Southern Ontario Gothic Anthology No. 1

It must’ve been three am when my car finally gave out in one last defiant engine sputter, black-shit tar against swiftly grey-turning snow, falling and being defiled with near equal speed.

“God damn you! God damn you… no.”

I was too tired to muster up any more defiance of my own. It had been, what, five hours? on the road? Snow started falling after two, just my bum luck. I had passed, it seemed, an infinite number of small mid-Ontario nothing towns, the kind you don’t say you’re from during icebreakers at University. No, you’re not from St. Mary’s, you’re from London, you say. Not from Galt but from Waterloo. I’ve met a lot of folks who’s dirty secret was their middle class upbringing in a nothing town, parents commuting to one of the aforementioned something towns and bringing money back home to replace the laminate countertop in the kitchen with a stone one. Myself included, I suppose.

In fact, I was on the way back from my nothing-town, visiting my parents and little brother (an eighteen years younger than me accident who nonetheless is pretty cute). I sighed and pulled up CAA on my phone— three percent battery. Fuck. The cold always drains my battery, should’ve bought a new phone this year instead of an xbox with my bonus but the call of Assassin’s Creed shadows, and my roommate bothering me to get a system so we could play Assassin’s Creed shadows, proved too much to turn from. I dialled quick, but not quick enough.

“CAA, how can we-”

Silence. Horrible, snow amplified silence. I had pulled over as the engine gave out, but now I found myself totally and for the time being permanently stuck. I should’ve been scared. I’ve never quite been scared enough for my own good, I mused. When I was in high school I used to tempt god. I used to play with Ouija boards and step in fairy circles and call on Bloody Mary and basically just see who in the universe I could possibly piss off enough to show me who’s boss.

No one ever did.

My friends used to think I was being an asshole skeptic, waiting for some kind of Reddit atheist, Scullyian gotcha moment where I proved it was all the science of magnets or a trick of the light, something like that. But I’ve always been a true believer. I just never cared quite enough about what happens to me to be careful.

I turned my mind back to my quickly cooling car and fumbled for the glove compartment. I remembered in my late night haze the space blanket and granola bar laden emergency kit my mom got me for Christmas the year I got my own car. Practical to a fault, my mother. I pulled out the blanket and resigned myself to sleeping on the side of the road before morning.

When I opened my eyes I saw it. A deer, black as night, inky antlers brushing against the felted car ceiling, sitting in the passenger seat next to me.

I laughed, I don’t know why. It spoke to me without moving its deer face, without turning towards me.

“I heard you were looking for someone.”

I stopped laughing.

“Who told you that?” Miraculously, my voice didn’t waver. I felt far, far away from my body and the deer, from my car and nothing towns and space blankets. I was underwater, looking up from the sea floor at myself and the deer.

“You did. And never doubt the universe keeps score.”

“Oh yeah. I was just thinking about that.”

If the deer could’ve snorted it would’ve incredulously. I looked at it, looked at death’s profile in my old busted car and felt an overwhelming sense of judgement from it.

“What is it?”

“Where are your tears?”

“Never been one for crying.”

The deer made a high pitched shrieking noise. It was so odd that was the closest I got to freaking out, the closest I got to breaking through the water’s surface and realizing I was about to die. But no. I stayed on the cold sea floor and it dawned on me. The deer was laughing at me.

“Well, are you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

The deer finally turned to me. It was grotesque but I forgot to be scared. I just looked at it dumbly, its glassy taxidermy looking eyes meeting my red rimmed, exhausted and dry ones.

“To find out.”

I considered this. Fuck around, find out. The only true law of the universe. I shrugged.

“Sure, I guess.”

I meant to be scared, I swear. I’ve just never really cared enough about what happens to me.