Dead Deer

Thursday morning I headed out into the falling snow for my daily drive to work. The highway wasn't particularly icy, visibility was good, and I was ahead of schedule. I even reflected on how much I like my drive, how much I actually like snow -- for the most part, and how I appreciate when the counselor who works next door to my classroom checks on me whenever the roads are bad. Those exact thoughts, however, were definitely interrupted when I noticed that the vehicle in front of me had started to slow and shift onto the shoulder of the road. For a brief moment I assumed the driver was merely turning off the highway, though before the thought completed itself, the vehicle spun across the other line and ended up facing 180 degrees in the opposite direction as it came to rest in the borough pit. I hit my own brakes and felt the tires slide. I had plenty of room to stop and was able to slow way down without any trouble. As I approached the place where the vehicle had gone off the road, I watched the large ball of creamy-colored fluff blow under the front of my car. Then, I saw the cause of the accident. The driver hadn't been trying to turn; he had been trying to slow down before crashing into the deer. Neither had gotten lucky, and fortunately the deer had gotten the worse of the meeting.
By the time I was able to park, the driver had gotten out of his own car, and another traveler had stopped as well. The vehicle was apparently inoperable (since it was still there when I returned home that night), but the driver was fine -- he had a cell phone and it was warm enough that he could just wait in the car until someone arrived to help him.

I had glanced at the deer as I walked by it after parking. I think of it as a female, though I'm thinking it was a young male. She would have died instantly, and I as I inspected her more closely, I realized my surprise that the small intestine spilling out onto the highway was brown. Apparently I expected it to have been pink or red. The driver easily, and thoughtfully, dragged her off into the grass, which would keep other drivers safer and would also make it less deadly for birds of prey to turn the carcass into something useful.