Shit happens fast

"Uh-oh."

She was talking about the deer, not the bike.

I was monitoring the motorcycle in the mirror as he prepared to pass. Didn't see the deer coming out of the underbrush and onto the road. Just like she didn't see the bike. Until a fraction of a second before they met. Bike and deer. Spectacularly. About 30 feet past us, right about on the the centre line.

A quick explosion and then disaster or not cause I had no time or room to avoid anything.

No disaster, except for the deer. Somehow the guy kept his bike going down the road. Momentum, mostly. I'd been poking along at 100 km/h, enjoying the morning sun over Arrow Lake, between Burton and Nakusp. He went most of the way by like I wasn't moving at all. The deer slowed him down.

It was all about legs for both of them. The deer lost one at the main joint. Spinning through the space between me and the impact like a lost baton. The biker kept shaking his left one out. He'd taken a whack, but it looked more like shaking his head. It looked like what the fuck.

That was through the windshield, and the deer in the mirror now. Talk about what the fuck.

One dead deer that doesn't know it yet or anything else anymore. Getting off the road for the last time ever and for the very first time on three legs.

We follow the biker, though, cause he's one of us and cause I'm secretly relieved I don't have to hit the ditch with the camping hatchet and try to put a quick stop to this.

We pull over a few kilometres up the road and talk while he pisses about distractedly with his bike, which looks completely undamaged. He asks if we know if there's cell service that way. Gestures toward Nakusp. The way he was headed. Nope. Guess I'm going that way then. Gestures back.

Rembember pay phones?

We forget to tell him there's no cell service that way either till you're fucking near in Lumby. One ferry, one mountain range and a little over a hundred kilometres away.

Well thanks for stopping. Cause there's really not much more to chat about.

Back on the road.

Could have gone back, I guess. Still wonder how long it took the deer to die.