn’t have continued hunting but the fog had just come, and he was just getting ready to go, but saw the deer against the fog and decided to give it a shot.