A Buck's Life

in #writing5 years ago (edited)

A Buck's Life

The mist covered the hills like a blanket. The cool morning air was crisp. A beautiful scenery of nature that a straight, pavement road ruined. The road was just in the middle of it, almost out of place. A straight line of man-made rock that plowed through the land, rather than winding with it. Like a knife cutting through the beauty.

I strode on the ground. A buck, tall and strong, with deep, wise eyes. I stared at the road with pain, a reminder of what happened in my past. I sighed. My breath came out a white puff and it faded. I had a flashback and suddenly relived my whole life.

I blinked. The light poured into my eyes and temporarily blinded me. My ears rang. The sunlight warmed my fur. I was a newborn fawn. I continued blinking. There was a speckle of white splashed on my back.

My mother nudged and licked me as if saying, "wake up." I looked at my mother and sniffed her. I sneezed. My curious eyes searched my environment. I was in a forest, it was spring time. The air was full of the sweet scent of flowers. The leaves filtered the sunlight, making the light softer and green.

A large buck, my father walked to me and sniffed me. He took a step back, nodded up, and snorted as if telling me to stand. I attempted to stand on my wobbly, skinny legs. I fell at first, but on the second attempt, I managed to stabilize myself. I tenderly place one hoof in front of the other on the ground, then moved a back leg forward. I soon started to get the hang of it.

I started happily hopping around. Then I tripped and fell flat on my face. My father used his antler to help me up. I looked back and forth between my family and started playing again.

Almost a year later, I had grown into a strong buck. I stayed with my family and herd. We would find patches of grass to munch on, stand on our hind legs to eat new leaves in the spring, and enjoyed our peaceful life. One day, my father and I wandered a little farther from the rest of the herd.

I was chewing on leaves when my ears perked up. There was a strange sound that I never heard before. My father noticed this too. We slowly stepped towards the sound to figure out what it was. We ended up at the edge of the tree-line, where a meadow began, we stayed in the trees for camouflage in case there was danger.

We saw creatures that stood on their hind legs and their front hooves had five stick-like thing attached to them. I would later learn that these creatures were called humans. One of them had a neat black suit on his body and he stood next to another man. They talked back and forth, gesturing towards the forest every now and then, until they shook hooves, or hands, and left. They left in shiny, large things that moved on a large, straight, black rock. I had no idea what happened. My father looked weary and a concerned look formed on his deer face. My father gestured that we should get back to our herd and we slowly walked back.

A week later, after seeing the strange creatures. I heard a loud bang. It was one of the loudest things I ever heard, like the volume of a tree cracking and falling down, but all at once and with an echo ringing in the air. I and my herd bolted, waving our white tails in the air as a warning. When I looked behind me, I saw a doe laying on the ground, with a hole in her that red liquid leaked out of. We ran as fast as they could. There was another bang, but no other deer dropped and a hole appeared in a tree.

I ran in terror. I had no clue what had happened. When we felt that we were safe again, we stopped and pondered what happened. I didn't know much, but I knew that everything would change and that it wasn't over yet.

The herd wandered in the forest. The tips of the leaves were starting to change to red, orange, and yellow. A younger deer sniffed at the ground as it found the first acorns to fall that year. My father bent down to eat some of the acorns.

Suddenly, other deer and I heard a sound. It was loud, and continued. I was unable to describe the sound. Almost as soon as the sound started, trees in the distance started to bend over and fall. I had seen trees fall before, but never so many at one time. I also noticed those trees were not ready to fall, it wasn't likely that they fell naturally. When the herd started running, I saw that the kind of creatures I had seen in the meadow a few months ago, they were behind the trees and carried something that made the sound.

My father, who was more disoriented and confused because he was too focused on eating acorns to see what happened, veered off course of the rest of the herd. My father couldn't see the creature behind the tree. I bleated a warning, but it was too late. The tree cracked and fell. My father didn't notice fast enough and the tree landed right on top of him.

My father's legs stopped moving and were motionless. I bleated out in sadness, if I could speak a human language, I would have yelled something that translated to "DAAADDDD!!!" My legs felt like lead. My mother had to urge me to run. Her eyes were distant too. I continued with my herd, convinced this was the worst day of my life, and yet, had the feeling that it wasn't over yet.

The creatures cut down almost all of the forest. The herd was willing to stay in the area that wasn't cut down and grieved for their home. I argued that they would cut down the rest of the forest and that it wasn't safe to stay there. We needed a new home. They disagreed, they were attached to what had been their home for as long as we can remember, and they believed my emotions were effecting my judgment. I couldn't convince them and we stayed in the forest. I considered leaving, but my mother would not want to leave me or the herd, and maybe the creatures would leave us alone, but I doubted it.

~

This is a story for #365daysofwriting. This is the first half of the story. Thank you for reading

This is the link to part two: https://steemit.com/writing/@scarletskylor/a-buck-s-life-part-two

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Oh great story. Really enjoyed reading waiting for the next part :)

Thank you. I'm really glad you liked it. I'm planning on either posting the next part tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but it will be posted soon. Thank you for commenting.

Very creative and well described. Interesting to see from a deer's eyes. This made me think of the Bambi movie.

I did notice quite a few typos and errors. I hope you don't mind me saying. I know there was a discord channel where other Steemians would proof read your finished story, before you post it. I don't know if that channel is still active. I think @rhondak was one that worked with it. Writersblok or writersblock. Something like that.

I look forward to reading the rest of the story.

Peace

Thank you.
I noticed the errors after posting the story (most of the errors are from when I was first writing it in 3rd person and I changed it to 1st person) and I have not yet edited the mistakes in this post.
The next part is posted https://steemit.com/writing/@scarletskylor/a-buck-s-life-part-two, I tried harder to get the mistakes.
Thank you for reading it.

Cool, thank you!

Hi @scarletskylor, this is first time I read a story where buck as the character. This more like telling a story of human destroying forest for development purposes. It left to animals homeless and some even injured or dead because of the development. When i read you story, I felt sad. This happen everywhere in the globe. This really a nice story @scarletskylor. I not sure whether this is what you want to pass the story but this was how the message delivered to me when i read it. By joining 365daysofwriting, do you mean that you need to write at least a story a day?

Yes, this is mostly a story about the Buck, but I put in his forest being cut down because it's emotional and it's actually happening. Where I live, so much forest is being cut down, just to build more home, but I don't think this many people need this many homes. I love the forest, and I don't like that this is happening everywhere, especially if it isn't necessary. I'm glad you like this story.
No. The 365daysofwriting (I believe is) optional, if you want to write with the picture provided you can. You don't need to write every day. I saw that picture of the buck, and I thought of this story.

I love the forest, and I don't like that this is happening everywhere, especially if it isn't necessary

This make 2 of us. People only care about development. My hometown, used to have a lot of forest and plantation. Now the developers start to cut down all the trees for development purposes.

It good that you wrote this story, it reflect how the animals and others who depend on forest as their home and living. While read your story, i could feel the sadness and the hopeless from the bucks. You have express it well in your story.

I read your part 2 story @scarletskylor. I felt sad when i fond out her mother pass away too early before he found a peaceful land. Luckily, there was a happy ending. This was what so called development caused the animals. You really good in writing and express what you want to deliver. I felt so sad when I read the part that his mother motionless while he try to wake his mother up :(

I believe there are a good amount people who do care about the forest, but it's hard to tell how many. I want people to be more aware of forests being cut down for developments, because I remember certain areas, where I live, there used to be lots of trees, but now there's a development in its place.
Thankfully, there are National parks that keep some places safe, but I find that I still want there to be forest that are still around, not just because it's a park.
Thank you. I'm happy I was able to express those emotions. I felt bad about getting rid of both of his parents, I think this is the second most tragic story that I've written so far, but it seems to add depth and emotion and something special to the story. (Although, I have to admit, I'm wondering why part 1 got 566 upvotes, while part 2 only got 4. Maybe they didn't liked that he lost his mom?)

Hey @scarletskylor, your part 2 story did very well and it delivered the sadness of the buck. Because of development, he lost his parent. He has to look for a new place. It really deliver the message to us. As in the number of votes, your part one because of the curie upvote. It will came together with that numbers of upvote as you mentioned. This was the reason why it has so much different in term of the upvotes. It nothing to do with the story in part 2. And part 2 story still good and I love it. I hope others will come across your part 2 as well.
I found your part 2 because you have added in your part 1 (which was a good move). or else I won't notice it as well. :)

Okay.,that makes sense. Thank you.

You are welcome. Continue write more interesting story.

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Recently I've written a short story for a contest, Winter Outcast. It's short, but I was planning to extend it later and was wondering if you wanted to read it.

The same thing happens in Japan.
In Japan, there are a lot of agricultural chemicals being used and the beautiful river and living creatures living there are decreasing rapidly…
Your wonderful story, That is a necessary story for many people.
keep it up😊

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Thank you. I hope my stories can make a difference and at least make people more aware of nature, so we can avoid hurting it. It's sad that this is happening to such a beautiful country. I hope things will turn around.
Thank you. :)

We so often ignore how animals feel when we enter their home. Nature is their home not ours. We are their guests but we behave like we owned everything.

This is a very sad story and I truly believe that animals perceive us like this. They don't understand what to do when they are in danger as they don't know what we are capable of.

Hunting is the worst sport (I don't even know why it's called 'sport') that doesn't make any sense and I'm glad to see the way you describe it.

Over the last years I see so many trees being cut down for the development needs and I wonder how far we will go..

Thank you for sharing your story. I truly enjoyed it!

Thank you. I'm not sure how aware animals are about this, because in my story, I'm giving the deer a human mind and ability to think like us, but it's still sad. I understand that we need homes and resources for us to live, but it feels like we are taking too much.
I have mixed feelings about hunting. I don't think hunting is an extreme evil, people do it for fun and there are rules to help make sure animals aren't over hunted, and some animals like Grizzly bears are aggressive and can take someone's life. But at the same time, it's not nice to take just because we want to, if we don't even use the animal we take. I think it's a slippery slope and there needs to be a balance. But this is the buck's story, and he doesn't know much about humans, so we see the deer's point of view.
I agree we shouldn't take more than we need, and I want forests to stop being taken down for developments when we don't need them.
You're welcome. I'm very happy you like the story and that it means so much to you.

Hi scarletskylor,

This post has been upvoted by the Curie community curation project and associated vote trail as exceptional content (human curated and reviewed). Have a great day :)

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