I love you, Deer

(Intro: I love you deer. For what it's worth, let me give you a small intro. This story was written on Sunday, 14 Feb 2016. This date matters for the story. This was my submission to TataLitLive MyStory contest 2016 and went totally un-noticed. So instead of letting it rot on my personal blog, I'm posting it for my 15 followers on storymirror.)

There was an old deer in the jungle who was always afraid of being the last one in his herd when the leopards came. He was counting the last days of his wholly lonely life. Now, at the face of death, his heart was sinking. "I can do nothing. I'll wait for whatever happens." he thought. One day, they saw a hunter approaching and the herd ran in frenzy. The hunter was however, a wildlife researcher, a young woman in twenties. She had to capture a deer for some experiments. She captured the old deer and took him to her lab. For the first few days, the deer used to get terrified when the researcher, with her PhD students, came to his cage. Over time, he got used to her and became friendly. Then he started loving her. Like seriously. One day, the experiments got over and the deer was taken back to the jungle. As they opened the gates of his cage, the group expected him to run away. Instead the poor old deer dared for first time in his preyed upon cowardly life, went to the woman researcher and asked, "What are you doing this Sunday? It's Valentine's day."

She at once got surprised and excited and bewildered, as well as, she was facing some emotions she just discovered, that were probably new to the human psyche. "What should I do now? Should I say yes to him? Am afraid what kind of a deer he'd turn out to be later on." At the same time she was excited, her childhood dreams finally had a chance to become real. She said though, at the moment, "I'd have to think about it." The deer said, "Its fine gr… Can you at least share contact? I'll Whatsapp you and you can tell me what you think." With confusion in her mind and greed in her heart, she gave her number to him.

The next day, the deer with his 2 passport sized photos, went to the market to get a phone number. He'd never felt the need of one. He didn't know how hard it would be, to convince the shopkeeper to give him a sim without ID. "Terrorism is on the rise. Crime Patrol catches us first when something happens." The shopkeepers did not hear his pleads that he's not a human. "These terrorists are equally inhumane. Besides you don't have a fingerprint." he said. It was only when he said that he needed to chat with his first ever girlfriend that a shopkeeper finally agreed, without knowing that he had committed an even graver crime as per the Constitutional Act 377.

With the Sim in his backpack and confidence in his eyes, the deer traversed through the overcrowded local train to buy a new phone, only to find a post-apocalyptic situation at a market that had crashed. "These online markets have ruined our whole income." a shopkeeper sobbed. "But what about the economic reforms after the GST?" the deer asked curiously. However, the shopkeeper had already lost all hopes and in depression, people ponder more and listen less. Depression is the self-harming repetitive state of psychology which is hard to perturb without physical slaps. The deer really wished that day, he had hands.

So, he registered on flipkart, added the latest Moto G to cart and proceeded to checkout. Little did he know of what fate awaited him on the next webpage- 10% off on CTbank CreditCards.

"No!!! Just come back to me. My answer is yes" said the researcher on the payphone when the deer called her to ask if he could use her name as witness for the bank A/c. With all the happiness he could gain in a day, our deer was now old, weak, brainless, sexagenarian but he was loved by someone. Very few people have such a moment in their lives. I myself, as a writer, haven't seen much love in life. At 28, my wife ran away with my driver and my entire savings' worth jewelry and divorced me later to claim half of my family property. Since childhood, I wanted to be a cricketer. I knew, I would never play well. But my father should have asked before forcing me into the family business of govt service. But let's reserve these matters for another day.

Back to the story. The deer is excited. He is already making love to his girlfriend in his mind. The researcher however, brainwashed by anti/social elements, is in a different mental reality. Ready with slaughtering equipment and shooting cameras, she's waiting at a public place that is covered by NatGeo from all angles to shoot what the world has never seen before. Promos have been released, satellite rights have been sold, people have setup reminders on their phones for the program titled, "Girl Kills Lover Talking Deer to save him from afflictions of offending the Act 377, which bans unnatural sex."

"Oh dear, I love you! Gr…" says the deer.

"But what about the constitution of the biggest democracy of the world?"

"C'mon. Gr… Nobody follows the constitution!"

"We'd have to! They won't let us live in peace. You were better in the forest and wish you never entered this complex mess that never lets someone live the way they want." says the anguished girl.

"Who're they?" asks the deer confused.

Immediately they appear. With cameras rolling, they're shooting the deer while the whole nation watches. For her true love, and to save her deer from the broken judicial system with court cases that never end and leave someone's life worse than death, she shoots the deer as well. Not with a camera that only kills, but with a gun that would kill him and save him at the same time. With tears in its eyes, the deer dies. The police reaches the scene at the exact moment when it can no longer affect fate.

So goes the eternal love story of the dead deer.

Update: It could very well be that some (or all) of my 15 followers and some (or all) of the comments below are fake. However, if you're a genuine person and genuinely liked my story, rate it like you'd rate your Uber driver or delivery guy, follow me like you follow your hottest instagrammer, and share it like you'd share your favourite content on YouTube.