I was one among a dozen deer exiting the traffic-perimetered greenbelt for suburbia last night. It had been so hot, I was walking later than usual and so learned--this is when and where they go.

We all paused at a busy street, the herd uneasy. But it was a post-mating season one-antlered buck who was most unnerved, not sure whether to move forward or back, and my presence just complicated his options. I held still because I didn’t want to spook him into a collision with fate, but he darted forward anyway, and a car had to slow to a halt, and the buck turned around and gave up on suburbia, eyes dazed, trotting back to the narrow, food-depleted greenspace, the herd following him.

I continued to walk and thought of the buck. I thought of human men confined to cars and cubicles, but with genetic deep-seated memory of the wild. The restlessness and confusion deer and humans experience.

When I returned, there they were again, making another attempt to leave the little woods for the larger human space. But this time so dark I could not distinguish their shadowy shapes one from the other.