The Good Thing

On my way home from an evening hike with a friend, I drive into a brief snow squall. Suddenly, the gravel road is entirely covered by snow, not a single track or blemish to be seen, everything smooth and white and quiet. It’s fun, driving over the sheet of white, snow hammering against the windshield, my darkened world reduced even further by the closed-in feeling of the squall, and I feel like I want to drive like this for a very long time, leaving my tracks to fill in behind me. As if I’d gone an entirely different direction. As if I’d never come this way at all. 

Too soon I arrive at the far side of the storm, and just as suddenly as it came upon me, it is gone. I speed up until a deer crosses the road in front of me, and looking from where it came (you always look from where it came), I see another standing at the shoulder. Body tensed, ears alert. I know it’s thinking of running, and I know I won’t be able to stop in time. “Stay,” I say. And the good thing is that it does.