Deer in Headlights
It’s been said that the deer in headlights knows what we don’t. That in the split second before a car’s impact, it’s tuned into the divine, the precise frequency of the voice of God, purer and brighter than any drabble from the car radio. In this moment His plan is revealed, fuller than could ever be seen by human eyes, cloaking the deer in calm and contenting its heart against the metal.
I’d like to think the deer stares face to face with the nature of God. Not the soothing hands we’ve painted on Him or the face we’ve spit at time and time again - God’s the peace at the end of the road. Some of us get the mercy of resting at the next patch of woods. Others, like the deer, get struck halfway between the yellow paint. Either way, we become one with it—one with Him—, so intertwined the very concept of separation ceases to exist. Is that what those glossy black eyes behold? Is that vacancy innocence or serenity in the sun ever shining? Has the consciousness already floated off, already been imbibed?
I claim the role of executioner. Wavering on that same black tar, I’m the deer in the headlights of my own hand. Is this heresy? (Don’t answer that). I of flesh and blood was never meant to take up the knife, and barely supposed to recognize my reflection in the side view mirror. But here I stand, eyes artificially lit, victim and driver both. Will I merge with the great unboundedness? Or will I, swathed in the nighttime’s shadows, face only the darkness that swallows all?
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