Winter Sparrow by Estevan Vega

petty things. Death, after all, was a part of the mystery of life. What reason was there to shun it? But here, now, things were not as they used to be. Things were not certain. Things were not in order.
A whisper lifted into the night just then. A mixture of this creature’s pain and his. How similar and numbing both were. But on his next blink, Joshua came to realize there was no sound coming from the deer. It’s your own heart crying.
He knelt on the ground and stroked the mammal’s tan, stiff coat. Crimson syrup matted the torn flesh. The deer’s belly had been sliced through and shredded. Joshua noticed an underdeveloped youngling lodged in the wall of a pink stomach. He peeled back some of the meat and exposed the frail, unborn thing. It was lifeless too.
Joshua pulled the unborn deer out of its mother and cut the umbilical thread with the utility knife from his back pocket.
“Speak to me,” Joshua begged of the frail lives before him, his hands stained with their blood. He knew the request was mad, but still he hoped for an answer. Neither creature stirred. Their eyes held gray frost. “Sing the way you used to. I still believe in it.”
In what, Joshua? In what?
“Love,” he cried aloud, hoping the night could hear him. Hoping the blood that had cursed this mother and her infant to die could hear it, could feel the ever brittle vibrations in his throat. Praying to the sky for new warmth.
“It’s almost finished. I almost finished our home. Can you hear me? Just a little while longer. Just a little while longer.”
If anyone could see, they’d think him insane to be talking to a dead animal like it was his wife. Like it was Mary ripped open by some truck that didn’t even bother to push her remains off to the side of the road. He both pitied and loved the creature. One of her eyes was shut, the other eye pulled back and reflecting Joshua’s anguish.
Such a cruel fate. He smelled the caved-in chest. His tears weakened the vile stench. He dropped the unborn baby. Fatigued, he thrust his callused hands beneath the mother and lifted her into his arms. His tongue wet thin, dry lips, and he sobbed with every step.
Joshua carried the deer toward the side of the road. It didn’t matter that his cheek absorbed some of the black mess that had ruptured from her belly or that the mud caked along his wrists, mixing with the stain that was already there. The deer needed his love. Joshua’s teeth tore at his bottom lip, waiting for the calm to come and steal away this disharmony.
But calm did not come.
Joshua found a fitting place to put her. The animal would sleep more softly now, away from the chaos of the storm. Dark dreams would seek her flesh out, surely. Perhaps the deer had run out too quickly without thinking of what it might mean. Perhaps she wasn’t ready for what lay at the center of this foggy, paved stream of tar and dirt, its innocence left in the company of wild, whispering trees.
The pain multiplied, and Joshua’s knees began to buckle. The harsh terrain cut into the denim cloaking his skin. Mist in the air caught his chin stubbles. A short beat lulled past him, and Joshua took steps toward the guardrail that had been torn through. But Mary’s Pathfinder was not among the damage. It should be here.
Unless it wasn’t her who had crashed. Unless he had imagined the frightful scenario and it was all awaiting his mind’s inspection.
No, I felt it. I felt her fall.
He knew it so blindly that it was the only truth that existed. He saw Mary spiral out of control in his mind’s eye, clearer than a dream. He saw her let go. He saw her crash at the bottom. The how didn’t matter. The why wasn’t important. All that remained was the unyielding reality that his wife…
“Don’t,” he told himself. “Don’t let that horrible thought inside.”
Joshua stood at the edge of the cliff. A piece of the road came loose, tried to drag him down with it, but he wouldn’t be pulled. He remained a statue, staring