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There are antlers growing out of my head. At first I wasn’t sure. Hardened dreadlocks, maybe. Or some kind of cancerous growth.
I keep dinging the doorway, poking holes in my pillow. I’m damaging relationships. They say I need to see a doctor. Call a plastic surgeon.
Each day, the antlers just get longer. I ask Siri why this is happening. She says it’s a showcase of sexuality. And a weapon to fight for women. I tell her that I’m comfortable with my sexuality. With my relationship with my wife. She says sometimes things come out in weird ways.
I ask Siri when this will stop. They’ll fall off in the winter, she says. To make room for new growth. I feel myself getting colder on the inside.
I can no longer drive. Or ride the bus. People step off the sidewalk, to make way. I don’t fit in the shower. I wash myself on the lawn with the green garden hose. I see the neighbors, fingers pulling apart their blinds.
Winter’s here and I’m done growing. I can feel it. Produced a ten point rack, with an eighteen-inch spread.
My wife says I should write a blog about my antlers. If people like it, I can write a book. Diapers are spendy, she says. The baby is on her breast. We could start a college fund, she says.
If you rewind the evolutionary clock a few hours, deer had tusks. Before that, dinosaurs had spikes, horns, plates, and clubs. Scientists aren’t sure what evolutionary pressures selected for these traits. Or how exactly elaborate headgear, for example, functioned in the distant past.
My doctor says we all deal with stress differently. He referred me to a surgeon. When I said no, the doc handed me the card for a minister. To make peace, he whispered.
My wife left a note on the table. Said things were getting out of control. Said she took the baby, went to her parents for a while. Told me to text her when the antlers fell off. At the bottom of the note, there was a P.S.
Her penmanship got more clear, deliberate. Start a blog, and we’ll follow you, she wrote. Call it ‘ALTERNATIVE DAD.’ Written in all caps, just like that.
So now, I’m looking at blog sites. If you’re good with this kind of thing, let me know. I could use the help. Since she left, the antler growth has accelerated rapidly. They now fill the living room. The walls are scratched. So scratched it’s kind of beautiful.
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The only way out is through the wide picture window behind the couch. I don’t need a hammer. I antler-slam the glass.
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The only way out is through the wide picture window behind the couch. I don’t need a hammer. I antler-slam the glass. Pull from side to side.
The shattering activates our security system. The corners of the room cawww like crows. In minutes, there are sirens. Then, police on the lawn. Guns drawn. Neighbors in their bathrobes. Phones filming.
The fresh air smells like old pine. I leap through the window, land on all fours. I can feel years of hot worry hurdling up my neck, into my throat, to my eyes. The cops with their guns don’t help. I lower my antlers and charge. One bullet becomes a stream. Like the spray attachment for the hose.
In my last moments, I think about the baby. The usual softness of a newborn. This slides into: I’ve done the wrong thing, I think. There will be no blog. No college fund.
I remember the moment she came out. Slimed with amniotic fluid. The three of us, so close. The doctor said it was weird. Unlike other babies, ours had two soft spots on her head. Instead of just one. One on the left, one on the right.
The bullets stop, peeter out. Like the last fireworks on the fourth. I’m fingers in the grass, on all fours, heaving. Like the cat cow position in yoga.
The cops have disappeared. As has my coveted crown. I can feel it’s gone. So much less weight.
Behind me, there’s the dewy morning grass, my wife’s flower garden, and the mulch that separates the two.
The mulch catches my eye. All those slivers, shards. But this morning the mulch chips don’t look like wood. More like bone. Blasted into a thousand bits of suburban yard beautification.
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