I look out my kitchen window to see a deer grace my garden but notice he's eating my fragile clematis. I open the window, he jumps away with a start. Two others next to him.

 

I should chase them away. I walk outside in my green organic cotton robe. They star at me as if to say, "What's up?"

 

I am partly practical and partly curious and walk toward them. They look at me.

 

Is this what they said? “What are you planning to do? The three of us are a lot bigger than you.”

 

They stared at me for a long time – which is to say a second or two.

 

Finally the farthest one, the one eating my clematis, seemed to think he was supposed to do something.

 

So he walked away toward next door. And the other two followed.