As I returned to my idol, the poppy flowers brushing across my body, tickling my nose, touching my soul, I realize that the smell of this world is different from before. My eyes have opened to a place I barely remember, a place where scarcity has grown into a plentiful bounty. Fawns have become deer, and deer have become older deer. I have become older. As I stare out at the horizon I realize that there is one thing that has not changed. The view ahead of me is still lonely, still cold. To find warmth in this place is hard, and I am lucky to have found it in the idol. I curl around it like a cat curls by the fire, finding comfort in what never changes or goes away. It will always be here for me, and I for it.


As I looked to the empty horizon, I found my gaze shifting, changing away from the distances they were so used to focusing on. A world up close to me became clear, the fuzzy blobs of colors forming into trees, animals, and one other deer. I had been asleep in the dark world for so long that I had forgotten the contact of others. My approach was awkward, legs fumbling and hooves clicking as they overreached. My mask that always felt to firmly placed on felt as if it were slipping. The blurry background spun around me, making my path like that of an erratic bee. Then, like a drop upon water, my world was interrupted and all fell clear. I bowed, head tilted in a wonder for this deer. Dare it accept that which still smells like the stench of darkness?


A heart pounded to my throat when it was returned, and I felt as if I were a deer again. For the first time in a long while I leapt, danced, and sniffed. There was just two of us, no pressures of others to tell me what to do, no pressures of others to take my attention away, no pressures of others to take the others attention away. Perhaps it was a selfishness to not want to be forgotten, but it was a fear held close to my throbbing heart. It was a heart that was to stop in a few moments.


Like a cruel blow, the darkness cried out for this playmate, body fading away and leaving nothing but dust where the last step was taken. I looked at it as if a hawk watched its prey, not wanting to take it out of sight. Realizations came back to my mind, and I looked back to the idol. It was no wonder that I found no reason to reach out. All things faded away, and nothing ever returned to the way it was. I slowly made my way back to the stone being, bone rubbing against stone. It was a sound that soothed me for it was that of the earth from which we were made. Bone never went away, and neither did stone. Here we would stay, both made to last.