EARLY MORNING by Deborah Gordon-Brown

I didn't slam the door behind me. That wasn't the point. The point was just to get way, to be alone, to find somenplace where my heart could stop pounding and my rage, my sense that I could tear up huge trees by the roots, could subside. I knew I could lose it all, that in the great upholstered container of my van to which I had run, I could accelerate into oblivion, smashing into the side of something sold, eternal, something lasting far longer than my chaos, my night of pain. I wouldn't though. At least I didn't think I would. What I needed was to get away, to scream, to howl, to break open, to not be held in that house, closed in with the what was.

I don't even really remember the details of what it was about because, I think, in the long run it wasn't about details; The details were just little triggers, the tiny sparks that run along the soul before a firestorm breaks out. The van was perfect, silent until the key brought it alive, a moving container, literally a vehicle of escape.

Was it 2:00 AM, later than that? I don't remember that either. I remember a sharp, clear night with a great moon. I remember pulling out of the driveway carefully, hearing the gravel move under the tires, experiencing the sound as the background music to escape, the way sound effects on radio shows or in the movies foretell movement, change,

The moon lit my way although I did have my headlights on. I held the steering wheel carefully, so aware of how on edge I was, how little I was feeling the pull of wanting to be awake tomorrow. The sihouettes of great trees and low farms, both frightened and comforted me. Nothing was as I had known it in daylight or even on rides home from an evening event. This night of moonlight and no cars, of silence except for a brief wind, was new to me and yet part of timelessness.

The van was a stranger to the earth's history. It and I were just passing through, both of no long range consequence to the earth around us. A possom crossed the road in my headlights, giving me what I felt was an appropriately cross look. Then another, head down, scurried by. I was going slowly. I didn't want to hurt anything else that was alive.

I approached a bridge across a river that in the summer had been all current and rage. I sought its movement across jagged rocks, listening for the crash of water and barrier meeting. The river murmured. It didn't have the water for rage anymore than I had tears for my pain.

On the bridge I turned off the engine, cut my car lights. In the near distance something moved from the side of the road. I put my arms over the steering wheel, hugging its roundness, wanting arms around me. It was quiet, so quiet.

And then I saw her. She stepped out of the forest so quietly, so free and then stopped, alert, listening. Perhaps she smelled the warm motor of the van? She sensed something and turned toward me. Then slowly, keeping watch on the van, she moved a few more feet across the road, a few feet closer to me, and then she stopped entirely, her eyes curious, wary, but not afraid.

I rolled my window down slowly. I willed her to know that she was safe, that I would watch the road for her. She just stayed still and we looked at one another and as my eyes got better used to the moonlight I could make out her colors, sense the ripples of alterness on her flesh. Perhaps she could really see me. sense all of me, this doe walking alone in the night.

Softly I asked her to stay, to stay with me, to listen to me. "I am so alone", I told her. "I am so angry. I don't know if I can love." And the tears began to come.