Wisconsin Comfort by Rebekah Palmer

Our third story has arrived!! I love how different all of these stories are. This one is from Rebekah Palmer, and is titled "Wisconsin Comfort." We hope you enjoy!! 

It's just one of those days. The air conditioner has been broken on my car for most of the summer anyway, but getting out of the car and feeling the hot sun lick my bare arms and legs as I walk down the county road adds another element of miserable.

I'm glad I still have an inch of water left in my Evian water bottle. Talking with my mother on my cell phone after I pulled into the ditch, I’m relieved that she can be here in 30 minutes to pick me up to go home where there are fans and air conditioning.

She did sound a bit upset at having to call Picard's Auto for a towing. Aaaargh! On a humid day when I already ran late to a doctor's appointment, and had to push my morning treatment back 15 minutes, the battery dying on my Taurus has my anxiety reeling.

My afternoon medicine will also be pushed back. It's not a huge deal, it's just much easier to maintain progressive illness with more consistent treatment times every day. I've been doing this over 25 years so it's just a life hack of the chronically sick one learns. 

I turn around to head back to my car and that welcoming shade tree nearby. I noticed one of those "adopt-a-highway" signs with a family name underneath it instead of the typical local organization or church or teen group. 

Breath in through my nose and breath out through my mouth, I remind myself as I start to walk back when I hear a rustle from the taller weeds beyond the road's shoulder.

A middle-aged man with white flecks in his once black hair, deep set brown eyes, and white scruff on his chin walls up next to me by the highway sign. He holds out his garbage bag in his hand and asks, "Hold this?"

Stunned for a moment at seeing another human out here in the humidity, I grab the bag.

"Can I throw my plastic water bottle in it?" I query.

"Hmmm," he grunts affirmatively as he pulls winter green tobacco from his back pocket and adjusts a pinch in his bottom lip. "I actually need some assistance in picking up this dead deer I found a few steps that-a-way." He points behind the highway sign.

"Uh....my mom will be here in like...10 minutes to pick me up..."

"Won't take but 5, I just need you to hold the trash bag so I can put deer parts in it. Just a coupla' fawn legs..."

My face goes slack as I robotically step behind this man. Fawn legs? I mean, my stomach lurched at thinking about whole, bloated dead deer, but just fawn legs?

The man continues after he spits, "I probably shouldn't even show ya this. I figure some predator got it and left just two of the poor fawn's legs."

We stop and I see the white-spotted, light-brown legs. I open the bag and feel even hotter as two tears trail down my face.

The man throws the legs in the bag then takes his trash bag back. He looks at me and says, "Aw, don't feel bad. I know it's terrible. Just think that it was a sickly deer that wouldn't have made it anyway."

He nods his head at me and walks back into the tall weeds where he first came from when I noticed him.

I can't be crying when my mom comes to pick me up shortly. My hands are shaking as I stumble down the ditch back to my car and anticipated shade tree.

I slide down the tree, letting the bark scratch into my back so hard, I stop focusing on swallowing the lump in my throat.

Imagining a death by sharp teeth and warm, viscous saliva as preferable to a longer life in infirmity does not relieve my sadness over a sickly fawn. In fact, now I want to scream because the right side of my head pulses with the onset of one of my migraines due to over-heat. Mom will be here soon.

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If you want to check out more Rebekah's work, you can do so HERE.