Last summer, it rained day and night for three days straight.
The river rose almost to the bridge, and the park closed off the walking trail for safety reasons.
About a day later, the water had gone down enough for people to enter the park again. I stood on the bridge for a while, looking at the landscape that had been completely changed by the muddy brown river.
That was when I saw a water deer making its way through the water.
It stepped over the tall grass flattened by the current, slowly lifting one half-submerged leg after another.
I guessed it had been stranded there alone for several days, unable to get to the other side because of the swollen river.
It still didn’t seem to know which way to go.
With its wet legs, it wandered around, sniffing the air as if trying to find its way. Every now and then it stopped to eat some grass. Maybe it was hungry.
When it disappeared under the bridge and I couldn’t see it anymore, I quickly lost interest and went home.
“What? You saw three of them today?”
My wife was surprised. She still hadn’t seen a single water deer in our neighborhood.
“I’m telling you. I can sense them now.
When I’m walking through the park, sometimes I just feel something. If I stop and stare at that spot for a while, something quietly starts moving.
And sure enough, it’s a water deer.”
There is a wetland near my home, with a long walking trail running alongside it.
The wetland had already been designated as a protected development area before I moved here, and more wild animals live there than you might expect.
I get to see water deer especially often.
Maybe it’s simply because they’re big enough to notice.
If elephants lived in this wetland, I’d probably only ever notice the elephants.
Later that night, I couldn’t sleep, so I went into the park alone.
There was nobody on the long, straight walking trail.
I had been walking for a while, lost in thought, when suddenly I sensed that something was standing in front of me.
A water deer.
Its long, large body was blocking the path, its head turned toward me.
There didn’t seem to be any fear of humans in its eyes.
The creature standing in front of me felt completely different from the deer I had occasionally seen at zoos.
It felt so completely wild that, for a moment, I was even afraid it might suddenly charge at me and attack me with its sharp teeth.
I had never expected to meet a water deer this close.
I stood there confused, not knowing what to do, as if I had run into a bear.
The water deer just stood there, watching me too.
Perhaps it was thinking,
“Well, this is strange. A human on the walking trail.”
It was beautiful.
Beautiful like some creature from a myth.
For a long time, neither of us moved.
We just stared at each other.
Even my breathing became quiet.
I knew that if I took even one step, this strange, fairy-tale moment would disappear instantly.
It seemed too precious to waste.
It felt as if an invisible strand of spiderweb had been stretched tight between us.
If either one of us moved even slightly, it would snap.
Time had stopped.
This wasn’t the world I had known until then.
(It didn’t seem so bad.)
But in the end, I was the one who broke the silence.
I couldn’t resist anymore and took a step toward it.
Somehow, I had convinced myself that the water deer was waiting for me to come closer.
At that moment, it lightly kicked off the ground with all four legs and disappeared from my sight.
Such a light and effortless goodbye.
Oh no.
The water deer had run toward the apartment complexes.
There was even a four-lane road between the park and the apartments.
I shouted after it.
“Not that way!”
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