If it's a moment in time, how come it feels so long?

[sovay]

Last night on a snow-salted suburban road I saw a deer bound suddenly through the splash of the headlights, followed a moment later by what must have been a pair of coyotes because it's been centuries since there were wolves in this part of the world. It was so folkloric, I expected to see riders the next moment, or the moon. After days of sleepless free-fall and headache it hurt to breathe through, I spent much of this afternoon unconscious, which was terrible for my exposure to daylight but produced vivid dreams only occasionally suggesting a surrealist facsimile of same, such as the second-story view onto a green quadrangle where a policeman was bleeding out milk. Hestia is trying to climb through my arms as I type in her best doctorly fashion. In nearly half a lifetime of chronic illness, I don't think I have ever felt this daily-basis bad.

Comments

[a_reasonable_man]

I know this is a late comment, but I'm still thinking about how your headlights revealed "the running of the deer." I've only rarely seen any wild animal being hunted by another and never were the prey so large as this. I wonder if the hunters here were coywolves?

[sovay]

I know this is a late comment, but I'm still thinking about how your headlights revealed "the running of the deer."

Comments of any vintage are welcome! And I had not made that connection despite loving the carol: thank you. The sun did rise, after.

I've only rarely seen any wild animal being hunted by another and never were the prey so large as this. I wonder if the hunters here were coywolves?

I hadn't thought we had them, but apparently wolf hybrids are the only kind of coyote we have in New England. I had no idea. So, yes! They could have been!