I Don't Want To

Sometimes you can see the deer in the road ahead and you can swerve and miss it.
Sometimes you have no room to swerve or sometimes the deer takes that unlucky hop and crashes into you anyway.
I thought, I thought, I thought that I would be able to miss this particular deer in the misty road up ahead. I thought I'd missed the one that represented Christmas, the white-tailed deer disguised as one of Santa's reindeer, the antlers on its head, the big red nose stuck on, flashing red-red-red.
Ha.
Seems to me I must have hit that faux Rudolph, didn't even see it, came home with a bloody carcass on my car hood, didn't see it for weeks. Meanwhile, something about all those deer fluids have screwed around with my engine, making me totally unfit to miss the second deer, the one I was sure I could avoid.
Christmas wacked me out. And I knew the anniversary of Lynn's death was coming up. I knew it. I had my brights on, I had both hands on the steering wheel.
But here I am with not one but two major hits to my name, wandering down the road, unable to see out the windshield, unable to get out of second gear.
Or maybe first.
Or maybe the driveway.
We're supposed to meet for lunch today, Lynn's family and me and a few of mine. At a restaurant that I took her to back when it first became apparent that whatever she had, it was a hell of a bad thing to have. I was already having to cut up her food, serve her plate from the buffett. She didn't care a thing about the food, was trying to communicate how she was feeling but the words weren't there. The brain was already smoking from the tangled, broken wires.
I do not want to go. I don't want to go to lunch. I don't want to see anyone. I don't want to go and remember that day. I didn't even want to be there that day when she was still alive. I didn't want to cut up my friend's food. I didn't want to watch her face twisted with fear. I didn't want to hear her scrambled words.
Listen- life is so far from fair that I can't even begin to tell you.
I can't even try.
I know I'm supposed to be thinking of her life and how joyful she was but instead, all I'm thinking of is that day and how scared she was.
Don't even bother to tell me she wouldn't want me feeling this way. She would want me to remember her dancing, not dying.
Because she's not hear to tell me and all I know is that she'll never dance again. Not on this planet, Bubba. Not under this sky. Not with me.
Goddam. I hit that deer square on under a bright orange moon on a country road. And there's no one around and I can't find a phone and the moon doesn't care. She just shines on, spreading her light on the bloody scene below.
Now I see. And I don't want to.